The last time I was up at my parents house, when they weren’t there, after they changed the locks and went to Costa Rica, I couldn’t sleep. I was bored with computers, there were no sports on, and I was without an XBOX, so I eventually found my old high school yearbooks. After spending about two minutes glancing back to junior, and senior year photos, slightly amused by the youth in mine, and everyone’s faces, I found my way to the signatures section, since I couldn’t give a shit less about anything else in these gigantic four pound editions.
The above drawing was drawn in my yearbook by my last high school crush. Naturally, as many other teenagers, I went through my share of unrequited crushes, but this one was only one I ever really manned up and came out to admitting to, directly to her. Naturally, right after graduation, so I wouldn’t have to really see her again if things went awry. Surprisingly, it was not received poorly, and she even kissed me on the cheek before we parted ways and would never see each other again. I vaguely remember feeling a sense of satisfaction, and slightly relieved that it went as well as it did, back in those days.
But the drawing did pretty much nail the basis of our relationship during that fated senior year of high school. Anyone else remember my ponytail days? We sat next to each other in graphic design class, at first, because the seniors were lumped together, but no matter how much arguing we did, we never opted to move anywhere else. Looking back at all those petty arguments, it’s clear that it was definitely childish flirting at it’s best, or worse, depending on how you envision it. We would tell each other how much we annoyed one another, but then bounce ideas around on assignments. The extent of words, no matter how well acted out, remained in the past, and each day was like a clean start.
The funny thing is that graphic design was really the only class in which really interacted. She was also in the same English class that I was in, where I realized that I really liked writing and English, and made a point to be the stalwart student in that period; needless to say, I showed off my English acumen every opportunity I got. I can’t remember if we ever interacted in English class or not.
Outside of graphic design, I didn’t really like any of her friends, and she didn’t really like any of mine. As my friends and I would destroy school property, big boot lockers, and keg-toss trash cans at the ceiling, her friends would accusingly judge my friends and I, but we didn’t really care, we owned Dudleyville.
And yet, throughout the course of an entire school year, somewhere in the process, and I didn’t even realize it until I gave her my Pen-Pen keychain, that I had grown soft on her. It was well past the halfway point of the year when that had happened, but after that moment, we didn’t really bicker nearly as much; we actually spoke more like friendlies. Dripping with sarcasm, sure, but most certainly friendly. Still spoke about the graphic design crap we were doing, but stuff like colleges, and music. She had no idea that I liked The Doors, since she figured I was simply just the anime dork that I most definitely was at the time, and that I only listened to stuff like anime/video game soundtracks, but she did get huge kicks out of ones like Space Channel 5.
And based on how the year ended, and our last interaction, the thought of a guy like me crushing on a girl like her, didn’t really seem that bad.
