getting past your past - - maybe.

            In the third grade I made a boy cry. He was my first love. One day, while we were playing German dodge ball, I took him on the side and told him that I liked him. A day later he told me the same. I was thrilled. 

            Three years past and we still liked each other. He was a year younger than me so when I moved up to Jr. High, I waited for him. During the year he sent me a picture of himself. I swear I took that picture everywhere I went. By the end of the year it was worn out and torn on the sides. But I didn’t care; as long as I got to see his face.

            The first day of school the next year I was really excited. I even asked my mom to drop me off at school SUPER early, to wait for him. He showed up about two minutes before the bell rang. He was just as I remembered him, but he didn’t see me and I had to go to class.

            That first class was the LONGEST class I ever had to wait through. I was out of there as soon as the bell rang.

            I ran out into the hall to find him waiting there; for me. I gave him a hug and told him how much I had missed him that past year. I told him I couldn’t wait for things to go back to the way they were. I was too excited to notice something was wrong.

            When I calmed down and looked into his eyes I knew that he had something important to tell me.

            “What’s wrong?” I asked him.

            He kinda looked down at his shoes and shrugged his shoulders.

            “I met this girl in my homeroom today.”

            “And that bothers you?”

            “I like her.”

            As soon as I heard those words everything faded away. It was like a broken record playing over and over in my head. “I LIKE HER”. It was screaming out loud, like the chickens that wake me up every morning, I’m always too tired to tell them to shut it.

            It took me a while to realize that he was still there in front of me. It was the exact face that I’d memorized from the photo. Only all I wanted to do at the moment was to rip that photo apart.

            I wanted to go home & throw away everything I’d kept as a memory of him. The rubber band he used to wear on his shoes, the wrapping paper from the birthday present he gave me, the watch I was wearing on my wrist, EVERYTHING.

            I don’t even remember what happened next, because all I know is that I ran like hell. And he didn’t chase me; he didn’t care.
            I heard from a friend that he asked the girl out the very next day.

            For the whole first semester I was in a daze. Trying to figure out, what I did wrong.

            I felt like I’d wasted four years of my life and I wanted them back.

            “Why?” was a question that rang in my mind, “Why did this happen?”, “Why didn’t I say anything to him?”, “Why am I so afraid to see him?”.

            I wish this were one of those happily ever after stories when everything turns out in the end and I somehow get him back.

            But it’s not. And the truth is he moved schools the next year. I never got to talk to him. I’ve only recently seen him at one of my high school track meets. He smiled and waved. I did the same.

            We’re okay.

            I know a lot more now then I did back then when he hurt me. I know that you can’t help whom you fall in love with. You can’t tell yourself to “STOP falling in love”. There’s no possible way.

            I’m with this new guy now. And we’re getting pretty serious. He’s a year younger than me also. I’m in college; he’s in high school.

            I trust him. But sometimes I get scared that; it’ll be deja vu all over again.