 
Why Her?

A tale about my experience with a girl named Kimberly

By Riley O'Boyle

(please note this is all recited by memory and some information may be inaccurate)

"Why her?" That question went off like a gunshot in my mind just like it did every morning. I awoke with a start and looked over at my clock. I gave a rough grunt and a groggy roll over in my bed after finding out I only had five minutes of sleep left. Laying in my bed for those five minutes I stared up at the craggy old ceiling of my bedroom deep in thought. I was pondering possible answers, logical and illogical, that could end my sick obsession of answering this persistent query. Unable to come up with an answer for it, I shrugged it off as usual, reluctantly pulled myself out of sleep and into full awareness then tried to move on with my day regularly. That question loomed over all of my thoughts all day, every day for over two years, disrupting all known knowledge in my mind. The only thing I could think about every passing moment of every passing second of every passing day of every passing month of every passing year was simply that: Why her?

It all started on that day long ago, on a day that would begin a big change in my life. This day was the last day of my 6th summer vacation. This last day of summer vacation was the same as any other last day of summer vacation, the first time you have to get up early in the morning after three long months of sleeping in. It all seemed the same as the previous five last days of summers...except for one fact...I was about to become the top of my school, I was about to enter the final chapter in my career as an elementary student...fifth grade. Not only was I entering fifth grade, I was entering a new level of difficulty, a new level of pain, a new level of torture, a new level of joy...I was entering the last bit of my childhood. As I walked toward the door into my 5th grade classroom, I never suspected any of the events that would take place behind this door that would haunt me for years to come. I walked toward this door with nothing. No friends, no preparation, and no idea what was about to happen in my life. On that day, I had nothing, I felt nothing...that I was made up of nothing more than simple mass, nothing more or less than a pile of electrons. No intelligence, no conscious, nothing...on that first day, during those last few moments of being a fourth grader...I was nothing.

Taking last step towards the door, I stood in front of the it, just watching, waiting, staring into its wise old timbers. The door stood as hard and firm as it had stood for the past five years. It stood with dignity, pride, and the strength to endure several more years of being opened by hopeless fourth graders like me, about to take their first step to the end of their life. Like all fourth graders before me, and for all those to come, I stood there...staring at the door and its cool, smooth silver handle, waiting, thinking, and contemplating what I would do. Would I open this door into oblivion? Once I opened this door, there would be no stopping it, my life would only go faster and faster from then on. Complications would unwind themselves like thread on a spool. I would be faced with life or death situations...my life would end just as fast as it would begin. 5th grade marks the maturity point of any person, it is then when anyone really starts to prepare for life...but as soon as it starts, you can't stop it. I knew all of this as I was looking at this door. This door meant everything and it meant nothing, once it begun, it begun and it wouldn't stop.

After some hard thinking and a burning desire to end this anticipation, I reached for the handle. My hand drew nearer and nearer to its metallic steel surface. Unable to stop myself, my hand clawed its way into a fist around the handle's cool, smooth metal, rounded so that it fit the shape of my hand perfectly. As innocent as it may have looked, this door was only creating the illusion of safety behind its pine stained timbers so hopeless less-than-nothing fourth graders such as myself would have an excuse to open it...this handle was really the handle to opening the beginning of life and of death. I felt little resistance to my gesture of turning it. It moved slowly and in a smooth as silk counter-clockwise turn as I twisted my wrist. I kept turning it slowly in hopes that it wouldn't open, and that I could stand there as a fourth grader forever, but to my dismay, it got to a point where it made a satisfying click, and I started to pull it open. The door was heavier than I expected. I gave a grunt of exertion, using my full strength as I swung it inwards toward me. It stood wide open for me to freely walk in. I was in awe as to what was behind it. It opened fully and I began to take my last few steps with nothing, as nothing to hopefully become...something.

Inside the classroom, a tall, strange, bald man came up to be and gave a hearty smile and then shook my hand with much gusto, then pointed to my desk where I would sit. I was surprised that this man was shaking my hand, but I reluctantly gave a shy smile and returned the gesture. After the shock wore off, I figured out that that was going to be my teacher...my stomach gave a nervous growl as I realized the enormity of what I had just unleashed onto myself by opening that door. I tried to forget what I just thought of so I could focus on the task at hand and seem as calm and cool as anyone in the room. When that thought was gone, I meandered throughout the classroom meeting a few people and getting to know my surroundings while all the while, keeping on a general course to my desk. I kept thinking that I was going to die, right then and there from all the anticipation and pressure of going into this grade that should have left me at the door, but didn't. When I found my seat, I sat there, wondering what would happen to me over the course of the next 180 days. I never could've prepared for what was to come later that year, no matter how hard I tried.

When everyone was situated in their own desk, the teacher took roll. As the first name was called, the person who was called naturally replied with a "here" as I am sure they had done for the past five years in elementary. They were swiftly corrected by the teacher as he told us to say "good morning Mr. C*****" rather than "here." I could feel the tension in the room, like I said, all the people in the room had sealed their fate by turning that smooth, silver knob at the door, they knew this was just the beginning of the end, and so did I.

Our next task was to introduce ourselves to the class. One by one, we did as such, not much of a big deal. Everyone simply stood up, stated their name aloud and silently sat back down. After that, we were given an assignment that would put our 4th grade brains to the limit with 5th grade questions to evaluate our skills. We followed orders as told, then we were told to go have recess. So far, I wasn't complaining. This teacher didn't seem that bad...so far.

We followed the day with similar activities. To put it into simple terms, we introduced ourselves to the class, got to know everyone, and got comfortable with our 5th grade setting. I simply passed myself off as the timid weirdo who stared at dirt and didn't really want any more friends than he already had. I was treated as such and I moved on with my life. Each day I was getting a bit bolder with the class, saying hello to more people, and they were saying hello to me. The teacher wasn't as mean as I had anticipated, and we got lots of spontaneous recesses. I finally felt confident in my learning environment.

One morning, all of this hard-earned confidence melted into nothing when the new kid showed up. He walked into the classroom, acting kind of shy. I tried to ignore him and look busy, but I was unusually curious. What was he? Who was he? Why was he here? Since when was a new student showing up? All these questions popped up in my mind and I didn't know what to do with them, so I buried them under some math-related info deep within the uncharted recesses of my mind. He went over to the teacher and discussed with him for a bit, seeming to have an engaging conversation with him while I did my work. After a while, he was silenced by the teacher who gave him an encouraging sort of look then went silent, then the teacher gestured toward the front of the room. The new guy gave a shy grin to the class, then looked to Mr. C***** for support. After realizing he wasn't going to get any, he reluctantly went up to the front of the class and introduced himself as Keanu, then answered a few questions about where he came from and why he came here. As soon as he did so, the girls swarmed him like he was the dreamy foreign exchange student from Norway. As you may have guessed, he was treated as such every day by all of the girls. I wasn't much of a friend of girls, though at this age I had recognized them as humans, I was still reluctant to accept them as friends or anything else for that matter. Because I thought of them this way, and because he always hung out with so many, I simply saw him as a girl. This meant I did not want to be his friend at all, I saw he was a friend of girls, so I simply stereotyped him as one: a human being, but not a friend.

After a bit of getting used to, I renewed my confidence with the class over a course of two months, and I was used to Keanu being there. He didn't change the class that much, he just seemed like a late student who didn't show up for the first two weeks. So, he became a part of my morning routine, nothing special, just another classmate being cruelly forced into the learning experience known as school. We never really talked. I didn't particularly want to talk to him either...after all, I thought of him as a girl, not someone I wanted to have much of a conversation with anyway. So Keanu and I just never seemed like the kind of people who would become best friends. He thought I was too nerdy, and I thought he was too popular and hung out with too many girls to be part of my friend circle.

Later, in about mid-October, I was sitting on a grated red bench with one of my friends at recess discussing gossip and the such. He was describing this one girl that he liked in perfect detail, talking about every little aspect, every possible adjective that could have even slightly related to any part about her in any way. All I was thinking about was how much I detested girls, and how anyone could like them as more than animals...I mean they were girls, not something you like...but I knew people did it anyway, and I was sick that they could even consider the idea. I was also thinking about the how cold and hard the metal of the bench was...it was seeping through my clothes, and I was getting chilled. He went on chatting away my recess. Word after long, painful word, I listened intently to what he had to say. Young as I was, I was a good listener, whether I wanted to be or not. I was getting quite bored listening to all his gabble about "like-liking" girls. It sickened me that any boy would want to like a girl that much. After a while, I stopped listening and just spaced out, only pretending to listen.

Then, all of a sudden he pauses and says "Riley, who do you like-like?" My mind went racing, caught off guard by a question relating to me liking an actual girl, I mean, just the thought of it! Me, liking a girl? Gross! But, I was under peer pressure, I wanted to be somewhat accepted into my peer group at the very least, but to do that, I had to like a girl. After an incisive and exhaustive search through my mind looking for anything remotely related to me liking a girl...I found nothing. As a result, I gathered up all my good judgment, found a girl of choice playing on the playground, and said, "I like...her, what's her name again?" He replied with: "That's Kimberly, you like her, eh? Not bad."

As we went inside from recess, I was contemplating what I just did. While staring at the girl's cool purple and neon-green coat she was wearing I wondered: "Why her? Why out of all the girls on the playground did I choose her?" If I hadn't chosen her, my life may have turned out much differently than it did, but I chose her. I really did use all my good choosing skills to pick her...I just don't know why. I didn't like her, nor did I find her that attractive. So I asked myself again, "why her?" Unable to come up with an answer, I just shrugged it off and moved on with my day.

When we got inside, I realized I was unable to tear my eyes away from her. When I noticed this, I didn't think that much of it, but I saw that she seemed to become more and more attractive with each passing moment. Her attractiveness eventually reached a point where I enjoyed her presence. I seemed to have fallen under a spell, and was unable to explain exactly what was happening. I was blinded from the world, mind shrouded with pictures of her. This wasn't much of a big deal to me, but it was enough to freak me out just to a certain point where I was worried. I didn't have a crush on a girl, did I?

The next day, I found out I did have a crush on a girl. And, as much as I hated to admit it, I was enjoying it. The crush escalated with each passing moment. I was unable to stop its unruly spread of propaganda throughout my mind. Every cell in my body seemed to be devoting all its energy to get me to look at her every possible second that I could open my eyes. As long as I could see anything, I clearly wanted to see her.

On the other hand, every unaffected cell in my body was surging through me with panic and fear to escape this temptation. My conscious mind was one of these unaffected sections. While most of my subconscious was busy contributing all it could to get me to look at her, my conscious did all it could to stop it. I didn't want to like girls, but I was convinced somehow that this was okay, that I could in fact fall in love with this girl, but no other girl could be allowed even friendship in my life. I still believed that girls should not be considered as best friends, and yet I wanted to not just be this girl's best friend, but almost more than that. Sad as it seemed, I wanted romance.

There was one time where I had felt this feeling toward a girl long ago, but that was only once, and it was four years in the past...how could it come back to haunt me once again? Why would it come back to force me to think of girls as attractive? Why did it have to come back to destroy all that I had once held near and dear...I never figured out why it came back to me that week. I never did figure out why it would come back to corrupt my conscious mind into thinking girls were pretty. Nothing seemed to make sense, I couldn't see anything clearly, then, with all that clouding my mind, everything felt alien to me.

Whenever I saw her, I would get this pressured feeling in my gut that would signal the growth of this odd emotion. Thoughts of her would slowly envelope my thoughts in a light, a light that shone brightly in a part of my mind that had been wrapped up in darkness for so long, now, with this new light, it felt as if it was being engulfed by this new emotion, swallowed up by its purity. I didn't know what else to do except ignore it for as long as I could and hope it would pass.

The weeks went by like minutes. She seemed to be everything in my life at that point. Nothing else mattered, to a certain extent of course. I still had my boyish needs. Video games still seemed the same to me. A few other luxuries were all the same, it's just she became one of those luxuries. I started to enjoy getting up in the morning to see her. When winter break came, I still was able to enjoy it, and at the same time, hoped that being deprived of seeing her for two weeks, I could end my craving.

Much to my dismay, when I got back from winter break in January, after trying so hard to forget what I had felt, I saw Kimberly and thought that she was more pretty than I remembered her being. This emotion continued to grow. I enjoyed being around her, listening to her voice...seeing her smile...it was all so entrancing. This made me nervous, I had never felt this much toward any one person in my life, what was a poor boy such as myself to do? All I knew to do was to let the emotion take its course, as I could not resist its brilliance. Every day I would look for her cool-purple and neon-green coat, because I knew she wore it every day, hoping, praying that I would get to once again grace my eyes upon her beautiful face. Kimberly and I were but mere acquaintances, not even actual friends. I wanted more than acquaintances, hell, I wanted more than friends, but I was getting ahead of myself.

On a different note, in about mid-March, I became close friends with Keanu, the new kid. The simplest way to put it is: It was his birthday party, the last invite was about to be delivered, then the boy who was going to be invited just gets up and goes to the bathroom and I, being the most conveniently located classmate in the room was invited rather than the other boy who had gotten up to go to the bathroom at the last minute. The rest was history and Keanu and I were best buds.

And because Keanu was my best bud, I felt an obligation to tell him of my feelings toward her. He replied with friendly reassurance. He was telling me about how cute a couple Kimberly and I would be. Every day, he would try to convince me to tell her. And every day, I would tell him otherwise, refusing to tell her anything. I figured that if I was to tell her, it would have to be perfect timing...nothing more or less.

When all that was said and done, I went back to Kimberly-related issues. "Kimberly-related issues" being, my crush on her slowly blooming into love, trying to build up the courage to say hello to her at least once a day, attempting eye-contact as much as possible, etc. These dreadful habits trudged on until about early May. At that point, I snapped! I was crazy for her! So crazy in fact, that I couldn't contain my sheer joy, I had to tell someone, but I couldn't let my secret slip until the perfect time, so I started writing my feelings in a journal. This journal kept track of anything related to me liking/loving her. I would always try to convince myself to tell her, just end it, but I could never bring myself to accomplish such a feat. Until about eight days after I started the journal, on May 24, 2005, on a bus headed back to school from A**** Dam, the strangest and best possible thing that could've happened on that day, happened.

I was on the bus, heading back to school after an exhausting day at the dam, playing this oddly peculiar and strangely addicting game with some friends (I believe it was called MASH) and we were all giving the impression that we like-liked Kimberly while competing to see who would "marry" her in the not-so-near future. Using my feelings for her to my advantage, I was winning. They thought I was taking the game a bit too seriously and suspected that I really did like her as more than a friend. As soon as they started to suspect something, my stomach did a 360 and my heart leapt into my throat. I figured this was a perfect opportunity to let her know, so I went along with it. They asked if I really did like her, I was silent. They asked again, and I replied with a yes in a meek voice. They asked if I really did like her, and if I was serious, then I replied in a more reassuring voice; "Yes, yes I do like Kimberly." Then one of them shouted across the bus, "Hey Kimberly, Kimberly! Riley likes you!" She blushed a dark red color, and I blushed a deeper maroon, purplish color. I stared into space wondering why in the world I would do that...all of my organs seemed to be in the wrong place because I sure didn't know what was happening anywhere at all. I felt as if I was falling into a dark hole of nothing, dropping helplessly into space. No feeling except whether what I just did was a smart decision or not.

It took some prodding, but my friends finally pulled me free of the trance, and started their delightful teasing...the teasing all kids their age do about lovey-dovey stuff. After a short while, one of Kimberly's friends yelled across all the noise in a voice that was almost completely drowned out by all the talk; "Riley! You really like her? You really like Kimberly?" I replied with a solid yes, and she gave a sort of satisfied grin as she turned toward Kimberly to continue the relentless teasing. That moment was a nightmare, but would be one of the most memorable and greatest moments in my life, that was the first time I EVER said I liked a girl to the girl I liked. Later that day, after school, I came up with a quote that I still use now that describes perfectly and simply that day... "I just had to tell her on that Dam day!"

The next morning, I was hesitant to get out of bed, seeing that I would have to deal with her reaction to my feelings when I arrived. Yet, another part of me wanted to see this reaction and lay my eyes upon hers. I reluctantly sat up on my bed and thought about playing sick, but a part of my brain didn't allow me. I just had to see her...I had to see her...I really did have to see her. After a while, it turned into an obsession that I NEEDED to see her. Suddenly, nothing else mattered except her reaction to what occurred only 16 hours ago. So, I hurriedly took my shower, got dressed, ate breakfast...then I impatiently watched TV, waiting for the painstakingly slow minutes to pass. Finally it reached a time where I could get ready to leave for school. I speedily left, brushed my teeth, threw my shoes on with a sloppy knot, and waited impatiently for my mom to take me to school. With a big smile on my face, she saw me, and said something about me looking like I did something that she didn't know about. I said nothing, and luckily she didn't press the matter. We made our way to school, walking towards it, discussing what we usually discussed every morning on our way to school; life and all of its ups and downs. She began to mention the matter from earlier that morning that she had brought up, and just before I was going to answer, I looked at my wrist, acted like I was late, and made a frantic dash towards sanctuary within the warm, forgiving walls of my elementary school.

I made my way into the building, out of sight of my mother. When I went over to the gym, I couldn't see where our class usually lined up for class, instead there was a row of chairs with my class sitting in them. Of course there were people other than my class, but they didn't matter. All that mattered during that period was me seeing Kimberly. When I saw her, she looked at me. She kept on looking at me, staring me straight in the eye, unwilling to break the eye-contact, I continued to stare. Our eye contact was broken when I walked past her to the next available seat...which fortunately was a few seats over. After I walked past her, it was Keanu who I saw next. He, wasn't there on the bus to A**** Dam, so he didn't see the actual event. But him, being the most girl-loved guy in the class, he got the info from Kimberly herself about what had taken place the previous day. He just kept on congratulating me on what I did, on a count of the fact that he tried to get me to do it every single day. He wasn't even there to witness all his hard work, but was still there to congratulate me...and tease and prod her, asking if she liked me back.

About four days later, while the wound was still somewhat fresh, and Kimberly and I were still nervous around one another...my teacher paired us up for a math assignment. Yes, I was to accomplish an assignment alone with Kimberly. We had to really work together to accomplish this one, it was no walk in the park. On that day, just before lunch, the teacher was pulling sticks for math partners. He pulled a couple of groups, seemed all the same, nothing different about it from any other partner math assignment. Then he pulled one of our sticks...then he pulled the other. As soon as he said it, everything seemed to happen at once. Everyone burst into laughter, I went as red as a tomato, she let out a shriek of disbelief and probably blushed a deep red hue. While in my tomato state, I was uncontrollably and humorlessly laughing, unable to cease my joy. I was rendered helpless while being mercilessly teased by everyone I knew. I just couldn't stop laughing for some reason. My humorless laugh continued for a long while, and I was trying to identify what was triggering this laughter. Maybe I was just really happy to be paired up with her, maybe I thought the teasing was actually funny, maybe it was just a contagious laughter throughout the class that everyone shared alike...I never understood what caused that humorless, hollow, uncontrollable, hysterical laughter.

Not too much later that month, we had another field trip. I was trying to forget about what took place during the previous trip. Seeing the significance it had, I knew it would interfere with my experience if I kept thinking of it. Fortunately I was able to forget it...for the most part. Until we got on the returning bus back to school, that's where it all went up in flames. We got on the bus and sat there while waiting for the rest of the class to board it as well. It took a while, but eventually, everyone was on...the unfortunate thing was, Kimberly was in the next seat over. I ignored her presence, as did she mine. So I was able to sit there, talking to Keanu and another friend of ours. To pass the time, we were playing a game that would put our judgment skills to the test by ranking various girls based off of their appearance. We could judge a girl off of one of three rankings: ugly, pretty and sexy. We divided our legs into three sections, each section represented a different ranking. Keanu would state a name aloud, then we would put our hands in the area where the appropriate ranking was and average it out, thus deciding who was ugly, who was pretty, and who was...sexy.

After a while Keanu went on stating name after name, it got quite boring...until Keanu noticed Kimberly. That's when things went downhill. At first he just said hi to her, then it hit him that I was there, and she was there. He knew that I liked her, so, him being a true friend, he mockingly said Kim-ber-ly, just for me. I was put under the knife, I had three choices and a few seconds to decide. I could pick ugly and risk losing everything, bad idea. I could pick pretty, probably the best and safest choice for my given situation, but no, I didn't pick that either. That left sexy the last choice. I was picking based on how much I liked her, not how she looked. I didn't find her sexually appealing, but I didn't find her simply "pretty." I found her to be the most indescribably beautiful human being I had ever laid eyes upon. I was at an impasse. I could say she was pretty, be safe, or I could express my feelings by saying something more. The only other option was sexy. This all happened within a matter of moments inside my mind, almost without thinking, I did the inevitable. I picked sexy.

After I voted sexy, all spectators of the game started their sex-provoked laughter and jokes. They were yelling to Kimberly shouts of their joy from my mistake. Within seconds of my action, she knew I had basically called her sexy. All I wanted to do was melt away from life into the road and have endless miles of cars drive over my sorrow and guilt. Since that was physically impossible by the means of modern physics, I just sat there, head down, blushing my heart out, regretting getting up in the morning and even staring out the window in thought, imagining how my day would be. But, needless to say, I couldn't do anything about it, so I pulled myself together and sat up in my seat and confronted my beloved in thought. It took a while, but she eventually recovered from my comment and that of those who were around me. When she did, she started questioning me and my personal life. She would ask a question, I would oblige an answer, then I would ask her the same question and she'd give her answer. The rest of the trip was followed with questions such as that. I found out a great deal about her and what she was really like, to which she also found a great deal of information on me. We got back to school, and went home...to which followed my pondering on her and her stories, I got some info on that of which I loved...Kimberly.

Later that week, we talked to each other as a result of sheer boredom and lack of alternative activity. She wrote a note to me asking if I liked her. After what had taken place over the past few days, I was sickened by this inquiry. I knew the answer was obvious, but I respected her request with an answer. My answer was blunt and quite frankly, rude. I responded with:

"Do you honestly think I've changed my mind?!?!?!???"

She was taken aback at my answer, not expecting it for some reason. She coughed out a humorless laugh and wrote her reply to my answer. She told me that she asked why I liked her, not if I liked her. I gave a shallow smile in response to my faulty answer. I was then faced with a question that, (as the title of this story implies) had remained unanswered throughout my year as a 5th grader. I had to say something, I couldn't just say I didn't know, that would be rude and I would look shallow. Under the pressure of her piercing gaze, I used the only advice my mom had given me about girls...never say they're pretty until the first date. So as a result, I wrote that she was smart, funny, nice, and friendly. I gave it to her and she read it over a few times, looking for some kind of quiver of the writing that would betray my lie. After one more check, she seemed satisfied and wrote another question then handed me the paper.

I took it from her, unfolded its wrinkled folds and read the question she asked: "Will you like me forever?" I didn't know for myself, on account of the fact that I couldn't see the future. So I wrote my reply as: "not FOREVER!!!!!" Keanu was able to get his hands on the note, and saw the perfect way to manipulate my response with a simple smooth stroke of his eraser. He erased the "not" so it said "forever" in that big black bold underlined font. She read it and instantly understood my friend's cruel joke, so she disregarded it while he was busy laughing the hell out of himself at his sheer satisfaction of the result of his handy work, then he stopped and gave a jolly smile.

The day the yearbooks came, I knew we would be signing yearbooks. In my stomach, a disturbing blob of some strange emotion welled itself up, making me lose my appetite. I knew this would be my chance to get her to sign my yearbook and I hers. I knew if I messed this up, I would regret it forever. I sat at my desk as the yearbooks were passed out, slowly awaiting the imminent time when I would be forced to ask her to sign my yearbook. The yearbooks were fully passed out to everyone and I sat there wondering if I could gather up the gusto to ask her. In the meanwhile, the teacher told us to get signing. I went about the class, shyly asking for various signatures from several people to fill my book. I went down the list, making sure to get everyone before asking for hers. When I was about to ask her, her friend came up to me and said Kimberly wanted to see me. I was confused as to why she would she would want to see me, kind of insecurely, I hobbled my way over to her. When I got to her, she asked for my book. I was bewildered at her request...my face went blank for a while as she waited my response. I silently handed her my book and she transferred hers to me as well.

I stood there silent with her book resting silently in my hands. I curled my hands around it and opened it with anticipation. I flipped through the glossy pages, looking for a good place for me to sign. When I failed to find a place to sign, I just went for the place that everyone else signed and simply wrote my name as I had been trained during the year: O'Boyle, Riley. Not much of a signature in my opinion, but I did it all the same. I closed the book, and handed it back to her. Gave mine back as well and with much gusto, I opened mine to view what she had written. I got to the page, and found her handwriting instantly. Over the glossy smooth pages of my book, she had written her name surrounded by small cute hearts bright neon blue and a border of zig-zag pattern in the same color. It was beautiful, a nice signature, compared to my sad excuse of a signature. When I saw her reaction to mine, my heart filled with resentment and regret for what I had written. She looked upon it and frowned, eyes filled with disappointment as her friends said in mocking voices "O'Boyle, Riley...oooooooooooo! Heeeheee!!"

Then came the day where we cleaned out our desks. I went through my stuff, thinking about the past year and all of the events that had I had been through. Then Kimberly offered some of her old possessions to me that to others would appear as nothing more than garbage, but to me was everything. She was surprised not just at the fact that I wanted the stuff, but just at how much enthusiasm I put into taking the stuff for my own. She looked at the stuff as nothing at all, except feed for the small bacteria and flies that resided in the garbage dumps. I looked at it as the greatest thing in this universe, nothing less. She was a bit freaked out that I wanted that stuff, but all the same, gave it to me.

Then came the last day of school. It was a dark day for me. It would be the last day I would see Kimberly for three long months. And yet, I still went to school with alacrity in my step. When I got there, everyone immediately prepared for the closing ceremony where we would all become something in this world of being nothing. We walked down the hall toward the gym. We walked down that hall for the last time as elementary students. The halls were filled to the brim with virtually every other student in the building all holding their hand out to give us a congratulatory hi-five. I had been forced to be one of the little kids for the past five years of my life and now, I would be the big kid walking down that hallway for the last time. It was an awesome sight, all of everything was staring me in the face, forcing me to become something I wasn't for the whole year. I had to be something. I remembered walking down this hall as a hopeless fourth grader who thought he was nothing. I remembered the emptiness that filled my heart as I walked to the door that marked my death. And as I went down the hallway, life seemed worth living...I felt I was finally something.

After the ceremony, I went outside to chat with my classmates for the last time until the next year, and some of these classmates would be moving and would be never again see me again. I saw Kimberly and her parents. I looked at them as my heart welled up in my chest, looking at how happy they seemed, my parents didn't show, and all my friends' parents showed as well, I was alone. I sat out there for the last time, looking at the playground for the last time, the school for the last time, my friends for the last time, then I looked at Kimberly for the last time...the last time as an elementary student...the last time as nothing. From now on, I would see the world as something.

That summer, I did better than I expected from not seeing Kimberly. I actually had fun over the summer. I was able to provide alternatives to myself, I was able to provide movies. That's when my passion for movies really began. Maybe she inspired me to do some of it, maybe I did it all on my own, but either way, I had a good summer. Until the last day of it, the last day of my 7th summer. That day, I would see Kimberly again.

On that day, I was told was the day of orientation. Where all the new students would learn all about middle school and all its "wonders." I had been told that it ran from 8:00 am to 12:40 pm. I thought anyone could casually show up whenever between said times. I was wrong. Everyone showed up and was divided into groups at 8 am. I didn't. I showed up instead at 10 am. That meant that I would be thrown into a random group, any group that had a space open for me. This group wasn't just any group, it was different. I didn't know that it was different until it was too late.

On that last day of summer, I knew about the orientation. I knew when it was, but I didn't know that I had to be there from beginning to end. I walked over to my new school, wondering who I would see, what I would learn about, what would occur there that hadn't occurred at my previous school. I got to the entrance of the gym and was surprised to see that it was empty. Staring in amazement at its enormity. It was bigger, shinier, and all around better than my other gym. I saw a short, strict-looking woman talking to a tall man and pointing to various details on her clipboard. I walked up to her and asked why this enormous gym was empty. She said that the orientation in the gym had taken place two hours ago. My stomach churned. I had no idea that I had to be there from beginning to end. She stood there gawking at my ignorance. Then she speedily ushered me through the never ending halls of the school. I was lost, none of it was familiar to me. It all seemed so alien and none of any of the halls seemed to connect or work together. It just felt like I was wandering through a maze of wonderment, in sheer awe.

Finally, we reached a classroom and we stopped. She rapped on the door a few times, waited, then opened it at the sound of a meek voice welcoming us in. I walked in, expecting to see a group of about ten complete strangers and maybe a person I knew from my other school. Instead, I saw about nine complete strangers...and Kimberly all staring at me.

My stomach made another leap into my throat. Not only was I in a room filled with complete strangers, I was in the room filled with complete strangers and Kimberly. I instantly blushed, looked down and walked over to the circle, where everyone made a little space for me. Once the woman that brought me here saw that I was seated with the rest of the group, she sort of told my name to the group, then left in a hurry with a sort of annoyed look on her face. Now, here I was in a room with one senior student, nine new students, myself, and Kimberly. After a sort of awkward silence and a sort of irritated look, the senior student had me introduce myself to the rest of the group again. I did so in a quick manner and we moved on with the activity. We were required to accomplish tasks that, without teamwork, were impossible. Kimberly avoided me in every way possible. She wouldn't pass the ball to me, she wouldn't say my name, she wouldn't even look at me. I attempted to pay attention to her, but she showed no acknowledgement to me whatsoever.

After about two hours of this, we were given a short tour of the school. I still was in amazement at the enormity of this amazing school, still finding new ways to entertain myself my simply looking at anything before me. The tour led us to lunch where I was sort of taken from my group to another...by Keanu.

I was so relived to actually see a familiar face, I could have hugged him, but, I held it back because if I had done that, it would have created an unneeded awkward silence...a really unneeded awkward silence. Though I didn't hug him, nor did I really want to for that matter, I gave him a big smile in response to his daring rescue from my group. He had me relate the story back to him as to what just happened. I told him in full about exactly what happened...then he cut me off and told me to just sum it up. I did so, and he offered his sympathy, and a bit of teasing with it. I finished the story with a relived sigh and welcomed the end of the orientation. Keanu said otherwise. He said that the orientation wasn't to end for two more hours and that I would have to go back with Kimberly's group. My stomach made a third leap into my throat. I didn't want to go back. I gave a brief argument, then I gave in. five minutes later, after lunch, we went to the orientation closing assembly. Turns out I was right after all. Though, there was something I didn't know...school started the next day!

I let out a groan of dismay after having this horrible news confirmed. It took a while, but eventually I accepted that fact and moved on, preparing for the next day...though as was true with the year before, I could have never properly prepared for the events that would follow the upcoming year.

The first day, I woke up in the morning to that same old alarm clock that I hadn't used for three months. I seemed to have an unusual lump of confidence welling up in my mind. It felt as though I could go to this new school without any problems, any worries, anything. I was right, but going to a new school with nothing isn't the best plan. Sure, I had all my school supplies and such, but I brought no courage, no gumption, nothing. Yet again I felt as if I was but a speck in the center of a vast galaxy of existence. I did it anyway.

I neared the front doors of the school for the first time in my life. They seemed to be staring at me because I was a new kid. I had never really been much of a new kid, nor was this as extreme as other new kids had to go through, but I was nervous all the same. Once again I was faced with another door that would seal my fate. Only this time I didn't stare into the wood-looking metal of these doors, these doors were almost all made of glass, there was nothing to stare at. I saw inside, and instantly, I simply swung these doors in towards me and made my way into my new life.

Inside the building, the first thing I saw was a large window in front of me showing the inhabitants of the hustle and bustle in the room below. To my left was yet another large window, only this one held few people, if any. To my left was a series of smaller windows showing the activities of the library. And right in the center of it all was the same woman that had shown me to the class during the orientation. She was holding a clipboard and was pointing new kids in the direction of their classes. All the while, there were several people coming and going constantly, and I was alone. No one I knew was among the crowds. I was lost, confused, and sort of standing there, doing nothing at all.

After a few minutes of this, I finally found someone I knew. He told me to go ask the lady where my classroom was. I did so. Though, I didn't really want to, I had to. I followed her directions down the hall to my class. In front of the door, I heaved a great sigh, opened it, and went inside to meet my fate.

I was greeted by no one. Few people were there, and I knew none. The teacher was at her desk, working at a computer. She was a woman, seemed somewhat friendly, nothing seemed that bad about her, but she was a middle school teacher, something must be wrong with her. For the duration of the next ten minutes, the few early birds waited for the others to show. I was seated at my desk, and for some reason, I kept expecting Kimberly every time I heard the door open. She never came.

When the bell rang, and everyone was settled, we heard the announcements over the intercom, nothing new here. Next, the teacher took role, still nothing new here, save all the new, unfamiliar faces. Next we went over regulations and such...then lockers. I was fascinated by lockers my whole life and was quite excited to finally have a real one that actually locked. It took me a while, but I figured it out.

Finally, we were given our schedule. Throughout the day, I went to my various classes, expecting to find Kimberly in each one. After my first class was math, no Kimberly. Then P.E. I saw an abnormally large crowd for PE, but I managed to find Keanu, though I couldn't talk to him. I did find Kimberly, but merely a glance, that's all. Next was computers, no Kimberly. Next was lunch, all 6th graders attended.

At lunch, I met up with all my old classmates that had so mercilessly teased me in 5th grade. All of them greeted me with the same question: "Do you still like Kimberly?" One of them was Kimberly herself I think. I answered them all with the same basic answer of "Why do you want to know?" That blew them off, for the day.

My lunch lasted well into 5th period. I came into fifth period, halfway through, with my friend Josh. We had been buddies for some while now, and we both had the same 5th and 6th period classes. When I walked into the room, I saw friendlier faces than my previous classes. One I recognized as an old friend from years past, though now we weren't much of friends, though we still knew each other from years past. Another that I noticed was a girl from my 5th grade class (who shortly after class started, asked about Kimberly). Someone who I noticed first was this one girl who somehow stood out from the crowd. I simply saw her as stunning, beautiful, and appeared to be the kind of person who would never pay attention to me, ever, but still seemed unusually nice somehow.

Turned out that my sixth period class was the exact same as my fifth period class, no change whatsoever. So, I found out that I had one class with Kimberly, PE. The sad thing is, that even though we had the same class, we had different teachers so we hardly saw each other, save the days when the classes got together.

I lived out my days like this. My first two classes were filled with complete strangers that I never took the time to get to know. PE was simply hard, except for the days when I saw Kimberly. Computers was easy, but I made few friends there. And LA and SS (my 5th and 6th classes) had to be the best ones out of my whole day. That girl that I saw that stuck out of the crowd turned out to be one of the best friends I would ever have. Her name was Grace N*****. The second day of school, I was to sit between her and Tracey, the girl from 5th grade. At first I thought nothing of it, but when I got to know her, she turned out to be the coolest girl I knew at the time, and was also one of the few girls I was friends with at the time. She was also the best writer I knew, everything she wrote was beautiful in its own way, no matter what she wrote about. She seemed to be perfect in most, if not all ways. Everything she could do, for some reason I got the drive to do better, I always felt I needed to beat her, outdo her, make her inferior. I never did, she was just too good. She could write better than me, was nicer than me, got better grades than me, could read faster than me, everything better than me. Few times did I actually succeed in defeating her, but I never gave up.

One day, I finally did something that impressed her for the first time...I made a movie. Though, the movie wasn't the best idea because the movie was titled "Twig Hunter." After watching the movie, she kept calling me Twiggy, and every time she said it, I would laugh hysterically for some reason. I would always try to resist it, but never could, and she took advantage of that.

Another day, I was outside after lunch, talking with Keanu about our extension to Twig Hunter. All of a sudden, a large boy, who appeared to be an 8th grader, came outside carrying a girl who seemed familiar...the girl was Kimberly! I was curious why this big 8th grader was at our lunch, how he knew Kimberly, and why he was dragging her around while yelling to the crowd. He was yelling, and at first I couldn't hear what he said, but it eventually became more clear, he said: "What boy here has a crush on this girl?!?" I slowly approached, then second guessed myself and stepped backwards. After some encouraging words that I muttered to myself, I approached him at full height, and said: "I do, but why must you know?" He told me that she liked me back. I was in shock, so I turned around, (ignoring her pleas to let her free, and the fact that she was saying that the boy was a liar and she did not like me) and I pondered this. Keanu kept telling me to go up to her and say something, but I just kept saying I must ponder the matter. He kept threatening me to stop, but I never folded. Eventually the bell rang and everyone went back to class. On the way back, I asked Keanu if he thought she really liked me, he said yes.

I was confused and didn't know who to believe. I found it highly unlikely that she liked me, so I just ignored it completely. She still controlled my mind, all my thought was ruled by her. Then I figured that I should stop liking her...I tried in vain. Nothing ever worked, I could not find anyone or anything to refocus my mind with. I eventually grew extremely tired of this, and went to more desperate measures. I tried to like Grace. I managed to like her a little bit, but unfortunately I still liked Kimberly more. Simple as that. Kimberly had grown far too loved in my mind to get rid of her now, I was trapped by my own emotions.

Next semester came, and I got new classes. I got reading with Keanu in third period, and basically my same old PE class for fourth. So, I still saw Kimberly daily at PE, but nothing more, nothing less. Nothing interesting happened that semester.

The next semester, everything changed. I didn't have her in PE with me anymore, but instead, I had two classes with her. The first replaced my third period class, and became choir. On the first day of choir, I was headed over to my class and I caught a glance of Kimberly, and I was wondering what her new class could be. I kept walking at a steady, and constant speed without making any sort of fidget or flinch. Then I arrived at my classroom, and just as I was about to enter, I saw that everyone was lined up outside the class. I too followed suit. I took a few quick backward steps until I was even with everyone else. Down the line, I tried to make out familiar faces. I saw Grace, and thought, "oh great, I have to be in the same class as the twiggy girl." even though I was secretly relieved to see her there.

Down the line of students, I kept on looking. No one else seemed familiar, until I found her. She was standing there, holding her binder and giggling with her friends about who knows what. My heart turned to iron, cold, hard, emotionless iron. My stomach attempted a leap into my throat, but my heart shot passed it through my esophagus and almost into my mouth, but it stopped and left me tongue-tied. Mind racing and heart making heavy metal booms in my chest with every exhale I made, I noticed everyone was going into the classroom, so I shoved my heart back down to where it was supposed to be and I followed everyone inside.

When we got into the classroom, our teacher told everyone to find a seat anywhere. I found one next to my...acquaintance named Austin. I didn't really want to sit by him, but I had no choice, and he was the only familiar face that wasn't a girl. After a few minutes, we all were seated comfortably, the teacher barked out orders as calmly as her strict voice would allow and we all stood up and moved to the back of the room. She began pointing to chairs and stating aloud names, then the person with the corresponding name would go sit there. She went through almost all the rows and neither I nor Kimberly, nor Grace had been called yet. When the teacher got to the last row, she said, "Grace N*****" I was relived that she had her seat, but there were few seats left and the anticipation was killing me...then the teacher said "Riley O'Boyle" I responded with a sort of awkward step toward my seat, then I walked quietly and sat down. I was sitting next to Grace, now I would have three classes where she could call me "twiggy" I was sort of disappointed, I had to sit next to her. I would be laughing too much, all alone next to her and all. All that changed when the teacher pointed to the seat next to me and barked out "Kimberly P*****."

I was sitting in-between Grace and Kimberly. I was in utter shock. I was stuck, for the rest of the year...sitting in-between these two girls. Cursed every morning to go to the choir room in third period every day to sit next to Grace N***** and Kimberly P*****. I felt such a strange emotion at that moment that all I could do was give a grin and let out a sarcastic comment under my breath. I was relived, disappointed, confused, happy, depressed and just about everything else at that very moment. I knew that I had no friends in this class, I hardly knew anyone, save Grace and Kimberly. And I was stuck in-between them. Doomed to be called Twiggy and sit next to the girl that I couldn't stop thinking about...I had no idea what was going to happen.

After that first day in choir was over, I went to my next class, Art. The bell rang in the room and we all got up to leave. I went over to the cubby and grabbed my binder while thinking that I was only experiencing the beginning of my horrendous fate. I left the choir room and began my nervous trod toward my next classroom. About halfway there, I noticed Kimberly yet again and I wondered how funny it would be if she had art too. I kept walking, and so did she...we were both going in the same direction. I started to get nervous, but kept reassuring myself that she must just be going this way to get upstairs. Then we passed the stairwell. My heart and stomach made a simultaneous leap into my head and tried to figure out what was going on. This gave me a bad headache, but I kept trudging on, after all, there was another set of stairs by the art room. When we arrived at the art room, my whole body almost collapsed when I saw Kimberly go inside. I had two classes with her. Every morning I would see her for two whole hours in a row. I didn't know what to do.

Inside the classroom, I sat down at the closest seat to the door. Once there, I noticed Kimberly sitting across from me. All my organs about turned to lead, and then they all lit on fire, burned up and left me for dead. I reluctantly stayed seated. I noticed that my teacher was the same one I had for Language Arts and Social Studies. She must be substituting I thought. I was right, she was substituting, and she had a crazy plan for what we would do for that day.

One of the activities was one where you had to say something you've never done that you think everyone else has done, if you've done the thing someone said, you're out. We started going around the table and various people said various things, some were out, others weren't. It was my turn. After some thinking, I said that I've never been to Asia. Kimberly was out. In that instant, I learned something about Kimberly. It went around the table again, then it was my turn again. I sat there for a while, repeatedly saying "Umm, umm, umm" over and over. Then one of the girls said to hurry up, another shot back with another reply: Shut up! He's the only guy at this table, leave him alone!!!" at that remark, I came to the cold hard truth, I was the only boy at a table of at least 14 girls! My mind was filled with dread and I could think even less clearly...I kept chanting my umm chant for a while, not able to think about anything except all the girl staring me down. Under this intense pressure, especially from Kimberly I simply blurted out "I've never...eaten...p-paint" along with a large, goofy smile. At that remark, they all gave me angry glares and one expressed their full opinion of my statement aloud with a simple "eww." Even Kimberly gave me that glance of sheer disappointment and discomfort at my remark. I was extremely embarrassed.

The next activity was simply to look down, look up at someone at the signal, and if they were looking at you too, you both were out. It was pretty simple, I looked down, looked at some girl, I was still in. I looked at another girl, I was still in. I looked at Kimberly while thinking that she would never look at stupid old me...she looked at me. Though I lost at the game, I got a split second of staring into her beautiful eyes as they stared back at me...I was in a daze for a while afterwards, and wondering why she would look at me of all the people at the table, but I was still happy. Then that ended, I went to lunch and unraveled my story to Keanu several times, and several times after that for several days...in other words, I wouldn't shut up about this wonderful phenomena for several days to come.

One day, in choir, Kimberly had a conversation with me that consisted of more than two brief words. I came into the classroom as usual and sat in my spot between Kimberly and Grace. Grace wasn't there, nor was any of Kimberly's friends. She looked over at me and said my name a few times. I slowly tilted my head to the sound of my name, and responded with the standard-issue "what?" She went quiet for a bit, then slowly stuttered out the question, "Do you...do you still like me?" I stiffened and felt a tingle go down my neck. I didn't answer with a yes. Instead, I asked if she liked me. She quietly said "as a friend." I was probably blushing deeply, seeing that my face was growing warmer and warmer with each passing second. I inaudibly said that I liked her as a friend as well...she didn't hear me, but the teacher told us to stop talking.

The end of the year was approaching. There was a field trip to a skating rink we took. Kimberly went too. The bus ride was excruciatingly boring. Almost painful...the whole bus was filled to the brim of sing-happy girls. There were literally only three boys: me, Josh, and Austin. All we did was sit there, listening to at least two hundred girls sing...Kimberly wasn't even one of them. When we got there, I was able to meet up with Keanu from the other bus and we got in line to get skates. I got a ticket, and turned it in to get a pair of training skates, I got blades instead. So, I gave my blades back for a pair of skates, turns out, you didn't need to buy a ticket unless you wanted blades. I was going to kill Keanu, I spent two of my ten dollars on a ticket I wasn't going to use, and I was too lazy to get a refund. So, I didn't, then I got my skates on. Keanu told me that this was Kimberly's first time skating as well as mine, and she was riding on blades. He just kept on persistently nagging me into getting blades, because, apparently, the skates were nerdy. I didn't care, all I wanted to do was learn how to skate. So Keanu, Joey, Oliver, and some other friend of mine all helped me learn to skate. I had no balance whatsoever, so falling was all too common for me. Eventually, after all my bruises stopped hurting and I got the hang of it, Keanu got me some blades. I put them on, and when I did, I felt much happier. Though it took a bit of getting used to, I got used to them and began skating quite well actually. I got to the point where I could skate confidently while Kimberly had been sitting in the same place she had the whole time, gained no skill whatsoever. The one time I tried to impress her, I saw her looking at me, so I made a dash in one direction with all of my skill and almost lost my balance, while softly muttering to myself the words "smooth move O'Boyle."

Later that day, still at the skating rink, I was sitting down and resting. Kimberly and a friend of hers come over and the friend asks if I'm the fabled Riley who likes her. I said yeah, I like her. He said she liked me back, she started giggling while hitting her friend and shouting that the friend was a liar. I gave no attention to the matter, and I sped off from the both of them. Nothing more significant happened at the roller rink, save the fact I learned to skate quite well on roller blades. As soon as I perfected it, it was time to go. How unfortunate for me, right?

When I got home, I realized that the yearbooks were coming up, so I began thinking about signing Kimberly's book. I practiced my signature dozens of times and prepared a letter to write to her in the book. I filled a whole page with my different signatures, all alike and different, some better than others, some worse. The day finally came where the yearbooks were passed out. I got mine and got signatures from my various classmates, impatiently awaiting third period, choir. Finally after three long, painful, and slow hours it came. When there, we noticed that in the class the TV was showing the soccer world cup. So as the game was being played out, we were just all hanging out and signing yearbooks. I brought mine over to several people, Kimberly was ignoring me. I got several signatures, but still no Kimberly. I sat staring off into space next to her and her friends with no avail. It almost seemed as if there was a bubble blocking me out from the rest of the group. Eventually, she noticed me, and I noticed she had no book for me to sign, I was devastated. I had been perfecting my signature for days and was put to a point of extreme depression after finding this out. She and her friends still signed, but this time, she showed no sign that she liked me at all, unlike last time where she included hearts. After the signing, I simply sat, and wondered what happened, why she had no book, I didn't know what to do anymore, so I sat, just sat.

Next period was Art. I got the signatures from everyone there. Kimberly paid no attention to me at all yet again. At the end of the period, when the last bell for art class rang, I was about to wish her a good summer when she left. I was then deprived of her for the next 70 days. Each day was worse than the last. I couldn't think straight, nothing was clear. Everything was blurred by thoughts of her. I was losing sanity and was spiraling downward. I was slowly falling in love with her. All I could do was hope that on that first day, I could do something great to win her heart...I never did that.

That morning, my 8th last day of summer, it didn't have the same feeling of the other two. I got up out of bed, like I did all last year. Showered, just like last year. Ate breakfast, just like last year. I was still unused to it from being deprived of that responsibility for over 70 days. The only other significant thing about it was that I would see Kimberly. I would get to see her.

On my way to school, everything seemed the same. My walk to the building was the same as it had been. Once I left the door of my house, some internal drive that had been programmed into my head just kicked in and I walked almost mechanically. With my normal stride, my backpack full of stuff, and the deep, powerful need to see her, I walked myself to school. I walked for two reasons, and two reasons only. One, to see the one person that had somehow forced herself into my mind. Two, George Bush's "no child is left behind" program, in other words...the law.

I opened up the doors, though, it was much easier than it had been the first time, an exact year ago. I walked in to see the usual library to my left, the commons in front, and the gym to my right. And I saw the usual lady with the clipboard in the middle of it all. I saw no Kimberly. I approached the clipboard lady with some caution in my step to ask her where my first class was. She was busy helping another lost student, and paid no mind to me. Growing impatient, I waited and waited. Finally, the student was off to her class and I went over to get my class. I got the "new guy" Mr. B****** on the lower floor of the building. Last year I had been on the upper floor, I was unaccustomed to the lower floor, but last year Kimberly was on the downstairs floor, so I both expected and dreaded seeing her in my class. On my way to the classroom, I was thinking about what I might say to her if she was there. Would I blush? Would I faint? No, I would fly in like Tarzan and...never mind, I would just casually enter.

Once again, I was faced with the anticipation of opening the door for the first time, only this time, the door was already held open by a small, but thick piece of wood at its edge. I walked in to see the room. My teacher seemed young, a newbie. The class consisted of mostly girls, and few boys. My arrival was a blessing for the boys, for they felt intimidated by the vast numbers of girls. I looked upon the faces of the girls, some were from my previous classes from last year, like Tracey, one of the girls who had called me "Twiggy." Other girls I had never seen, but there was no Kimberly, or Grace.

I arrived in the nick of time, as soon as I sat down, the bell rang. I heard the normal morning announcements that I had come to know from the previous year. My teacher seemed quite nervous as he introduced himself, but he did so in a professional manner. He took questions, we got to know him, and in the end, everyone felt comfortable with each other.

My next class was P.E. though I expected it, there was no sign of Kimberly whatsoever. Next I left the dreaded gym to Spanish class. I went up the stairs, not knowing what to expect. I had taken Japanese class before, but Spanish was completely new to me. As I approached the classroom, I saw her.

I saw her for the first time after 70 long, agonizing days. I saw her with new eyes. Nothing mattered for that moment of time that I saw her. It was all her. She was nothing less than an angel, simply beautiful in every respect. I couldn't describe with simple words as to what she looked like after that summer. To anyone else she looked the same as she did every day. To me, she was more beautiful than anything I had ever seen in my life. Nothing could be compared to my feeling of love at that moment, nothing but the word, Kimberly.

After that split second, she was off. I was incredibly disappointed that she didn't have Spanish. Though, Keanu was. I was happy about that. Spanish class went rather smoothly and I was able to continue with my day to lunch. At lunch I tried to look for Kimberly, to no avail. I didn't see her anymore that day, but that split second was more than I could bear. It was all I needed.

I found, much to my dismay, I had no classes with Kimberly at all. I did however have one with Keanu, just as we had hoped. After that first day, I could call myself a seventh grader. I could also call myself something I had wanted to call myself for 12 years, I could call myself a teenager. I was very happy that I was 13, that I could be accepted as a teenager.

The next day, at the first assembly of the year, I saw her sitting near our class. One of her friends sitting near her said that Kimberly wanted to know if I still liked her. My brain turned to mush and flooded all other thought. I could no longer think straight. So, I simply said that I would think about it. She seemed okay with it, so I was okay with it.

Days passed, she started taking a different route to her next class, so I never saw her anymore except at lunch. I never answered her. I never said if I liked her or not, though I'm sure she guessed I liked her, I still said nothing. I was impatiently expecting her to ask again, but she asked nothing, she said nothing, and we both moved on with our daily lives.

As the days went by, I finally realized that I loved her. I was in love for the first time in my life. I was actually in love! The joy it brought me was indescribable. I thought of nothing but my love for her. It was unreal. I had heard of people falling in love, but I never knew exactly why they liked it so much. It was then I understood, I knew why love was thought of as the strongest emotion in the world. It brought people together, it saved nations, it brought joy to all hearts. I simply loved love.

To get to her, I decided that I would make friends with her friends, that way, I could get them on my side, then they could convince Kimberly to like me back. I never really made friends with any of them, but I was able to become acquaintances of one in particular. His name was Cody R****.

Every day, I saw Kimberly talking to this Cody. He seemed to be Kimberly's closest buddy, and quite frankly, I was pleased to be acquainted to him. If I knew him, I could get near Kimberly without any problems. She would talk to me just like she talked to him. Then, she would fall in love with me and we would live happily ever after. One problem with all that...I wasn't living a fairy-tale, I was living life.

While I was living life, I had to face facts. I was in love with a girl, I needed to do something about it. What I was going to do, I didn't know. All I knew to do was to befriend people like Cody who were near to her because getting near her by myself wasn't going to happen, she was constantly avoiding me. Her friends were the only way I could get even remotely near her. There were a few instances where Keanu was talking to Cody who was talking to Kimberly. In a sense, I was talking to her. Though, as I said before, this happened only rarely, but it still happened...that was enough for me.

I was attempting to achieve the unachievable. I knew quite well she didn't like me. Though, how and why I kept going, I don't understand. I just kept hope alive. Like a small ember in a raging thunderstorm, small pellets of icy rainwater splattering against my futile attempts at bringing up this ember's full potential. It was a hopeless situation, nothing I did would ignite the flame in the middle of all the cold, harsh rain flinging all its strength at my defeat. By trying to woo Kimberly, I may as well have been trying to light a fire at the deepest depths of the ocean...it was hopeless, I knew it, but I kept hope somehow, I kept that little ember alive whether I wanted to or not.

I eventually reached a point where I realized that I had two sides to myself: the romantic, and the...non-romantic. The romantic side wanted so dearly to be with Kimberly, he was willing to do anything to win her heart. The non-romantic side didn't really care, he just wanted to live life, be the old Riley again, the romantic one wouldn't allow that to happen, it was attempting to turn me into a maniac, a maniac that knew nothing but of Kimberly. The two sides switched out often and the result wasn't always the desired one.

There was one day in particular where the romantic side did something that changed my whole perspective on this whole situation. Jingle grams were for sale. All I needed to send one to her was fifty cents and the name of her first period teacher. I had both of those. There was one problem that posed itself in front of me...I needed the guts to do it.

This was no simple task. Well, I guess it was a simple one, but I didn't have the nerve to do anything about it. Every day, I would see them for sale, and I told myself to do something. I never did anything. Then one night, I grabbed a bulging handful of quarters and jammed them into my small wallet for safe keeping. The next afternoon, I ate my lunch in a quick manner knowing well I had to do it quick to turn it in as soon as possible before I changed my mind. I finished the last bit of my lunch with a bit of pizza sticking out of my mouth as I approached the shop. I reached my destination and gulped down the last bit of crust still bulging out of my mouth. I asked for about six notes or so and handed the thick wad of coins over to the cashier. I was handed back a dozen or so small red and green pieces of paper with several insignias of to and from decorated on them. I filled out all but one to my friends and was unsure if I should address the last one to Kimberly or not. Several more people who I had not addressed it to were around me pressuring me into giving it to them, I refused. I talked it over with Keanu who told me to address it to her, I agreed.

As I began writing her name on that last one, more people started showing up as to purposefully pressure me into making a mistake. Everything seemed to start closing in around me. I had one extra nosy friend trying to find out who I was addressing it to. He knew nothing of Kimberly. I kept trying to position myself to block his view because I knew if he saw the name, he would read it aloud and all would be lost. There would be no surprise for Kimberly, my futile attempt would be lost, everything would be in vain. I couldn't let anyone read it.

My friend just kept on persisting that he see it. I continued to refuse and re-adjust myself so he could not see it. I finally wrote the name and address, just then, the bell rang. I couldn't go to class, the next day was the last day I could turn it in, so I decided to use my time wisely, then the romantic Riley took over.

He wrote a love note on the back of the small piece of paper addressed to her. I could not stop him. The day dragged on, every free chance he got, the Riley would add a bit more here, take some away there. He wanted nothing less than perfection. Nothing would be fit for her, save a letter written by the holiest of angels. I could not muster up this power, but I could try. I tried and tried to stop this obsession, I failed with each stroke of my pencil. With every fall of my hand, the paper got a little closer to satisfaction, when that time came, the romantic Riley would turn it in and she would read it. One of two things would happen, either all would be lost, or I would get her. Then, the strangest of things happened...I got control back.

I simply took one look at the letter, and I wanted to get rid of it. I never wanted anyone to read it. I wanted it to be torn up and thrown away. But some strange instinct told me to not. It told me to keep it there, it needed to stay there. So, unable to muster up the courage to destroy this atrocity, I threw it into my binder and zipped it up, then put it away in my backpack and zipped that up. I wouldn't allow myself to destroy my chance at her.

The next day came with all speed. The night just seemed to disappear, I just woke up, and for a few split seconds, I forgot about everything. For those few seconds, I was free of her grasp, I felt nothing for her. Then I saw my zipped up backpack. When I laid my eyes upon it, everything flooded faster and faster into my mind. I remembered everything all at once, my plan, my history, my love. I knew what I would do today, and I knew what sort of consequences of this action. I knew it couldn't be stopped. I also knew that I could always just unzip my backpack, and just tear it up. All I could say to sum up my misery was with one word, one simple sentence that I had come to know all too well...why her? Then, the strangest of things happened yet again.

I took my usual shower and got dressed in my boring old school clothes as usual. I thought to myself as I looked into the mirror, that I seriously needed some cooler clothes. I thought I was a total nerd, how would Kimberly ever want to go out with a guy like me? I know that I wouldn't if I was in her position, but I kept up hope anyway. I unfrizzed my hair, washed my face, cleaned my ears, brushed my teeth, ruffled up my shirt, sagged my pants a bit, and gave myself a big smile, not really knowing what to expect for the upcoming day.

I went downstairs to meet the strangest phenomena ever. School was cancelled for the day. This hit me like a train. I didn't know if I should have been happy or devastated. After all that hard work on the letter the previous night, the last day that I was allowed to turn in the jingle gram was over. She would never get to read it, and I sure would never be able to gather up the courage to write another. In a state between heavy depression and utter joy, I simply stared into my mom's eyes, asking her again if she was telling the truth. I didn't need to. She told me to look outside my window. I did, and what I saw was unbelievable. Just outside my window where two large pine trees once stood, there was now the most beautiful view. The two trees that I had grown up seeing out my window were awkwardly sprawled across the ground, just a few feet from my house. If the wind had blown any harder, they could have knocked a hole in my window. But instead, I now had a beautiful view of the surrounding area, and a clear view of my neighbor's artificial stream they had just set up. I needed no second bidding, there was no school that day, and Kimberly would never read my letter.

I went into confusion again. So, I simply made the most of it. I spent the day playing video games and whatnot. I was however, able to look at the note one last time, and give it some real thought as to whether I wanted to go through with this, I did. I would find some way to deliver the note. No matter what it took, I would do it, I would deliver the note that bore my love, I would let her read its words...I would follow through with my plan, and I wouldn't let me get in the way of it.

The weekend trudged on slower than any weekend I could remember experiencing. Fortunately, I was able to distract myself somewhat using modern technologies such as movies, and the so called new age "family time" that was able to keep my mind off of things. School ran normally on Monday, though some people were hesitant since they still had no power (from the storm that got school cancelled). My day was running somewhat normally. Then I remembered it. I remembered the duty I placed upon myself to turn in the jingle grams. I made myself a promise that Kimberly would read the note. I made that promise, and I wasn't about to break it.

I went down stairs to put all my binder stuff away in my locker, while thinking about what may happen, what she would think of me. There was no limit to how many responses she could have had. Nothing, nothing made sense, and yet nothing didn't make sense. I had that strange feeling, anything could happen. And anything did happen.

I reached my locker and just as I was about to close it, it hit me! I forgot the notes in my binder! Though I knew I probably wouldn't get to turn them in, I still carefully removed them from the thin zippered pocket from my binder and placed them into my pocket for safe keeping.

Turning out of my hall, I faced the student store, where I was to turn in my letters. The person in charge was fiddling around with something in the register and I asked if I could turn in my grams. She gave me a warm friendly smile replied with a yes and I offered her the grams. She took them and placed them on a pile with the rest of the grams people had turned in. There were still people walking to and from the desk, turning in their small slips of red and green paper. I just stood among the crowd for a bit, seeing people coming and going in a sort of rushed manner. I was staring past all of them. I was staring at her. I knew what I had done would have consequences, good or bad. If I took nothing else from 5th grade, I took the knowledge of timing is everything, and you must always face the consequence of all of my choices in life, nothing more, nothing less, just the consequence.

I headed toward my table and sat down with my buddies. On my way over, they beckoned me to sit down. I was too distracted by my courageous act to notice. Too clouded by obsession to notice anything. I was wishing I could turn back and maybe not turn the note in...no, no I wouldn't be a coward. I would face the consequence of what I had just done, whether it was good or bad. Nothing would phase me, I would face her response head on. I wouldn't live life weighed down by regret, I would embrace my punishment or reward, whatever it may or may not be.

A day passed, and the grams were delivered. I knew what was to come, but I didn't want to trust myself. I wanted to know that I would win. That all my efforts would go rewarded. I could live out my days knowing all the hard workers of the world would get what they wanted. I didn't care if it went against anyone's moral beliefs, I wanted to get what I wanted. But as most people have to learn in life, that doesn't happen.

The morning everyone got their jingle grams, I rushed to school in an impatient, but slow trod. About halfway there, I stopped in front of the school and paused briefly. Knowing what was to come would have been the end for me, so I thought the best, crossed my fingers, and went inside.

The day went by slowly, but I was able to distract myself from all going on around me. There was going to be one last assembly before winter break, and that would be the end of the day.

I knew she would get the gram in the morning as all people did. But I heard nothing from her or anyone else in contact with her. This gnawed at the back of my mind, and I just tried to filter it out. This was easier said than done, trust me.

I got to third period and found a dark, empty room with a sign hanging on the door saying to go to the library. Surprised, and strangely relieved, I walked through the halls passing the office, to the library. Some of my classmates were already on their way there, and I talked to them on the way.

We all grouped around tables and waited for the bell to ring. After the bell rung, our teacher gave us a research assignment. I expected nothing less from a trip to the library, but made no comment on the situation. When she said go, there was a frantic dash toward the flat screen computers that everyone loved so much. Keanu and I made a quick, but effective look at one another and grabbed one of the computers ahead of us. After a short while attempting to make heads or tails of the research questions, he stared at me in disbelief. I hadn't told him of my plan to give Kimberly the jingle gram. In a mixture of emotion, he asked me what I wrote, why I wrote it, and why he wasn't notified. I gave him a quick briefing while pretending to look like I was working so I didn't attract any unwanted attention from the teacher.

He kept on asking me for more details and kept saying I was being too general...I don't remember if I have yet said how much of a detail-oriented person Keanu is, and he needs to know all the details about everything. I refused to tell him more from the lack of actual memory I even had from it. In other words, I could barely remember what I wrote even if I wanted to. I can't even write down what I wrote now simply because I can't. However, I'm sure it had to do with something along the lines of me telling her I liked her and that I wanted to know what she thought of me as. When I asked the question about who I was to her, I wanted her to tell me if I was nerdy, popular, weird, unique, nice, etc. She misunderstood.

After a while getting him to calm down, I asked him what she said in turn. He said he didn't really see how she acted, just saw that she wasn't expecting it and she just hid her feelings about the whole thing. He promised he would ask Cody what she thought of it, because she told Cody everything. The bell rung shortly afterward, and we had accomplished next to nothing on the project, but we didn't really care because of all the recent happenings with Kimberly. I had a feeling something would happen, and based on what I had heard, there was hope she had some sort of feelings toward me.

Fourth period went by somewhat slow, forcing me to maintain my patience level. Minute after painstaking minute forced by. The usual droll of the teacher was the last thing on my mind, I could only think of Kimberly. I could only think of what she thought of me. I could only think of her smile, her hair, everything about her was all I could think of. And most of all, all I could think of was her reaction to the note.

Finally it was fifth period. This was the time for the end of the day assembly, I could focus on something else, get my mind off of Kimberly for a bit. Hopefully, things would go as I planned, and I could get a move on with my life, with or without her.

On the way down to the assembly, I spotted a few other classes walking down to the gym as well. They had all the usual whispers and giggles they usually had while walking down the halls of our middle school. It was just like usual, no real order, just kids walking down the halls toward the gym and following the general route of the kids ahead of them. The teachers made no real attempt at anything towards the kids, silencing them here and there, but they couldn't silence the muted, but annoying chatter among the children.

Walking into the gym, I glanced back and forth among the crowd, looking for her. I found her.

She gave me a sad look, a look of uneasiness, a look of pity. I couldn't quite place what she was trying to tell me, but I knew it was good.

The assembly went in a uniform fashion. The kids sat down, they recited the pledge, then we listened to some speeches and forthcomings of various teachers to their students. All were welcoming the holidays, all welcomed them with open arms, embracing the cheer, enjoying the absent burdens, simply enjoying themselves for the first time that year, all free of work and possible assignments. It was simply the greatest thing.

Then an odd thing happened. Eight students were brought up to the middle of the gym for all to see, each unsure of why they were up there. I noticed Keanu among these eight faces. He seemed pumped to be up there, just living in the moment, in front of the hundreds of people.

The challenge was for them to put themselves into teams, upstairs and downstairs. Keanu and three others were upstairs, the other four, representing my floor, were downstairs. Each team was to all eat out of a bowl filled with an ice cream sundae, blindfolded, and to finish first. It seemed pointless and messy to me, but everyone else loved it.

They began, and it was crazy. Ice cream flew everywhere, people's faces were caked in the stuff. One side seemed to be besting the other, but I couldn't tell, as I was up above the crowd, at an awkward angle to the action. I glanced at my watch and saw that the challenge didn't have enough time to finish. In mid bite, the bell rung, and in a mass flood, everyone surged out the doors into the embrace of vacation.

In the mad scramble, I met up with Keanu. His face was caked with at least three layers of different flavored ice cream, and he yelled across something unintelligible, but I was able to hear the word Kimberly. That was enough for me. I rushed over to him, and asked, "What?" He repeated himself, "I have a note for you! It's from Kimberly! It's a reply to the note you wrote to her!" I asked where it was and why he couldn't give it to me. He replied by showing me his ice-creamed hands and I understood. He also said that they were in his pocket. Without thinking, I thrust my hand into his pocket, and attempted to fish out any possible piece of paper that might have served Kimberly as a place to write about her feelings toward the situation. I felt no paper, and the current of the crowd was tearing me away from him. He yelled some sort of gabble or other, and I screamed at the top of my lungs, "DAMN IT!"

Realizing he was gone among the crowd of people, I turned around and headed for my own locker. I was being run by pure adrenaline, nothing could stop me from getting that note. I would read it. If I didn't get it from him then, I wouldn't get it until the end of break...two weeks later.

Through the crowd, I couldn't make out any clear message of what anyone was saying, it was just a mass of yelling and shouts of joy. I slowly made progress to my locker, gathered up my belongings and headed back into the crowd to find Keanu.

I knew he would have to leave through the front door, so I headed up there to cut him off on his way out. I sat there for about 10 minutes, unsure of what to do. The halls were emptying, I was one of the few left at school. Panic and adrenaline were surging through my whole body. I didn't want to have any teachers ask me any questions, so I decided to look elsewhere. Then it hit me, last time I saw him, he was covered in ice cream! He would be in the bathroom.

I rushed downstairs to the boy's bathroom, and to my dismay, he was not there. Even more panic was going through my head, I decided to just calm down and think straight...then I remembered. Whenever Keanu came to my house, he always went to the band room to get his instrument. He was in the band room!

Running through the halls and passed all the stragglers from the previous end of day bell, I made my way to the band room. I found him there, going through his locker, collecting his things. Without anything else to do, I made a speedy, but controlled walk over to him. He knew why I was there. He knew I came for the note. He knew what would happen if I didn't get the note, and he understood my position.

He handed me the note. It was smaller than I expected, but I took it in my hands and carefully handled it into my pocket. He gave me a funny look, and said, "Read it." I gave a short protest, but understood why he wanted me to read it. I wanted to keep the suspense up as long as I could, but I knew I would have to read it sooner or later. Slowly, I opened its soft, smooth corners. Expecting the worst, I gazed into its lettering in disbelief. She had written me, a guy like me, a letter. I wrote it down here word for word, but even to this day, I can't understand why she would do something like this to me. Putting all my personal beliefs aside, I read it...

Dear Riley,

Yes, thank you for the Jingle Gram; it was such a big surprise! Not the jingle gram, but the note: See, to answer your question I think of you just as my friend. Not anything more than that! Yeah, I know you like me, but I really don't think this is going to work out. So I'm sorry for sounding kind of cruel, but yeah. I have a lot of guy-friends, but one of them is very special to me. His name is Cody R****, and he is really cool. I know this sounds weird, but if you like me, than why don't you just ask me out!? But I do remember that in 5th grade you told me you aren't allowed to date until 16, but yeah. So to make this sound more sweet and simple, I like you only as a friend, okay!

 , Kimberly P*****

Disoriented, I read the note over and over again, trying to make sense of it. I couldn't believe my eyes, I didn't want anything to be real, I wanted the world to stop spinning. That was what I wanted, that isn't what happened, I repeatedly looked over the note again and again and again. It was surreal in a way. All I had worked for, all I asked for, everything I thought about spat in my face. I looked for any possible good part about it, any hope at all. I was able to find one line in the note that kept my hopes up, "but if you like me, then why don't you just ask me out!?" She wanted me to ask her out, that was the only good thing I could find out of that whole note, the only thing.

Keanu asked me what I thought of it. He had already read the note, and knew what was coming, but he needed my reaction. From lack of anything else to say, I said that it was kind of ironic. He asked how so. I just said it was...the only thing going through my head over and over was that one line: "His name is Cody R****, and he is really cool." I read that line over at least one hundred times before folding the note up and putting it away.

We went over to the bathroom from the band room so Keanu could finish cleaning up his chocolate caked face. We talked about the note a bit more, then I put it away in my back pocket and told him I had to leave. He said goodbye and I walked away, leaving him in the loneliness of the empty cafeteria just outside the bathroom.

My mind flooded thick with questions. I didn't know what to do with myself. I just kept walking, I met up with my mom about halfway and didn't say anything, just continuing my stride, stone faced.

She tried to talk to me, but with no avail. Eventually, I just gave a smile, and pretended to be okay so she would drop the matter, it worked. When I got home, I rushed up to my room, threw off my shoes, and thought about what happened, then I remembered the note. I whipped it out and read over it again, again, again. I read it until my eyes strained from looking at the paper and I put it down. I picked up some candy and started eating. It took a while, but I soon got back to semi-reality. I knew there was little hope for anything, I knew if I wanted her I would have to try like hell to even get her to talk to me or even go remotely near me. I knew it was finished, I just didn't want to accept it.

Memories rushed through my head. Everything to do with her was all I could think about. With nothing else to do, I simply wrote a reply. Somewhat satisfied with what it said, I tried to do other things.

I kept eating that candy, I was unable to stop. Though it wasn't a fast consumption, it was steady. Then one second, I was all of a sudden writing down all the memories that were flooding through me on a piece of paper. At first, the memories were one page long, two, three, four, five, six. My head was overflowing with these mistakes, victories, joys, sorrows. I gave some smiles to some of the encounters. Other times, I laughed at my unknowingness. I paused at certain parts, thinking hard about what I would be doing now if I hadn't done those things, where I would be. After another candy cane, I continued with my work. Everything up to this point went into these memoirs. In the end, it turned out to be six pages long.

Six pages of my love, six whole pages. I could barely write a sentence without being in complete agony in any normal situation. Now, it was effortless. Six pages of all my joy, I just did it instinctively. It was easy, fun. I spent the whole day writing those pages. All day devoted to her, nothing could stop me. I didn't even eat dinner. I was in my own little world.

There was a hole in my heart after reading that note, I spent all day trying to fill that hole by writing down passed events. When I was done writing the six pages of memories, I still had a hole. It was still there, while writing down the events, I was able to forget about the hole, but when I was done, I stumbled upon it again. I had to do something more, that still related to her. So, the next day, I typed it.

This version was seven pages. I had added some parts, took others out. I was slowly and unknowingly editing and revising the six pages. I printed it out and read it over again. I found more mistakes, missed details, unneeded sections. I took out a red pen and edited more. The whole page was basically red at this point for the most part. I could hardly read it myself.

I went back on the computer and began to edit my previous seven pages. I had more to edit this time than last time, and less time to do it, so I was unable to completely edit it that day.

A few days later, Keanu came over for a sleepover. We conducted our usual activities. We made a movie, played Dark Cloud (our favorite video game at the time), and talked simply about stuff. After a bit, I brought up Kimberly. I slowly slipped in that I had written the essay. He was simply in shock and awe. He hardly believed I actually did it until I handed him everything. The poems, the journal, the notes, letters, everything. At first, he filed through the papers, handing me all the handwritten ones claiming that they were "too hard to read." He tried to read the journal, but failed, so he handed that back to me. He kept handing me back papers until all he had was the typed, unedited version of the seven page version. I kept on saying I was writing a much better one on the computer, but he didn't care. He just read the paper in front of him. As he started to read, my stomach welled up. For some reason, it just made me really nervous hearing a friend of mine read my story aloud. I went through a lot of different emotions while I went through all those experiences again.

When he was done, I took the paper back and we talked for a bit about some of the content. He fixed some of the details that I missed or didn't clearly remember. I was grateful to have a second opinion about my work.

After he went home, and I was able to get some spare time, I continued feverishly on my work, revising every part over and over again. I would always read from the beginning, combing through the words, finding little mistakes, until I got back to the spot I was working on. When I got there, sometimes I would just have to stop for lack of time, but on occasion, I got to add a paragraph or two.

Progress was really slow, so I did other things with my life. I had things to plan for. I would have three chances to score points with her, the first was her birthday, next, a trip to A**** Dam, and the last, Valentine's day. I remembered from art class, the previous year, that her birthday was on February 1st. That day was coming up really soon.

At the time, I could think of nothing to do. So, I just hoped it would come to me eventually. Days went by, nothing came to me. I continued to work on the memoirs whenever I was given a free moment, which wasn't very often. I hoped writing about those would give me a chance to look at the past and remember something that could score me points, I found nothing. Her birthday was coming closer, so I just decided to wing it when it came, and hope for the best.

Doing that got her off my mind for a bit, but I still had no real plan for the day ahead. Finally, it came. Her birthday was tomorrow. I thought about it that night, I wondered what I would do. Would I bring her a present? No, I didn't have the time or money. Would I give her a hug? No, she never talked to me. Was it even really her birthday? I didn't want to wish her a happy birthday and then have her say that it wasn't really her birthday, talk about embarrassing. I gave up and went to sleep after that thought.

I got up slowly that morning, but was able to keep a steady speed so as not to arouse any suspicion (not that I really had anything to worry about). On my walk to school, I pondered whether it was really her birthday or not. I wasn't sure, and I didn't want to embarrass myself. Suddenly, my mind got back to reality as I neared the building. I opened the doors, and went inside. I found her sitting with her friends all alone. The cafeteria was near empty that day, so it would have been the perfect time to at least wish her a happy birthday. I didn't. I chickened out, I didn't even go near her. Simply afraid of making that mistake I so greatly feared I'd make. I told myself I'd tell her at lunch, after I got confirmation.

Lunch came and I was going to tell her, but I watched her and waited for one of her friends to say something. I still watched her, but no one said anything. I was secretly relieved that I wouldn't have to say anything. Then, it happened, over the loudspeaker. The vice principal said it. "Happy birthday Kimberly P*****." I knew it was coming, I knew I would get that conformation, I knew I would have to wish her a happy birthday. And yet still, I didn't.

I was given the chance to wish her a happy birthday. She walked right by me. It was perfect in every way. I now had conformation that it really was her birthday, she was right there, I had been preparing to say it for a while now, and yet, something held me back, something didn't want me to wish Kimberly P***** a happy birthday that year. So, I did not wish Kimberly J*** P***** a happy birthday on that day.

My next best tactical move was to somehow deliver a love-note to her at the A**** Dam, where this whole fiasco started. The day of the field trip was coming soon after her birthday, literally about three days later. My plan had one flaw in it however...I wasn't going with her. I was going to the dam a week after her. I knew that Keanu was in her first period class, so I was going to tell him to deliver it. I pondered the idea, knowing he had let me down on this sort of task before, so I waited for days and almost didn't ask him, but in the last minute, I reminded him what took place at A**** Dam two years ago, then handed him the note. He willingly obliged to deliver the letter. On the day of the field trip...he got sick, and couldn't deliver the note. Yet again my plans were foiled, and thought all hope was lost...at that very moment, I remembered that it was February, the month that held Valentine's Day, the most romantic time of year...the perfect time to say something.

The day would be February 14, the day I would execute a plan that would hopefully win her heart...or at least woo her a little. The upcoming timing was spectacular, it was perfect, it was foolproof, it was also a bit foolhardy. My plan was to simply send Kimberly a Val-o-gram, the kind with a flower attached with a message attached asking her to be my Valentine. You know, the standard-issue plan used to win the hearts of many. There was a problem, however: I didn't know what class to address it to. To find this out, I would have to ask her myself...that would ruin the surprise making it a stupid plan. I had to somehow ask her, without her knowing that it was me who was asking. To do this I came up with a plan...I would ask Keanu to find this out, but he would have to be discrete, so as to not alert Kimberly of the plan. That didn't work, because I couldn't work up the nerve to ask him (I know, pathetic, isn't it, he's my friend). On the last day of opportunity, I worked out a plan to find out who her teacher was, write the note, and send it without her suspecting anything.

It was the day before Valentine's day, the last day they were selling Val-o-grams, I had to do something. I went to get my lunch, like normal, ate my lunch, like normal, but all the while I was planning the exact moves to make in order to execute my plan. I went outside to talk with Keanu, then asked him to help me acquire the info I needed to complete this task and win her heart. He agreed, we went to work immediately, calculating the moves we would make as we went. The plan was simple, he would go over to Kimberly's table, ask her for the info, while I waited over by the student store with the money. He would then walk over to where I stood, cough out the teachers name while walking by, and I would take it from there. Unfortunately, life isn't a movie, so it wasn't quite that simple.

I went to wait by the student store, and he went to talk to Kimberly. He was certainly taking his time, because I was waiting for at least two whole minutes before he got back, and even then, he had Kimberly hot on his tail. She suspected something! Thinking on his feet, Keanu took only half of the money, knowing well he needed a decoy so I could get my own. He brought his over to Kimberly, asked how to spell her sixth period teacher's name (so I could hear which one it was) and wrote that it was from him, not me. She was satisfied, and he turned it in with her following him. I was lost and confused, and had no idea what he was doing! Either way, I knew she was gone, I had the info I needed, and I had a val-o-gram, so I wrote the real one, and turned it in.

On Valentine's day, nothing really could happen until the end of the day because the Val-o-grams weren't delivered until then. My day went rather slowly and drudgingly because all I could think about was her reaction to the gram. At the end of the day, while we were walking to our lockers, we saw each other. We made eye-contact...that alone was enough to make me happy...she wouldn't break it, nor would I. When we got within earshot, she said, 'Thanks Riley', I responded with 'no problem'. It was the happiest three seconds of my life.

The next day, I went on with my schedule as normal...until lunch. At lunch, she looked at me, and I looked back at her, she didn't usually do this, usually it may have been about a second or so, but this was for at least 8 seconds. Then she got up and ran by me, giggling, to a place where I couldn't see her. I knew something was up, but not exactly what. Seconds later, she was standing right next to me with a friend and said, "Hiiii Riley," I naturally responded with, "Hiiiii Kimberly," though I was still bewildered in disbelief as to why she had come up to me of all people. Her friend asked if I was Riley, I responded with a yes, she handed a note to me, they looked at each other and they were gone. I didn't know what to say, do, think, or anything. I just stood there for a second, holding the note, mouth agape, in awe. Kimberly P***** had given me a note, though not directly, she still had taken the time to write an actual note to me. It said...

Riley,

Thank you so much for the val-o-gram! I read your note and I just wanted to say that no matter how much you like me, I'm not going out with you. I know that there is someone else out there who's much better for you. I mean, why do you even like me? I'm not nice to everyone! I cuss A LOT! So tell me. I just couldn't say anything when you asked me to be your valentine, but when you asked me to be your "official friend," I was kind of ok with that. I will be your friend but NOT YOUR VALENTINE! I hope I didn't sound too rude in this note, but if I did then I'm sorry.

Your Friend,

Kimberly J*** P*****

P.S. Cheer-up OK!

After reading this note, I got to work on a reply, something sweet, simple, yet dignified, something that would make me a solid friend, because I knew I had no chance at winning her heart in this position, I would have to become more trustworthy, more likable, especially among her friends. Fortunately, she had one unusually nice friend, who seemed to take interest in my daring act to ask Kimberly to be my Valentine. This friend of hers had called me by my first name, which is odd because though we knew who one another, we were never properly introduced. That meant Kimberly must have talked about me a lot, or her friend was being polite...something like that. She seemed to be a great friend, and also a great way to get in Kimberly's group of friends.

The following day, I slipped the reply to Kimberly. It had taken me all day to build up the nerve to give it to her. In the morning, I couldn't find her, at lunch I found her hiding with another friend of hers (okay, maybe she wasn't hiding, but she wasn't with her normal group of friends, instead was way over on the other side of the cafeteria which was unusual). When I gave it to her, I stuck out my arm, note in hand, so she ran into it. I mumbled "take it," she fumbled it out of my hand and continued to walk. I am writing this while eagerly awaiting her reply on the morrow, and hoping that I can call myself a good, solid friend of hers by then.

I went for days waiting and waiting for her reply. It never came. We started exchanging "hello's" every day, at least once a day. One day she said, "Hi friend" I responded with a "Hello." I thought this was a good thing for me. Thinking in my mind that if I kept this up, I could get into a position with more leverage. A position where I could get her to fall in love with me too. After all, at the time, she didn't know me that well, so she could be judging me only on my looks, rather than what really mattered.

It eventually got to a point where our hellos were so common, I wouldn't get nervous around her anymore, she was starting to become human in my mind, rather than a goddess. Surprised by the fact that I wouldn't get sweaty palms, or a frog in my throat every time I heard her name stated aloud anymore. I tried to take advantage of it. There were days where I felt I could talk to her, directly to her. And yet, it just didn't feel the same as it had felt but a few months ago. Her brilliant glow that I saw her with every day that I had fallen in love with was fading. Slowly and painfully I lost interest in her, my love wasn't as passionate. Dreams of her were clouded, and life started to make sense again. But I saw no loss in it, after all, I could flirt with her now because of the lack of frog...it was a good thing, not bad.

I went on for a couple months thinking this, thinking I could get her to fall in love with me. I mean, after all, we exchanged greetings every day, that must have meant something. As the days went by, I felt less and less motivated to say hello to her. Each day trudging forward to the ultimate goal of having her hand. It just didn't seem much worth it anymore. I couldn't go on like this forever, pretending to love her just because I had for the past two years. I couldn't do it much longer. Slowly weakening with each blow, every day feeling like a pulse of love left me. I was falling out of love with her.

Tracey asked me about it one day. I told her I had mixed feelings about the whole thing. She didn't understand what "mixed feelings" meant exactly. So, I sent her an email telling her everything. Since then, Tracey has been one of my bestest best friends ever.

Then one day, I saw Grace and some of my other friends talking to Kimberly, I really wanted to go over there, I even had the perfect excuse, but I didn't. Something held me back.

The next day, they all said they were really sorry for me. They all told me Kimberly had said some really mean things about me behind my back, things that they didn't want to repeat. I didn't believe them, but I still was losing a bit more interest in Kimberly every day. I kept saying hello to her whenever I saw her, hoping she would return it. Some days I would follow Keanu over to her group to talk to her...she never said anything to me. I asked Tracey what this might mean, and she told me it may be a sign that Kimberly liked me. That motivated me a bit more. So I continued to say hello to her, and attempt small talk whenever possible.

Then I started to like Grace again. I always liked her, from the moment I saw her, all that while ago in sixth grade halfway through 5th period, the day I was late, that very day. Kimberly had clouded that thought out of my mind. With Kimberly slowly fading from my mind, I thought about Grace more and more. I even asked her out, a way to prove to myself I didn't need Kimberly to love, but Grace said no, so I consulted another one of my friends to ask which of the two I should pursue.

My friend told me about what Kimberly said in more detail. After I heard this, I didn't quite believe it at first. Then, I asked Tracey for info on it, and she told me Kimberly had talked about me behind my back in the past, and it was very likely she was doing it again. I figured that it was probably true, so I simply stared at the computer screen while writing this paragraph for a bit, deep in thought, thinking about the past and what exactly she thought of me the whole time, without telling me. I was realizing just what she had put me through for the past two years. Without doing anything, she had made me her slave. I looked back at myself while writing this story, and realized just how much of my life I had wasted chasing her. I never needed her, she never showed any kind of friendship or compassion toward me or my cause. I was chasing a pointless fantasy that would offer no reward at the end...only suffering and pain. I had been chasing a dream that was really just a nightmare. While typing this final chapter of my story, I sat in front of the computer screen, staring, mouth agape, realizing the pain I went through each day to try to please her. I was realizing how blind I was and how exactly stupid I had been in the past two years.

I finally finished typing those old memoirs, it turned out to be thirteen pages long. I lengthened that version to the one you are reading now. I never intended to write a story for others to read. I was simply depressed on one day, the day I got that note from my chocolate caked friend Keanu. Yet, somehow, some unnatural force had driven me to make this story longer and longer, to the point where I hardly recognized it. I stared at that computer screen while typing these final paragraphs, contemplating all that had happened in these past two years and how I had changed, how I had grown.

In that very instant, my life changed so unbelievably, so dramatically, it would never be remotely near the same way it was ever again...in that instant I realized I was free from her grasp, no longer would I toil over everything just to try to make her happy. No longer would I waste my dreams fantasizing her kiss. No longer would I waste my love on her for a few seconds of her attention. And in that instant I took one long look at the words I had written and realized I was free to conclude these memoirs of a boy who fell in love for the first time with a girl...a girl named Kimberly J*** P*****.

Dedicated to Kimberly,

Though the pain you put me through was unbearable,

I was able to find some joy in it all,

So all I can do is thank you with this,

From a boy who was once helplessly in love with you,

Whether you liked him or not,

-Riley Scott O'Boyle

