Three
Then I started liking this guy. Lots of people have been sceptical of this statement of mine, because according to popular belief I change crushes like I change clothes. But I've only had four serious attractions in all my life, and this guy was one of them. (The best friend referred to at the beginning of this chronicle was not. He's a twat, and I say this with all possible affection due.)
I won't bore you with the details, because it didn't work out. The guy was a senior and went in the same bus, both morning and afternoon, as me. There was a time when the sight of him in the school sweater used to make my breath catch in my throat. Anyways, so around beginning to mid-January, I started taking notice of this senior. He seemed nice enough, funny in an unintentional way, smart too. An added benefit was that I got to spend two hours with him every day while commuting, because our school is really far away from the city proper.
I think I might have a fetish for people who travel by the same school bus as me. But that's probably understandable; so much has happened to me in that bus, in that three seater. I've loved, been loved, hated, been hated, lost faith in people, and curled up into the arms of the one who loved me. And what took me quite a while to realise was that he'd been there throughout.
I tend to throw myself into things with too much enthusiasm, be it a song, or a crush, or a joke, or an essay. Things get embarrassing sometimes. I overdo things. Sometimes things get humiliating. But for some goddamned stupid reason, I can't learn from my mistakes. I keep getting as passionately involved in everything as before.
Case in example at this point of the chronicle being the way I went gaga over the senior, when my last crush (the best friend) had been such a crash-and-burn experience. Long story short, it felt like the clichéd teen romance: there were furtive glances stolen out of the corner of the eye, lots of blushing, and a friend as a go-between and confidante to both parties.
Finally my friend spilled the beans to him as we all got down from the bus and walked towards school. When I figured out why she was talking to him so seriously, I sped up and power-walked until I entered the school building. As I moved rapidly towards the school, I heard voices – both his and hers – shouting to me to wait, but I just kinda shook my head and kept walking (all right, I flipped them the middle finger too). And then I broke into a sprint and didn't stop until I was concealed behind a pillar on the morning assembly grounds.
Then . . . then . . . I heard running footsteps behind me. No, it wasn't him, before you get too excited. What do you think my life is, a freaking movie? It was the go-between friend. And she had sprinted faster than I had, to catch up with me and tell me what he said.
Before I could go 'la-la-la don't wanna hear you', she gasped out with a wide grin: "He- he said he-" asthmatic sounding cough- "He likes you back!"
And that was that. It took three days of wheedling to get him to say it to my face, and another five days till we were together. But together we were, and together we remained for the next month and two days – my highest score at relationship, so to speak, at that time. I still haven't been able to break it, if you take the high score to be for a continuous, uninterrupted relationship. Update: it's broken now, and being broken further with each sunrise.
That relationship was in February, and my birthday fell on the 9th, during it. The senior gave me chocolates. It might have been, honestly, the calmest, sweetest, most normal relationship I've ever had. My friend once described it as, what, skinny love? I have no idea what that is, but apparently it's when two shy people like each other but can't express it, or something like that.
