short crush / love stories

Mikaela plus Luke pt2

Getting ready for the game was very tedious. Looking in my wardrobe, I realized how much cute outfits I had that I didn't take advantage of to wear at school. I decided to wear a blue blouse, my favorite color was blue, and it was worn at every award ceremony or induction ceremony I had for many accomplishments. I also wore it during Kaela's funeral. She was my older sister who died a few years ago.

Primrose came upstairs to tell me we had to go. When she opened the door to my room, she was shocked.

"Mikaela..." she smiled. "You look so happy!!"

Was I really happy? Somewhat happy, of course, I was going out with somebody. I haven't done that in a while unfortunately. But a part of me was scared of going out of my comfort zone.
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Luke
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The first game was pretty stressful and intense like always. A good part of me was bummed that Mikaela didn't want to come.

I mean I think she's a pretty girl and a sweet girl, but her insecurities were an obvious turn off. I don't want to be mean or anything, because she was going through some sort of obvious depression. I was depressed before and knew what it was like. You just wanted to die and stop, because life didn't seem happy anymore.

I'd try to reach out to her recently in the summer, because I remembered the Mikaela sophomore and junior year: happy and optimistic. I had a crush on her, but I was going through depression after a terrible and unhealthy relationship that was hard to forget. When I started to notice at the end of junior year, her acting up I knew something was wrong.
She dated a popular guy named Kyle who was an absolute dickhead to her. I never liked her with him, but I couldn't do anything about it. He treated her like she was a fucking dog. It always pissed me off, especially leaking her nudes to the whole entire school. She was ruined because of that, she never trusted anyone ever again.

I was never close with her I could admit. But it seemed like she didn't need friends or me to have. It felt like then her life was set. But then when everything collapsed on her, she shut off. She pushed people away and I tried to reach out to her at the wrong time. It took me a while to realize her coping mechanism towards what she was going through.
I tied my laces. Rage instilled in my mind. Why the hell I was thinking about her? She kept pushing me away, even to be friends with her. She probably thought I was like any other guy that would hurt her. I felt boiled but for a second but I took a breath to calm down my irrational thoughts.

You don't know her. Forget about her. Eventually I put my worried ness aside. I knew I was concerned for her, I could see that she was emotionally breaking down, but what could I do to help her?
Jaxson Tambers, one of my best friends, brought me back to reality.

"You know Shannon right?"

"Yeah?"

Shannon was Jaxson's crush. She was from a different school, an all girls school in Palos. She hung out with our friends at Whitechaft.
Jaxson was over the heels into her, obsessed like always, but Jaxson didn't know that she was into me. Not him. Me.

But I didn't like her, she wasn't my type at all.
These days, I wasn't focused on girls, more on basketball. Except Mikaela, this year she seemed distressed and didn't deserve that.

"She's at the game," Jaxson says in an excited tone.

"I heard Jewels is going to be here too."

Jewels was a girl Jaxson should be going for, but he was fixated on Shannon for no reason. Jewels was Jaxson's best friend who was quiet and a book nerd. They both looked like a great couple but both denied they had feelings.

"She always comes to my games," Jaxson says.

"Maybe I should make my move," I smile, just to piss him off.

Jaxson gets angry. "She doesn't deserve somebody like you. She doesn't deserve me for that matter."

I roll my eyes. I put my warm up shirt on, and go into the gym. I see Mikaela and her sister Primrose. Mikaela looks beautiful and happy. I look at her and wave. She doesn't wave back.

Instead, Shannon is waving at me. Girl get the hint. I don't wave back. Jaxson goes up to me.

"Oh my god! She's waving at me."

I hit my head with my palm. Gosh he's stupid sometimes.

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We won the game. I had 29 points, and Jaxson had 14 points.

When I walked out, I quickly told Mikaela to stay. I would drive her sister and hopefully she would hangout with me. But instead she had a different idea.

"Can you play basketball with me?" She asked.

And I smiled. "Of course. You might get crushed but. I'll do it."

So that's where we were at now. A court. I took Primrose home, and drove to an open basketball court. It was late and she was laughing. I was having fun blocking her shots and being weird as I can be with her.

"You know you look so beautiful when you are smiling and happy."

Her eyes twisted. "Not like I'm happy a lot." She says back.

"I know and I want to help you. Maybe make friends and socialize you know. Or whatever you want to be happy. Maybe you don't want friends or—"

"Luke. I cant stand your friends. They bullied me for years."

"I—"

She looks away.

"Princess—please, they didn't mean it—"

"No," she says angrily, "Clearly they meant it. Everything. From ugly to undesirable."

It gets worse.

"Oh. Then you must be lying. You see. You can ask your friends. They would call me ugly. Stop lying to yourself."

"I'm so done with this. To think I could hangout with the Luke from Whitechaft was me delusional." She dropped the basketball and left the court.

"Wait—Princess—don't hurt yourself—"

"I don't care. Somebody can put me out of my misery."