It starts with your stomach turning over and over. Then your words don’t come out quite right. Your tongue feels too big for your mouth and the thoughts in your head become too muddled to form coherent sentences. You can’t stop thinking about her; she pulls on every atom of your body, dragging you closer with every smile. Bask in this feeling. Let your head spin, your palms sweat, your cheeks flush, just feel this overwhelming feeling. You don’t know what to do, how on earth to handle this. But this has happened before; remember what you did then. Go back to that time.
You’re in sixth grade. Find your way back to sitting in chairs that were just a little too tall for you. Back to too big skirts, permanently chipped nail polish, and dirty sneakers that you grew out of in a heartbeat. Remember that boy you sat across from in history class? Whatever you do, don’t let him know you like him. That is crush suicide. Just wait it out, and maybe he’ll ask you to go see a movie. His dad will want to sit a few seats away, but that’s okay. I mean, what else would you expect a dad to do on a first date, right? You don’t know; you’ve never been on one before. Maintain the sort-of-relationship, then leave a note in his yearbook on the last day of school saying you are leaving the next year and it wasn’t going to work out. “I’m so sorry.”
Now you’re a freshman and you’ve kind of got this weird feeling about a girl on your volleyball team. She’s beautiful and funny and you love the way her nose crinkles a little when she laughs. Your shoulders don’t quite fit your body and your nail polish is perpetually chipped; she seems so much more confident and graceful. How does she do it? You’re not supposed to feel this way about a girl though. What is happening? So whatever you do, don’t let her know you like her. This isn’t right. Mom says its just a phase, it’ll pass. So you let her go. “See you later.”
Sophomore year there’s a boy in your English class that draws in his notebook. You’re not sure how you feel about him, but you can tell he’s got a crush on you. Doesn’t he know that if you’ve got a crush, whatever you do, you don’t like them know you like them? But he’s nice; he holds your hand under the table and tells you you’re beautiful. He’s your first kiss, on a dare over a videogame you’re no good at. He tells you he loves you. And you think you love him too. But maybe that’s not true. Months pass and you need a break. You try to make it civil, tell him what’s wrong. But he tells you he’s happy with how he is and he doesn’t plan on changing. You can’t work with that. “Its over.”
Junior year you’re off visiting a college and you can’t take your eyes off the girl leading your tour. By now you’ve realized it’s useless to dismiss your feelings for someone because of their gender, its happened too many times to be ignored. But still, you know you’re never going to see her again so whatever you do, you don’t let her know that you like her. The school is 3,000 miles away from home, its rainy, and cold. But somehow, she makes you love the place with its grey skies and endless puddles. Miraculously, the dreary weather seems a little brighter because of the way she smiles. Still, you know you’re just another face to her. “Thank you.”
It’s the spring of your senior year, your best friend asks you to go to a concert with him. Your mom lets him stay the night because you tell her “no mom this isn’t a date. He’s my best friend.” But the music that night makes your heart beat a little faster and you feel a strange need to kiss this boy you’ve thought was just your best friend. But something here feels right. Your mom goes to bed and you sneak over to his room, pausing at the door when you remember that stupid old saying from middle school, you don’t let them know you like them. You ignore it and instead push open the door, trip over the threshold and tumble into the room. The sheets rustle as he rolls over and looks at you, confused. His head tips ever-so-slightly to the left. But a few weeks later he tries to rape you best friend at a party and you can’t look at him the same way ever again. “Please stay away.”
But she is different. When she is in the room there’s a force that pulls you towards her. The way she smiles puts stars in the sky, her laughter can make the world a little brighter. She’s confident and even though she feels like her life is a mess she still seems like she knows what she’s doing. You can’t remember the first time you met her, she just sort of tumbled into your life and you never gave it a second thought. But you can’t forget the moment you fell in love with her. It wasn’t some special thing, not at all what you thought it would be. It was just another time you played a stupid game with your friends in someone’s basement. “How many people have you kissed?” She had too many to count, but looked around the room and said, “hey wait, I haven’t kissed you yet, have I?” She leaned over and with one touch, half a second of lips on lips, changed your world. But you know that moment meant nothing to her, there was nothing special about it except that now she’d kissed everyone in the room. She has a boyfriend anyway. So you keep it to yourself, just as before, you don’t let her know you love her. But its harder than before, it feels impossible. So you tell her you like someone, and describe her to herself. But the butterflies in your belly are aggressive, trying to force their way out. And eventually you can’t hold then back anymore and they flutter out in a rush of emotions when she asks you who it is that you like. “It’s always been you.”