her first crush is in second grade, on a boy at least half a foot shorter than she is, but she doesn't really care. she thinks he's the most adorable thing since dog plushies, and she lets him know how she feels as soon as she can, but ends up scaring him away.
the next time she comes remotely close to liking someone again is in fifth grade. he's the new kid on her swim team, a short, sorta chubby dirty-blonde kid, a year older than her, but cute, and childish. at first, they absolutely hate each other; they spit insults every which way, and make fun of each other, in the way 11 year olds do, and somehow, she ends up liking him more than she probably should.
it's the first time she's ever loved someone.
she keeps it bottled up for the next two years, messing around with him, being his shoulder to cry on, laughing at all his lame jokes, and then, the day comes when she finds it in herself to tell him how she feels.
before she can woman up, he asks her how to ask out the resident swim hottie, and she feels her heart shatter into a million pieces, but she loves him (even if she was just 13), so she tells him how, and he smiles at her. it crushes her, but if it made him happy, she'd do anything. anything.
he's not her best friend anymore, and they don't even talk.
it hurts, because she feels like she's the only one that remembers any of it.
he was her first love, but somehow, their feelings got lost in translation.
