Chapter Two – First Crush

Ever been told that sometimes the same thing that makes you look good can also make you look bad? I was living proof of that. My exemplary behavior turned me out to be also an outsider.

You know even today I still can’t figure out why their feelings changed. Why didn’t they think I was being free and being myself like they used to say?

This all happened when I got to high school and experienced my first real crush. Of course, I didn’t have my first crush when I was 15. I had it when I was 9, but I played it off, besides, she was my best friend, everyone loved their best friends, right? So it wouldn’t be shocking that I loved mine too, even though it was more than I thought it should be.

I mean who would be mad that their 12-year-old best friend has been kissed by a boy? Okay me, but the truth was I was more than mad, I was hurt. But it was only because she was my best friend. Right? Wrong!

So my friend moved to a different place 2 years before high school and I would see her during school holidays. That’s when I realized that I more than liked her. That I loved her the same way they loved all the celebrity boys they had in their walls or personal ‘life’ books.

Now, when school holidays were over, clueless me knowing that loving someone isn’t wrong told my friend’s older sister. I told her that I liked her sister more than a friend.

I would never forget the look she gave me. It hurt more than me seeing a boy peck my best friend on the lips. Because it said something was wrong.

She was disgusted, looked like she saw something she didn’t want to touch or be next to. She shook her head before saying “ewww, that is wrong. You’re sick.”

Her reaction confused me because everyone I knew was freely telling people who they liked, and they were never called sick. So I wondered why she thought I was sick.

Was it because this was her little sister? Was it because I was a year older than her sister? Was it because I didn’t have a wedding book with pictures full of white dresses, a cake and a big house with a man, a woman and three kids outside? Why did she say I was sick?

She has always wondered why I wasn’t talking about boys because all girls my age did, but right when I like someone she called me names. I liked her sister the same way they liked boys, and that made me sick, why weren’t they sick too? Because what we all did was like someone?