The Invisible Girl

Obsessed with you

       After that day, he was never outside of my middle school life. I always looked for him and felt attached to him. My eyes always sought him out. He became my main reason for going to school every day. I would arrive at school early in the hope of getting a chance to talk to him.

     Instead, it was all reversed. He didn't even give me any attention. Every morning, he played with his friends on the playground. I would run up to him, but instead of playing with him, I held his bags and sometimes his friends' bags too. At the time, I didn't realize it, but one thing was for sure: he saw me, he saw my existence. I cared less about being his bag holder.

      Whenever he was around, I was always there, following him. I remember giving him letters every day after school. Even though I didn't get any replies, I was always brave enough to give them to him. He always smiled and accepted them; he never refused. But that didn't mean he reciprocated my feelings.

     Nothing ever changed. With these one-sided feelings, he always acted like nothing ever happened. He was so popular that it was nothing new for him. The difference was that I never gave up.

     He came from a rich family. I remember his father coming to school every day at lunch to take him to the cafeteria, so even the teachers knew him. Sometimes, his mother would pick him up. I still remember how gorgeous she looked. He took after her; he's Arabic mixed and looked nothing like his father.

      He was famous with the teachers and the girls at school. The girls always hit on him, giving him all the attention and care. He really looked like a popular boy straight out of a K-drama. Receiving one or two letters was never new to him.

     It seemed like he was really aware of that. As the days went by, he became a player. He always played with other girls' feelings. He never truly committed to any of them; he just enjoyed playing with them until he got tired and switched to another one. It was just a matter of time with him; everyone had an expiration date.

     But I was so blinded that even though seeing him with other girls made me annoyed and sad, my case was different. I was the only one with no expiration date because I wasn't even on the list.

      I still remember the day when a new girl came to our school. She was pretty, smart, and confident—perfect in all ways. But unlike the others, she wasn't interested in him at all. She was the only girl who never laid her eyes on him.

    He didn't waste any time, just as he always did. He started hitting on her and following her around. He became the chaser instead of being chased. He even came to her neighborhood on weekends just to see her, though she never met him. I had never seen him that desperate for a girl before.

   At first, he pestered me to tell him everything I knew about her since we were somewhat close. She had a leader spirit and always ordered us around. I remember, around lunchtime, he saw her yelling at me. Since he always tried to find a reason to talk to her, to be around her, to be noticed by her, he protected me in front of her. He took my side. For a moment, I was happy and disappointed at the same time. Even though he said all those things, he did it to act cool and find a reason to talk to her. He somewhat reminded me of myself. I asked myself if that was what I looked like—so desperate to be someone's center of attention.

   But things couldn't work out as he wanted. No matter how hard he tried, he just couldn't change anything. She just took what she could from him. He used to give her a lot of candies and chocolates. The surprising thing was that I was the one delivering them.

  The school years passed like that, and she eventually transferred to another school.

   Now, when I think back on all this, I wonder how I could have been so obsessed with someone like that at such a young age. I didn't even know what I wanted from him.

   Thanks to his nonstop rejection and everyone's hate, I became a strong person. I focused more on my grades and worked hard, and as I wanted, my grades improved a lot.

   But this change wasn't just in me; he also started to change. He became smaller, his grades began to fall, and he lost interest in his surroundings, which was so unlike him. It felt like his spirit was dead. He became silent.

  I was never happy seeing that side of him. He was never cheerful, not a player, or that happy kid I knew before. As we grew up, he became a completely different person.