Part 2.
The preteen years are hard for him. Taylor slowly starts to be meshed in with the “popular crowd” while Ed gets picked on for being a “short ginger”. Taylor continues to grow taller than him, quite a bit at this point, but she’s still fighting off the chubby face of adolescent years; a feature that makes her insecure, but little does she know. Those wild curls are just as frizzy as ever and Ed still adores her. Not much changes for Ed, except that he’s found glasses that fit his face now. He always feels like an outside, but he always has Taylor.
It’s a time where they start making new friends, slowly starting to find their niche. They don’t play in backyards anymore. Instead they start learning to play guitar, and for once Ed picks up on something quicker than Taylor does. However she never lets him forget that she can play piano. Taylor vents to him about the “mean girls” and soon she starts writing non-stop in a little notebook she gets for Christmas in sixth grade. Ed picks up on it and even starts writing as well, but instead of writing about mean girls, he’s got one girl in particular on his mind.
It’s in these years that his feelings confused him. After years of being close with Taylor, things start to change, at least internally for him. His palms sweat when she stands close to him and his stomach twists, like he’s riding a roller coaster, whenever she hugs him. In seventh grade he realizes he has a crush on her, and one night, sitting on her front porch, he kisses her.
“I just really like Kyle, but Mary told me that he likes Sarah because she’s prettier.” She sighs frustrated with her chin resting in her hand and her bottom lip pouting. “It’s probably because she has straight hair, all the popular girls have straight hair, not this” Exasperated she gives one of her spirals a tug, pulling it straight and watches it spring back to its original shape the second she lets go.
Ed is befuddled. There was a guy at school who didn’t want to be her boyfriend? The concept was inconceivable in his mind. Sure Sarah was pretty, but Taylor was smart and funny and nice. He can’t let Taylor think she isn’t just as good as Sarah, better in his mind. Fighting the nerves in his gut he leans in quick catching her off guard. He presses his lips to hers for just half of a second but he’ll remember it for a life time.
“You’re the prettiest girl in the whole school” He tells her over the chirping of crickets.
He can’t meet her gaze, suddenly overwhelmingly embarrassed because he’s just kissed a girl, his best friend at that, but it feels right. From the corner of his eye he can see Taylor blushing down at the wooden steps with the biggest smile he’s ever seen her wear. They don’t say anything else, just shuffle their feet awkwardly on the wood planks until headlights shining at the front door tells him his parents are finally here to pick him up. Just before he gets up Taylor taps his foot with hers and he thinks maybe, just maybe…
A week later she gushes animatedly about Kyle asking her to be his girlfriend by passing her a note in art class. All her friends gasp and shout excitedly. Meanwhile the sickening feeling in Ed’s tummy tells him that getting your heart broken feels a lot like having the stomach flu. At least then he wouldn’t have to go to school.
