A logical rejection

I felt sick as I stared at her. How did I get into this position? I always (and I mean ALWAYS) analyze the situation. I’m never confused, I stick to facts, real things. So, logically explain to me how I just got rejected by my crush! It just doesn’t make sense. I calculated every possible outcome, and the probability of each outcome’s occurrence. I hardly ever make mistakes, but I guess asking her out was one of them. Despite my best efforts to think about something else, the scene just keeps replaying in my head like a broken record.

   I was in the gym, Physical Education class, 8th period. I decided to do it today because it happened to be the last period, so I could conveniently ask her to a movie. Our school is close enough to the theater that we’d walk there, and afterwards we’d go to her favorite restaurant. I thought out every aspect of it, down to the time we’d be picked up. Unfortunately, I’m not quite old enough to drive, but she is. She’d drive herself home and 10 minutes later my parents would come pick me up. That was the plan, the perfect evening. What actually happened was painful agonizing rejection. Plain and simple. I remember it clearly, I walked up to her in the locker room after class and said, “Hi Avery, wassup?” She cheerfully turned around with her beautiful smile and said, “Well hi Elise! Not much since the beginning of class!” Shoot. I wanted to kick myself. Why am I so bad at everything when I’m around her? I can logically interpret and successfully read almost any situation, in other words I never embarrass myself like that. She makes my head spin, my thoughts and feelings confused. Simply, she makes my logic go out the window. I get so nervous that my brain turns to mush. That’s why I planned this out ahead of time, scripted and memorized what to say and when. It was fine though, I could just shake it off and still make this a success. Or so I thought.

   We talked for a while about this and that. From the last science quiz to the dumb new dress code. I pretended like I didn’t score 100 on that last quiz, to seem more relatable to her. The dress code didn’t bother me that much either, since I usually wear neat skirts and sweaters. But regardless, the conversation was going pretty well. That is, until I asked if she wanted to go to a movie with me. I thought I was so smooth with it as well, like a casual request. I said, “So, I have an extra ticket to Twilight today right after school. Do you wanna come with me?” To my dismay, she responded with, “Oh Elise, I’m sorry but I don’t like you like that. We can still be friends though!” 

   And there I was, frozen, staring at her. My idiot best friend John came up behind me and yelled, “THAT’S A BIG OOF” and dragged me away, laughing. I was holding back tears, waiting for him to make another crack at me. But he didn’t. He just said, “sorry about that, I just figured you needed to get out of there.”

“Why are you even here? You’re in the boys class.”

“I knew you were gonna ask her out, so I came to save you. You know..in case she rejected you..”

I smiled. John is a good friend. I looked at him, tears welling up. I asked, “John, why did this fail? I thought for sure that she liked me!” He looked at me and smiled, “Elise, I don't know why anyone wouldn’t like you. You are the most beautiful girl I know. You think through every situation like a math problem, so you always know what to say. You are a wonderful person to be around and in fact-“

“You like me.”

“Wha- how did you?”

“Eh, you made it pretty obvious. With the way you tease me and drop subtle hints. It was a matter of confirming my hypothesis. Thanks for telling me though, it was very brave of you and made me feel better. Especially since you knew there was no chance I’d like you too.” 

“Oof, no I thought there was a small chance but...ok..”

“John, I’m a lesbian.”

“Yeah I know. I just had a flicker of hope. One small thought against all odds. But it’s alright. I’m happy just being your best friend.”

We hugged. I’m glad to have him as a best friend. I was still so confused though. “I wonder then why she doesn’t like me. If I can get a guy to like me surely I’m not that ugly. I'll just have to talk to her tomorrow, and hope it isn’t so awkward.” He smiled and said, “I’m sure you can handle it. After all, you are the most logical person I know. If anyone can fix this, it’s you”

   I called my mom and told her to come pick me up. “Oh, weren’t you going on a date with John today?” 

“Yeah, plans changed,” I lied. Truth is, my mom doesn’t even know I like girls. She still thinks I like John. A while ago, he agreed to be my fake boyfriend, so if i went on a date or something, I could pretend it’s with him so my mom never finds out. See, everyone’s happy here! I keep it as hidden as I can, because that’s the sensible thing to do. There are many outcomes of coming out, and very few of them end happily ever after with my beautiful wife. So, I hide it, like I do with most of my other emotions. I tend to be the listening kind. I hear other people’s problems and fix those, as opposed to focusing on myself. It helps me understand that in the grand scheme of things, my problems are small. Yeah, I just got rejected by my crush, but at least I didn’t fail the history test. I’ll be upset today, in the meantime I’ve got to figure out how to cover this up tomorrow. After all, fixing little problems is what I do.