Forests and Forts

The Crush

By now I knew a reasonable amount about this girl. I'd spent a lot of time in lessons speaking to her and we saw each other as friends.  her name was Sophie. She had stopped being as quiet as before and now laughed along with everyone on the fateful table. When we walked to shared lessons we'd talk and laugh and make the beginnings of drawn out inside jokes. In lessons we'd discuss work when we wanted to and ignore it all when we didn't. While my other friends were busy making fools of themselves I had a true friend with me that was more like me than they ever knew.

And at the time she was simply that, a friend, mon amis, mi amigo. And at times I miss things back then.

Then, the way things were suddenly changed. My other friends had a custom at this point. To say the names of girls in the year until they landed on your "crush."

For a while I'd been immune to this as I'm not exactly the most interesting guy in terms of crushes, at least in their opinions. But they asked me eventually. I didn't really know if I had a crush at that point. But I thought about it and realised this girl I'd spent so much time with, I cared about her more than other people. She was so funny and smart and when she laughed I felt more happy than ever. And her eyes lit up like diamonds when she spoke. I'm getting sappy here so I'll cut to the chase. Basically, they went through endless lists of girls and I mean on and on and on for so many minutes in a row that it was just pure pain. But of course eventually they said her name and, not being one to lie, reluctantly said yes in fact that was the only girl I'd consider to be a crush.

What happened next at the time seems like the end of the world, but when I look back I'm actually glad this happened. My friends dashed off in the direction of her tutor. It took me less than a second to realise what they were doing. I ran after them but then I dreaded approaching her tutor and humiliating myself. All I could do was watch from a distance as they ran up to her mid conversation and asked a simple question with grins spreading across their faces. Her response was a mixture of disgust and surprise. And at once I felt broken. But that simple question began a long journey and now I couldn't turn back.