A Confession of a Long Fall

Dear _____,

It was your green hair. Although, sometimes it was blue. Either way, when I sat down in my Honors Computer Engineering class on the first day of high school, your hair hypnotized me. In an instant, you became and would continue to be my biggest crush all throughout those malleable high school years. The stereotypical cute, popular, and punk rock boy I’d only seen in my teen romance movies was now here in the flesh, and in most of my Honors classes. It didn’t help that you were also incredibly smart- attending classes even too difficult for me. How could you be so smart and still be the hottest boy in the school? I had only read about your types in YA Fiction novels (vampires probably involved and you being one likely crossed my mind at the time). I took out a pedestal and placed you on it - one that seemed to rise higher every year. Yet, I kept climbing.

You barely noticed me that first year. I’d see you pass in the hallways and stare longingly at your eyes while they were focused on someone else. I dated other boys, but still I day dreamed of you. I knew I was too quiet for you. Or rather, too naïve. I wasn’t ready for a boy like you, and you knew it. You were constantly chatting a friend up, or with a girl at their locker (actions ranging from flirting to flat out making-out). I cursed those girls. What was it they had, that I didn’t? They were boisterous, they flaunted their curves, they were confident - the opposite of me.

Over the years, I dated all types of boys - weird, nerdy, but also some jocks. I even dated boys within “your circle”. You started to talk a little more to me then, and every time that happened I remember trying to act like you were the last thing on my mind. But I’m pretty sure my pits perspired and I blushed a spotty red every time you spoke to me.

There would be times you’d tease me because you knew I was still very innocent (or was that all in my head?). I even asked my friends if they had crushes on you. I couldn’t be the only one that felt this way.

“No way.”

“He’s a jerk.”

“Gross.”

Then I did find one girl that also had a massive crush on you, and strangely enough, we bonded over it. That strong bond was probably due to the fact that we knew neither of us had a chance with you, thus eliminating any competition between us.

“Did you see his hair today? It’s a brighter green.”

“Oh, I definitely noticed. It makes his eyes stand out more.”

Then we’d continue to eat lunch under the tree and gaze out over the campus lawn, thinking what shade of green you’d dye your hair next.

Eventually, I had to accept I was never going to intimately know you. It was incredibly difficult given that all my daydreaming for the past couple of years, day in and day out, starred you. I got by somehow. You remained on that pedestal, but were moved to a room with a sign that read “Do Not Touch”. A sign meant mostly for me. I survived high school pining for you, but you wouldn’t break my heart until after we graduated.

Back in the recess of my mind, in that dark room, your pedestal was collecting dust. It was there nonetheless and fate had it so that we went to the same college. I was, of course, excited we would continue to be in close proximity to one another, but my hopes of us ever becoming what we were in my dreams were slowing flickering away. That is, until one night my friend invited me over to watch a movie with his friends and you happened to be his roommate.

I swear angels sang when I saw you sitting like a Herculean God in the top bunk. The party dwindled and at some point, it was just the three of us. Then the unthinkable happened - my friend went to the bathroom and left us alone. By this time, the pedestal you were on was so high, that you were unreachable in my mind. And that even when you asked me to come up to your top bunk, I imagined you just wanted to talk to my face rather than through the bed. So I naively climbed up, with no regard of your intentions. In the next few moments, I started hearing The Crystals in my head:

“He kissed me in a way that I’ve never been kissed before.

He kissed me in a way that I wanna be kissed forever more.”

You kissed me. Just like that, I had reached the top of the pedestal I had built for you. I was finally living the dream I had dreamed for in all of high school. The sunshine of my happiness must have been radiating through me, burning your lips with mine. Then you pulled back, looked at me with the eyes I had wished forever to look at me in that way, and you asked,

“Do you want to suck it?”

I started to fall from the top of that pedestal, taking you down with me. It was a fall worth 4 years of worship, and it smashed my heart to pieces when I hit the bottom. The disappointment that surged through my body iced over my lips and doused any sunshine out with a thick blanket of freezing rain. I sighed my very disappointed sigh and replied:

“No. I don’t.”

We recognized the disappointment in each other- albeit very different kinds of disappointments.  In my refusal, I also recognized a strength by using a weapon I had never brandished - saying “No”. So although I fell from so high a climb, I learned what my limits were that night.

I climbed down when I heard my friend coming back from the bathroom and left before the movie ended. You and I never talked again.

Lest I fall that far again, no one else has been placed on a pedestal. But remember I took you down with me . And because the fall was so high, you broke into the most pieces - pieces so fine, ground up like powder, and blown away by the softest wind.