High School Darling

Bored out of your gourd, just fiddling the only pen you carry, as you are forced to sit through a six-hour-long business lecture in high school. Resting your head on the table and dozing on and off into slumber, you try hard to keep myself awake. Your eyes, desperate to keep themselves from shutting down, start to explore the classroom you are held captive in. The bright charts that add color to the classroom, a dozen or so empty seats surrounding you, the polished, white tables reflecting every spectrum of light, and the professor’s thick, grey mustache. Then you turn your eye to the faces that suffer a similar fate to your own. The boys leaned back on their chairs, staring at the blank ceiling and the girls ‘attentively’ listening to the ramble out of the professor’s mouth. Before you could look back to the very thing that kept your fingers busy, your eyes freeze in place staring dead at this girl sitting diagonally in front. Fair skin, long, black hair with bleached ends. Her elbow on the table with her hands locked together, she sat leaning slightly forward to have her breasts supported by the table. A sudden rush of epinephrine flooded your system as your pupils began to dilate and your heart started beating a little faster. your once languorous body was slowly heating up. You, my friend, are feeling all the symptoms of this thing called love at first sight.

You wake up the next morning, confounded. Confounded because you were actually eager to reach school today. Your spiritless life, hereafter, will never be the same. You feel as though the Earth is rotating a little faster as time flew past. Dazed to see yourself make a merry of the last few months of high school. And surprised you were upon realizing how much more time you devoted to ‘studying’ her beauty and not your textbooks, or how the lecture you once dreaded could be the very thing you look towards every week, or even how passing by that one person in the narrow corridor of your school once was the highlight of your entire day. Surprised to see how falling headfirst into someone like her was probably the best thing to have happened in your entire school life.

You do what every other teenager your age would do in this situation, started snooping around to know more about her. Despite your best effort, there was not much you could find about her. Just that her favorite color was orange, she was a year younger, born in the same hospital as you, lived in a villa somewhat far away (probably a walking distance for you given a day), and that she had a boyfriend...oh, no. Devastated that the little chance you had now went into the negatives, reality starts settling inside of you. Could not get any worse than that, right? But not long after, you are approached by a close friend- someone she was in a relationship with from her previous school, to ask if you could help patch them up again. You wished that was the last of your problems.

Taking over his account to start a conversation with her all for his sake, a little bit of yours too. While you never texted her yourself, just advising him on his replies, you were getting to know more about the type of girl she was. Making her laugh through the silly texts, reading the poems she wrote, seeing her struggle through the night trying to make sense of what was taught the previous day. She started to feel less like a pipe dream and more like someone you could see yourself with. That can’t be right. Must be your imagination being a little too optimistic. Hard to forget she has someone else saved as “Babe” on her phone. Having the thought of being with her now disdained, you kept helping your friend from the shadows and saw her as nothing more than a mere crush. You began to divert your attention away from her and into your studies as your finals were fast approaching.  You needed to keep your priorities in check from now on.

Things were stirring up in school too with some students taking up the responsibility to organize the last prom. Since getting a good grade was your top priority, you choose not to involve myself in other activities. You took this opportunity to excuse yourself from reconciling your crush with her ex as you figured he could take things in his own two hands now. Not long after, however, you come to know that they stopped talking. He just had nothing interesting to talk about and she slowly lost interest. Was it wrong to choose not to help out? Justifying your actions by taking your priorities into account, but with hindsight, maybe it was to satisfy your own selfish desires. Whatever the case may be, it is a thing of the past now and you had other things to worry about for better or worse. Without paying much heed, you replied to the RSVP and marked the day after your exams as Prom night. There were just two weeks before your finals started, which would go on for a month with days off in-between. To say everyone was on edge would be an understatement.

Soon, students stopped coming to school to prepare for the finals up ahead. Nervous as everyone was, upon taking their respective seats in the exam hall, surrounded by a couple dozen invigilators, this was the very moment everyone was preparing their whole high school life for. One after another, the exams came and went. Remember how the entire room joined the countdown as the timer went from 10, 9, 8…3,2,1? Despite the rules, students were cheering, applauding, and making all sorts of noise for this was the end of the examination. The teachers let the students be as they came around to collect the papers. Contrary to the atmosphere inside the hall, everyone stood silent when realization hit. While this was a monumental achievement in everyone’s life, most of you will never see each other ever again. The prom tomorrow would be the last time many of you communicate for each of you would go your own way. You, yourself, would be going abroad to start your journey in the field of medicine while she would be going back to her country to pursue a career in Economics. Tomorrow would be the end of your little fantasy too.

Wearing a white oxford with the first few buttons undone, with a dark vest, a black suit, a chronograph on your wrist, and a bright, cherry red rose instead of a pocket square in your breast pocket for flamboyance. It was not often you got to dress formally so you took this opportunity to make a statement. And a statement you were making till your eyes, once again, laid on her irresistible beauty. Sparkly black dress, cherry black lipsticks, and a gold bracelet on her left arm. Arguably the prettiest girl on the floor. If you had any feelings for her that were suppressed,  you better believe they rushed to the surface the moment she made her appearance. Without the aid of makeup, your cheeks looked flush and she most definitely had something to do with it. Thoughts poured into your head as you wanted nothing more than to make her yours. Yes, you did remind yourself that she was taken but that was of no avail as she was the only thing on your mind. 

You start your approach towards her, slowly and steadily, your brain taking this time to erase how to walk normally. You start having second thoughts going into this now. This could end terribly with you making a complete fool of yourself. You could jeopardize your relationship with your close friend who also has a thing for her too. People could tell there was a war going on inside your head from how zoned out you were on your way to her. You stopped and gasped for air. "Just say it," you silently reminded yourself. You knew you'd regret it if you didn’t. You took your final steps to reach her and tapped gently on her shoulders. She turns around to face you and it is as though the moment was caught in slow-motion all in your head. You bite your lips, took out the rose from your pocket and offered it to her, while expressing how in love you have been since the day you first saw her out loud. The hard part was finally over. Your heart must have mistaken this situation for running a marathon because it was increasingly beating faster and faster. She took the rose with her right hand and pretended to smell it, hiding her warm smile. Now returning the smile, you turn around and bid farewell before she has the chance to utter a word. You left early that night and never tried contacting her again for that was the end of your high school darling.