Adventures Of A Female Loner

The Coward & The Unicorn pt. 6 (End)

I had never held a boy so close to me before. I mean sure, I have hugged a few guys, but hugs were different to dancing with one in between your arms. For one, the duration of hugs is much shorter than in a dance. I could feel his warmth radiating off his body, and was hyper-aware of the simplest movements of his hands on my waist. He was probably hyper-aware of my hand movements too. I'm not sure what he was taking in, but for me, it was his warmth, the rigidity of his muscles, the confident smile, and the softness of his eyes with his long eyelashes. Those were the things that caught my breath.

The song was over. I pulled my arms away from his shoulders, and the magic broke with it. I started to feel really self-conscious. The doubts and reality came back. His date saw us, and she was waiting for the song to end so that she could take him back. How must she have felt seeing Daniel slow dance with another girl? I would've pulled his attention away as quick as possible if I were her too. He let go of me, and left to talk to her. They exchanged a few short words. I couldn't make the conversation out as they were further away from me, but I could see that she didn't look happy. He briefly came back to me and said "Sorry, I have to go.We're leaving to go to the afterparty." He waited for me to answer. "Sure. Of course," I responded. "Go ahead. I'll see you soon." And it felt like time went into slow-motion. He turned his back to me, and ran back to his date. She wrapped her arm around his, and the crowd swallowed them. I was alone on the dancefloor.

The place started to clear out as the matrics went off in their limos to the afterparty. I sat with the committee, and they asked me a bunch of questions about Daniel. I didn't know how to answer them. I couldn't define my relationship with him. If there even was such a thing. The night was over. My Cinderella moment too. I hitched a ride home.

It was soon Monday. Everybody was back at school. I was hoping that Daniel would make things official and ask me out. If he did, I would have not only said 'yes', but also insisted on getting his number. He didn't. Monday was over. (Yes, you guessed it. This is the depressing chapter.)

My friends hadn't heard about what happened. I didn't tell them. Only those at the dance knew. Some of the matric dates were in my class. They asked me if Daniel and I were a thing. That if we were, we would be cute together (My heart really cracked in two when they said this). I told them that he didn't ask me out afterwards. An awkward silence followed...

Two weeks later, the maths Olympiad second round was here. This was my final attempt to grab his attention. I went into the test room and he was sitting at a table ready to take it. I chose a desk two desks slightly behind him so that I could see when he'd leave the room. The teacher distributed the quiz, and the time limit started. I read the first question, and didn't even know what it was asking for. This was going to be a very long one and a half hours... I attempted and failed to get any of the multiple choices. Only five minutes had passed. I moved onto the second question. The same thing happened. After thirty minutes passed, people started to leave the room. I think they were giving up (lol). Daniel still had his head down. His pen scribbling away. I was also done like the others, but I wanted to leave later so that it didn't look like I was giving up. I managed to stick around till about one hour and fifteen minutes when I realised I forgot that I had mandatory choir practice that was about to start for a performance at valedictory. I got up, handed my answer sheet in, and left the classroom. I rushed to drop my stuff off at my locker and was on my way to the chapel when I heard Daniel call out my name. My last trick had worked. I waited for him to catch up to me. "Thanks for waiting, Joy. How did you find the Olympiad?" He asked. Shit. That word was running through my mind. "I was surprised, but in a good way, to see you in the second round." I was really late for this choir practice. Some of the other Olympians who were rushing off to choir too called out to me to hurry. Here he was. The boy of my dreams. Finally talking to me about maths after not having spoken to each other properly in the physical world since the dance. And I had a bloody mandatory choir practice. I cut him off. "The Olympiad was hard for me. Sorry Daniel, I'd love to stay and chat, but I have to go." (I hate myself for doing this at that moment. I swear this was the defining moment of the end of whatever could've been). "You have to go off again? Really, or do you just not want to talk to me?" He was unimpressed. "No, I do. I just have to go to choir practice," I tried to reassure him. "I'll see you soon. We can chat then." This time I left him standing there alone...

I excitedly reached out to him on IM, and he was bitter. He told me how I never have the time for him, that we never speak to each other in the real world because I always have something else to do. Sometimes that was the case, and I admit that in the past, I was actively avoiding him because I didn't want to be seen with him in fear of losing my friends. But now, I was nervous around him because I liked him, and I didn't want him to see me go tomato red. By running off to hide my embarrassed face, I unintentionally hurt his feelings. I told him that he made me nervous in real life and that he made me speechless so I would run off. But it was too little too late. He was over me. He didn't believe my messages. And he left the chat with a quick excuse that his mom needed him to do something.

That was the last interaction I had with him.

*****

So when you like somebody, but you fear rejection, you fear embarrassment, you fear how your social circle will react to them, you don't fully commit to letting this person know your feelings, and you simultaneously don't cut off your feelings so you won't be sad if they're with someone else. You get stuck like me, and then you "lead" them on until they've had enough and just won't be with you anymore. That is the end of my love story with Daniel. </3. I learnt the hard way.

When I was writing this story, it became clear as day that both Daniel and I liked each other, but because of misunderstandings we never got together. I still wonder what his conversation with his date to the dance was after he danced with me instead of her. It must've been interesting :D.
I had to drag up memories from, what seems, a lifetime ago, and now that I am older and wiser, if I had the superpower to go back in time to push myself to ask him out, I would do it. At least then, I'd know I fully gave it my all and not half-assed it like how I actually did. For the content of this story I had to look up the past messages and photos of Daniel. I was also curious about his life now. But, you see, he un-friended me </3, so I could only really see his profile pic and our messages from that time. Just stalking him and opening up those messages made me tomato red. I felt so embarrassed. What if he found out I was snooping around him? That was a recurring thought. The last few messages were so brutal, I couldn't even scroll up to the awesome conversation we had depicted in one of the previous chapters. It was like, 'Oh yea, this is the conversation that ended all conversations'. Choo, Daniel was upset when he typed those messages. I could feel the contempt dripping off his words.

Do I think I'll ever talk to him again? Maybe, God works in mysterious ways. I won't mention all the tiny meetups since then. Do I think we could still work now? No, the 'me-then' vs the 'me-now', we're two different people. He probably is too. I definitely feel like I put him on a pedestal, and as such I kind of like to leave our love story the way it is. It has a good moral.

Moral of this short story: Kids, don't be like me. Be direct and fully commit yourself if you like someone. You never know when you'll find your next unicorn. I gave my younger sister the same advice, and her love life has been much more eventful than mine.