Daydream Dating

Chapter 2 - Sidewalks

Song of the chapter - Who Says by Joshua Micah

The pavement stretched out in front of me as the soles of my shoes made a rhythmic tapping on the concrete. Walking was soothing. Especially when done alone and with few exterior sounds to interrupt the rhythm. Not many other students walked home in the same direction I did, so the solitude was incredibly pleasant.

I would probably be classified as an introvert. That didn't mean I was shy, Obviously I wasn't, due to the fact that I had no problem speaking up in class and talking to my neighbors, regardless of the rejection or lack of interest outside of class.

Don't get me wrong, some introverts are shy. I'm just not one of them. Really what it means is that I like my alone time. A LOT. I crave it. I NEED it. Some people don't get that at all. But after a day at school where I'm surrounded by other teenagers and drama and teachers with their lessons and talking constantly and putting myself out there... You get the idea. It drained me. But the quiet walk home, with only my thoughts to keep me company, yeah that was like medicine to me. By the time I got home I usually felt much more energized.

Sometimes I wished I lived further from the school.

But that December, my walks took on a whole new meaning. They became like an alternate universe of my actual life. In some ways a better one. My life was okay, sometimes great and sometimes not. I wasn't depressed or anxious or anything, not even about being all forgotten by 99% of the student body. It was just kind of fun to pretend that things were different.

It didn't exactly start out that way. The pretending I mean. It actually started out more as a "would you rather..." game I played with myself.

So back in December, when I decided to stop daydreaming about all these unattainable guys at school, I played this game. I was trying to get my mind off of Luke so I thought "would you rather like a guy with light brown hair or blond hair?" Since Luke had the light brown, I went with blond. Yeah, I know that Bryan was blond, but I was really over him so it didn't seem to matter that much.

Then I thought about eyes, "would you rather like a guy with hazel eyes or green eyes?" And again, because Luke was the hazel eyed boy, I went with green. I had never had a crush on a green eyed boy. I didn't think I even knew a green eyed boy. But like I said, I didn't want to daydream about boys at school.

Little by little, I had built up a boy to keep in my mind. One that was adorable, played sports, but was not liked by the entire female population of my school and DID have an idea who I was. Who would fit that description? Well, no one I knew, that's for sure.

So this boy I had built up to keep in mind was just that, in my mind. He wasn't real and had no possibility to forget me or ignore me. A totally safe crush for me to have, in my opinion. And I realized that I had now crossed over into the weird category. Not just a little weird anymore, but sort of full-blown weird.

What can I say. Desperation causes you to do weird things.

Hey, at least I didn't believe he was real, or something crazy like that. I didn't walk with my hand outstretched as if he was holding it. I didn't have "conversations" with him. I was normal in every other moment of my life. Those walks were my only weird outlets. Just saying...

So this boy I invented was something like this: Blond hair cropped short on the sides but longer on top which he tussled with gel so it sort of stood up in all these crazy directions, green eyes the color of an oak leaf in the summertime, light complexion with a slight tan and a few freckles, muscular but not built up like he was on roids, obviously nice biceps, taller than me by at least 5 inches which wasn't too hard being that I was only five foot three, no tattoos or piercings. Don't get all offended if you like that kind of thing. It's just a preference, not a judgment.