Adventures Of A Female Loner

The Coward & The Unicorn pt. 2

I grew up watching 90s' romance movies where the guy always initiates the relationship with the girl and they fall madly in love with each other in a short time span of a few days. I used to think that romantic grand gestures like the ones in those movies only happened in movies and not in real life. That all changed when I met my crush in high school.

I met Daniel on my second day. It was during a lunch break, and Dee and I had found a different group of grade 8s to hang out with. Whilst I was getting to know this group and was finally feeling like I was assimilating, I saw this lanky Jewish guy with a bush of brown curly hair walk towards us dipping slightly to the side with every other step as if he were a rapper. He stopped in front of me and reached out his hand and with a mouth full of braces said "Hi Joy, my name is Daniel".

Everyone from my new group stopped talking and stared. I shook his hand, and asked him how he knew my name. One of his friends who was hanging out with my "buddy" whom I was following yesterday told him about me (To this day, I still don't know what his friend saw in me enough to prompt Daniel to introduce himself). And he began to tell me a little bit about himself, that he was a year older, and asked if I was interested in hanging out and being friends. I thought he was really weird, but I said yes. I mean, here was this guy I had only just met, full with confidence ignoring everyone else around me just to ask if we could be friends, how could I say no? And he swaggered his way out of my group and went back to his. There was a good second or two before my group started talking again, and they were complaining about how rude this random guy was, but all I could think about was how brave he was to do that and what the heck had I just gotten myself into?

Later in the day while I was waiting with my class for our life orientation teacher to open up her classroom, Daniel found me again in the quad, and hastily asked me if I enjoyed reading books and whether I liked maths? I was definitely starting to confirm my suspicions that he was bonkers, but I told him yes to both questions, and he ran off with his friends to his next class.

The next day he gave me this huge thick book. And I took it with the intention to read, but I only ever got past the first page. And everyday after that he would wave hello and try to chat with me. During our junior high (grade 7s to 9s) swimming gala event, I didn't participate and was sitting on the benches alone, Daniel came up to me with one of his buddies and told me he was gay (At the time, I thought he was serious, but Dee and Em later confirmed that he actually liked me and he was just trying to get my attention and make me feel less lonely). He was crazy! I remember the first time he asked me out to the movies. I had just finished my extracurricular activity, chess, afterschool and was waiting for one of my parents to come pick me up by the entrance steps to the atrium, and Daniel was coming out of the school bus with his tennis gear. He must have played at a match at another school. He saw me at the top of the stairs, smiled, climbed up and gave me a hug. He was sweating (😂). I don't know why, but when I think back to this memory he was especially happy and his smile was bigger than usual. I really got a flash of his braces. He asked me out to the movies and I again said "yes, let's do that sometime." And for the first time I realised he was slightly shorter than me, and that he had really pretty eyes with long brown eyelashes.

*****

A few months later, I found myself looking out for him when he would say hello and stuff, but I also found that my friends didn't particularly like him very much. I was conflicted. I wanted to be around him more, but I also wanted to keep my friends so I acted as if his attention towards me was a hindrance and actively started to avoid him. He saw me less and less and greeted me less and less until one day, he asked if I ever finished that book, and for the first time, I felt really guilty and bad, and told him "No". He asked me for his book and I gave it back to him the next day. He completely stopped greeting me after that, and I slowly started to realise that I liked him, and that I had a crush on him because I began to really miss his waves, smiles, and spontaneity. I started to sneak secret glances at him whenever I got the chance, but before I knew it, the end of the year was coming, and that meant  I wouldn't be able to do much of that either as he was moving to senior high...