More Than a Crush

I never really understood why he hated me ever since I blurted out that I liked him.

You see, Rylance Hansen was my best friend since kindergarten. We used to go to the playground together, always bothering our parents – since they knew each other just because of their kids’ persistence (oh, yeah, we were mind-controllers) – to let the two of us ride on the grocery carts at Wal-Mart, we played ball together, and though at riveting times we hit each other just because he wouldn’t want to give me my Ken back, saying that I loved that doll more than him, we still made up afterwards by bumping our fists way up the sky, which wasn’t so high because we were still so young back then.

So basically, we were twin-close and we did almost everything together (of course going to the bathroom didn’t count, duh). That was why I loved him. He was my best friend, he was there to protect me, and he proved that when some guy threw a book at me in seventh grade and the book flew back to its attacker, thanks to Hansen McThrow-Another-Book-At-Her-And-You’re-Dead. He was there when I was heartbroken because the only guy that I had ever crushed on – Matthew Evans – crushed my heart by saying us was never plausible because I just wasn’t “hot enough.” And apparently that wasn’t enough for Matthew, because he actually repeated what he told me in front of the whole batch. That was why Matthew ended up with something definitely larger than a book thrown directly at his head.

Every petty fight I got into, every little trouble that went for me, Rylance was there, to help. And somewhere along the way, I realized as the fifteen year old chick I was that I didn’t just love him as a best friend. I liked him as something more. Something that might even be stronger than a crush.

Since I trusted him, since I knew that he would always understand, that there would always be a part of him that would always understand me, I decided to tell him flat-out that I liked him. And so I did.

Now, that was where things got sticky. Seriously.

It was only a week before vacation, before we turned into incoming sophomores. I still remember how we were physically close to each other, walking comfortably along the hallway towards my locker, when I just blurted out that I liked him. He looked at me like I grew another head and frog hair all over my skin that moment, and since I was so surprised, I didn’t see his expression darkening as he left me alone in front of my locker.

I immediately looked at my schedule, since we had one and same, and decided that since the bell was going to ring any minute then anyways, I’d just confront him about what I just said on geography class. But when I got to the said class, Rylance was nowhere to be seen.

And that, my friend, was how I never got to see him again. Rylance Hansen, the known protectorate of the honest girl Rachel Falls, was rumoured to have quit from Jefferson High and just that. And just like that, even after several attempts of contacting him, a certain Rylance Hansen disappeared from my life.

Now I was a junior, and safe to say, I was over Rylance Hansen as a more-than-a-crush, but I never got over him as my best friend. For the past year I was completely and utterly incredulous. I didn’t understand why a simple “I like you” could change things so drastically and make my best friend since kindergarten leave without a single word of goodbye. But somewhere along the way, that wound in my heart healed, but my sadness over it was still sore. So, safe to say, I was still not over Rylance as a best friend.

But right now it was alright. In a month’s time, I was going to be one of those who’d rein this school, and I found myself genuine friends along the way. Especially Tammi Jenkins, when she boldly went to me that day and asked for help in our geography project (since my partner quit and Tammi’s transferred abroad, and since we were deemed the new partners). I discovered then how great of a person she was, and she the same (total modesty inserted here) and from that day on, needless to say, she helped heal that wound.