Hi, I'm Raima. My heart's been broken multiple times and it's been bandaged up many times as well. But it always keeps breaking, and I have to be the one who has to go to the local pharmacy to buy bandages to patch it up.
Yeah, you get the point. I've been rejected many times, and it may sound sad... but you know what sounds even more sad? What's really sad is that every rejection feels like someone had punched me in the gut. Not a soft punch, but something similar to a wrecking ball hitting a glass wall. Anyways, I've had four crushes so far (excluding the third one because I realized I had a crush on that guy on the day of fifth grade graduation), all of which had rejected me. Well... the fourth one hasn't rejected me yet, but I'm pretty sure he will because I've lost all my hope.
Yep. I sound like a depressing, deep kid who needs a therapist, but we all need to talk about the "deep" stuff sometimes. Right? Besides, I haven't even gotten to the actual story yet.
From the very beginning:
Before I even new how love was like... you guessed it... I fell in "love". It was in the first day of kindergarten (oh, I forgot to mention that I've never went to pre-k) when I started getting feelings for this kid named Christian. Despite the fact that I liked him, I knew for a fact that I would never be able to be with him. It was because of "religious" reasons, and that I am a muslim. And well, you know, he's Christian- it's in his name!
I know, I know. It sounds unfair. But rules are rules, and I have to follow them if I want to go to Heaven and yada yada.
But back to the story:
I liked Christian a lot. By a lot I meant I was obsessed with him to the point where I wanted to force a kiss on him. Yeah, it sounds crazy. But, I was in kindergarten. I was five years old at the time! Anyways, that didn't go well (as expected) and I was labeled the class outcast from the beginning. That's mainly the reason why kindergarten was my least favorite grade. I regret every action I took back then, especially those "kisses". The guy was scared of me until the second grade where I started to have feelings for another guy (Christian's in the same school as me now and we're cool).
My second crush's name was Matthew. He was a pretty chill and mannered guy, to say at least. Not to mention, how handsome he was! I know you might be laughing at me now but he truly was handsome. He had the cutest hazel eyes and dirty blonde hair. But, the reason how he swept me off my feet was how nice he was. We used to always sit next to each other (it was like the Universe wanted us to sit together) even when our last names were far apart in the alphabet. My last name started with a C and his was with a Z, so it kind of made me confused to why we always sat next to each other since we wanted to sit next to our friends. The seat placement stayed the same until the fifth grade.
I confessed my feelings for him in the fourth grade. Guess what? He didn't like me back. It was an incredibly awkward conversation, since we were great friends. It was as if the rejection had torn our friendship apart. We didn't hang out as much as we used after that unforgiving day.
I felt absolutely horrible.
To this day, I'm still trying to deny that conversation ever took place. I still remember how much I cried in the bathroom after I got "friend-zoned"-or not even that... I got avoided. I'm okay now, but I'll still feel awkward if I ever see Matthew again; I still miss him.
The last time I heard his voice was when the students from our fifth grade class had been saying goodbyes and hugging each other on the last day of school. I was about to hug him and say "goodbye" when one of his best friends (who was a girl, by the way) took it for me. They exchanged goodbyes when I was getting all flustered. When they were done, Matthew looked at me with a smile. I was so stupid to say what I had said:
I chuckled nervously, "ooohhh, that's so cute!"
They just glared at me after I said that, to which I had internally slapped my forehead.
Why, Raima?! Why?! You had to ruin the moment!
To break the silence Matthew replied with " Yeah, I'm not gonna miss you, Raima." I physically felt a large frown form on my face. Then he laughed and added, "Just kidding. I'm gonna miss you, Raima," that answer made my frown disappear, obviously. And I still remember that memory, it's just that memorable.
But Matthew's gone. I won't ever see him again, since we go to different schools now.
Then there was sixth grade, all that awkwardness increased this time. By "awkwardness increased", I mean that I was getting used to being more social. Oh, I also forgot to mention that I wasn't very social in elementary school. That made getting crushes harder for me. So, I was one hundred percent crush-free at that time. But, it was also the time where I met my fourth crush, before I even started having feelings for him.
His name is Kevin.
Note that I wrote "is" instead of "was" because I still have feelings for him. I first met him when this random girl came up to me and asked me if I was Raima in the first day of middle school. I obviously said "yes" and she started having this random conversation with me:
"Don't you remember me?"
"No."
"What? Not even a clue?"
"No, sorry. I don't even know who you are."
"I'm Leah Betances."
"I'm Raima Chowdhury."
"Well duh, I know."
"Ummm..."
"You were in the same school as me and Kevin, remember?"
"Who's Kevin?"
Leah sat next to me in the school auditorium explaining how I "knew her", which I didn't at the time. She kept bringing up Kevin and how I won the art contest for the fifth grade senior dance t-shirts and blah blah. I hung out with her for the first few days of school since I didn't make any friends yet, and we apparently were put into the same class. Once we received our lockers and combination locks, I got a locker next to the boy she was talking about.
Kevin.
I remember going to my locker for the first time in the morning when Leah introduced me to him.
She said "Raima, this is Kevin" while doing jazz hands.
I smiled and said "Hi, I'm Raima."
He smiled back and answered, "hi."
I didn't realize how shy he was back then. Kevin used to always bring the collar of his sweater up to his face whenever he talked to someone or when he brought the sleeves of his sweater up to the tips of his fingers. He still does, to this day. I also remembered the little chats we had while we were getting our books from our lockers right before a.m. homeroom.
Oh, the good old days.
Now, we barely even talk to each other. And we're in the seventh grade. In the same class, too.
There was a time in the beginning of the school year where he let me switch lockers with him when I was assigned a bottom locker (we had top and bottom lockers). There were also other times in the beginning of the year where we sat in the same table and we always played "sticks" in the end of the day. That all ended when our seats got changed.
There were other times where we bonded, sure.
Like the time when we got to choose partners to read through each other's short responses in English, Kevin asked me to be his partner. I agreed, since I wanted to get to know him better. The whole period ended up being a period where all we got to do was talk about each other's interests and disinterests. But we don't hang out with each other as often as we used to.
It was the halfway through the school year when I realized I liked him.
