…how often you were shown mercy by the gods.
Swimming in the complex’s pool without another human around my thoughts settled on the girls of my high school. Most of the day in most of the classes there was at least one that set my heart ablaze.
Most of them never knew.
It was probably better that nothing ever happened, since your fucking brain shuts down around the object of your desire.
K, the girl in drama was tight, with the 80s ziggurat of brown hair, perfect nose, sparkling eyes, milk-white skin. Cheerleader. Good actor. But I rembered something today, the time a roach was captured in the auditorium and she picked it up by its antennae, laughing as it struggled. As repulsive and expendable as roaches are, the sight of this cruelty sickened me. What kind of person–let alone a girl–does that? In a hotel room I told her I loved her and I’m glad she thought it was a joke.
M was the other drama class girl. Brown hair sometimes scorched a painful-looking bleach blonde, alluring eyes, tight body. I wasn’t trying to get with her as I did not believe on a conscious level such a thing was possible, but there came a day she said, “When I want to die I want to die sexy.” For some reason she had dressed conservatively that day, in a knee-length pink business skirt. She had her back to a post and raised her foot, sliding it up the post until her thigh was showing. Then she said, “I know you love me.” I wasn’t trying, and so smiled sheepishly and walked away. I was friendly with her after that but never her ‘friend’ (never “friends” with any girl) and I still didn’t try. She was a HS freshmen that year and I was a sophomore, and this pussy senior who thought I was with her suddenly seemed very happy to learn the truth and the two of them hooked up on a school dramafag trip. I was sitting on the hotel bed in a fellow dude’s room when he said, “You might not want to sit there, that’s where M’s and Ray’s fuck juices were.”
When I was a senior and M a junior, she did not show up the last day of school. I didn’t think this had anything to do with me but I was disappointed. I’d never gotten her number and would never see her again, until years later, by raw chance I passed her in a public library. I was on my way out and she on the way in and I’d passed her so fast I had no idea if she’d known it was me. I was in line to check out when I turned around and 30 feet away there she was, looking at me. I can’t imagine the look on my face but it was unkind. Over my remaining two years I’d heard awful sexual things about her to the point that liking her in any capacity made me feel like a fucking rube even though nothing ever happened between us. She registered my sour anger, turned and disappeared around the corner. She never appeared on farcebook or anywhere else online, for which I’m grateful. There’s a marriage license for her on file in the city records.
There were minor crushes too. S was a sexy blonde with tanned legs and a ziggurat of blonde 80s hair. She liked me but again, when you don’t believe something is possible you don’t act on it. I wrote stories for my entertainment about fingering her in the back of the class. (No one but me ever read them.) I saw S years later while working a humiliating (to me) job. I felt she recognized me but neither of us said anything. Had she not been wearing a wedding band I wouldn’t have said or done anything differently.
T was a big-legged girl with huge anime eyes and long, striking brown hair. Once or twice I left a poem on her desk before Psych class (her desk was all the way across the room.) She looked over at me one day after reading an ‘anonymous’ poem and smiled in a “You’re Sweet” way, certainly not an invite. I was too fucking scared to talk to her but she did seem a tad vapid and empty-headed. Through the grapevine I heard another girl had seen the poem and asked who wrote it. T answered, “I think it’s that guy who wears all-black.”
Back to the major crushes. H was the absolute worst. During my senior year she appeared as a transfer student. She had an 80s ziggurat of frizzy hair brindled tawny and gray and enormous breasts, probably 44Ds. I was greatly relieved when high school ended because she’d mentioned moving to New York, so while I was sad I felt better knowing I’d never see her again, except I saw her one day at junior kollij. I don’t even want to talk about this one, I made every possible mistake there was to make when dealing with wammen. I found her on facebook. She married some taller dude and now her 20-something daughter has the amazing breasts, albeit not as ginormous.
Looking back as I floated in the too-cold pool today I offered up a non-denominational Thank You to the universe for what amounts to an act of mercy: any one of these girls would’ve destroyed me. My severe (but normal for any teen) mental illness which felt like a spear pointing at my throat was really a shield. What I thought was frightened loneliness was really solid, fearless aloneness.
I have never, ever needed a woman to feel whole, only to feel hole.
One more for the road. For a high school dramafag, there was always the miniscule chance some girl might like you, even though you’re appearing on stage as someone else. I did get a taste of what it must be like for hot girls who feel stalked. There was this little thing, an almost midget-sized girl named TS, who when she saw me acted like I was the star in a boy band. She would’ve been a solid option, and very likely easy to bed, even for me, but I wasn’t impressed with her, I was horrified by her (undeserved) enthusiasm and fangirl excitement. Thankfully I had very little contact with her as she was two years behind.
I sometimes wonder what happened to TS, her last name was rather common and if she married, that would’ve been that. I haven’t been on classmates.com (under a fake name) in 10 years, probably never again.
I’m grateful these events all took place years before intarwebs and cellphones. I’m grateful there are no electronic records of these interactions (except for this.) I’m happy to be the only human who remembers they ever happened.
