My First Crush

When I was in 2nd grade my family moved from one part of town to another part. We were looking for a new church to go to, by the time we’d found our home church we’d already looked at about three churches before that.

We found this new church and after one Sunday my parents loved it. They loved the pastor, because he was funny and delivered a great word. Me and my older sister, who was in 4th grade at the time, hated it. The lady that taught in children’s church was mean and ‘shush!’ came out of her mouth more than I could count. My little sister was 3, she didn’t have a care in work as long as she was getting Goldfish at some point in the service.

We went to the church for a while and there was this boy who came, he was a Bible thumper, and Jesus freak just like I was. His name was James. Honestly, in the beginning, I hated James. We were each other’s competition. Enemies.

We would always fight over the smallest things. We’ve been told we fought like a married couple. Now that I’m older, I’ve realized that we were fighting over the same thing, just saying it different ways. But us both being in 2nd grade, we could honestly care less.

In sixth grade, we went to the church summer camp together. We still fought all the time and everyone around us suffered from it. It got to a point where boys had to be in one room and girls in the other room.

I went to a school that was about 20 minutes from my church; the school wasn’t really a good school, but it wasn’t completely bad. My dad had been deployed to Afghanistan in January, he’d be gone for nine months. He missed my 10th birthday, and my 5th grade graduation, which I didn’t care too much about, because I got into a fight with one of the students and got suspended for the last two days of school anyway.

A month into sixth grade my dad came back. I was so happy, I even beat my mom to get the first hug from him. You could say I’m a daddy’s girl. My dad and I were both born in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. We both loved spicy food, and odd enough, James was born in New Orleans also.

While my dad was gone my mom was looking for a new house for us to live in. She wanted a house to be proud of and one that was in a better school district. When my dad came back we vaguely noticed the small things my parents were doing that related to us moving.

One day, I caught her in the garage cleaning out the gas oven that was in the house before the one we were in currently. I hated the teachers and a handful of the students at my school. So, I said to my mom:

“Hey, you wanna know how we can use that?”

She responded: “How?”

“If we move!” I responded.

I think I was confused at the time, because I wanted to move, but I didn’t want to at the same time. I wanted to stay with all my friends and the neighborhood kids, but at the same time I wanted to move into a bigger house, and I wanted to leave the school I was at. I’d gotten my first D there, which was unacceptable to me of course.

Literally a week later my dad was talking about how he had a surprise for me and my sisters. We spent a week thinking what could it be? On Saturday morning, my dad drove us about 20 minutes away from our old house to our new house.

I hated my parents.

They were so excited about moving and I looked at them like they’d lost their minds, in which they did.

We moved in a week later and that Tuesday I started at my new school. Within my first week I found out James went to my new school, I was so disappointed. I didn’t want to go to the same church as him, let alone school.

At my church we have this thing called youth council. It’s a group of selected kids in 8-12 grade who basically plan youth events and learn how to become great leaders. I wanted to be on it so bad, but I was in 6th grade. That summer I found out that if I wanted to be on it then I had to be more mature. So, that’s what I did. I started thinking about things before I did them. I stopped being so petty and stuff. Which lead to me deciding that I’d be friends with James and give him a chance.

Big mistake.

We spent the summer together at summer camp, we actually talked and our fighting became less, but it was still pretty frequently. We would make up in a matter of hours. Everything was going smoothly. But, I found myself thinking about him a lot that school year. I’d see him in the hallway and we’d smile and say “Hi.” to each other, and I noticed my heart beating faster. I didn’t think anything of it.

It wasn’t until the end of the school year, that May, and two days after my birthday, that I realized I liked him. I didn’t want to like him. I wanted us to stay friends, that’s it. But the heart wants what it wants, and my heart wanted James, someone I’d never get.

That summer, going into 8th grade, I once again spent it with him at summer camp. We talked more and I got to learn we had a lot in common, more than I thought. I realized we were being immature and irrational with one another, when we talked to each other we actually had a connection. It was weird and there were all these new feelings I was being exposed to.

When we went on field trips we’d sit next to each other, sometimes on the way there we would sleep, and this is same on the way back. I’d sleep against the window and he had the aisle seat. I felt secure when we sat like that, even though it was because he was claustrophobic. I was, too, but I was sitting with him so I didn’t let it bother me, and going to sleep really helped. I’d often debate sleeping on his shoulder, like couples would do, but I passed up every opportunity in fear that he would shake my head off his shoulder. I didn’t want to be rejected. I didn’t want to feel that, so I kept space in between us.

In 8th grade I made youth council. I was elated, I was so happy. We got to do a lot of outings together to do fun things and grow closer as a leadership group. One thing we did was we went on a youth Council retreat. We went up to Elijay, Georgia, USA. We had a cabin that had two bedrooms upstairs, one on the main floor and two bedrooms in the basement, it also had a couple pull-out couches that turned to beds. In my room we had two queen sized beds, so four of us slept in there, two people per bed.

It was us four girls lying in the dark on our beds. We weren’t able to sleep really, because we slept on the bus ride there. So, we lied awake talking to each other, and I winded up talking about James.

That night was the first night I admitted to loving him.

I knew he and I would probably never be together, so I tried getting over him. I dated this one guy that went to my church as well as school. We’d just met, but he was kinda cute, he asked me out and I said yes. Not even 48 hours into the relationship, he told me he loved me. I said it back, but I didn’t mean it. Because I loved James.

I broke up with him the following week. Dating someone while you’re in love with someone else doesn’t work. I felt like I was cheating on both him and James.

I started talking with my friends about James and I; they shipped us. They had a feeling he liked me and I felt it too. He’d text me out of the blue sometimes and not know why. He would call me and we’d talk. It just went like that.

In church we started talking about lust. I started questioning if what I had for James was love or lust. I didn’t want James sexually, necessarily. I wanted to be able to hug him and for us to talk all the time. The thought of us having kids did come to my mind, we were both light-skinned and I have a thing for light-skins. Everyone who knew would say our babies would look so cute and stuff.

I started taking stupid quizzes online. “Am I in love or lust?” “Does he like me back?” “Will we ever have a chance?” It’s safe to say I really wanted to be with him and I wanted—I needed hope for the future.

The quizzes would say that it was love. I care about his feelings, not how big he was down there. I cared about his personality, not his abs (which were gorgeous by the way).

I didn’t want to continue to like him so I convinced myself that I didn’t like him. And the week before spring break I thought I successfully stopped liking him. That was until I found out one of my closest friends, who knew I liked him, started dating him. Jealousy hit me like a truck. I was sad, I was mad, I was happy. It was weird. I thought that by them dating I’d get over him, I was wrong. It only made me like him more, because of how jealous I was.

But she didn’t know him like I did. He snapped at her ex-boyfriend who tried to get with her when he heard she was taken. She’d come to class talking about how she’s never seen James so angry before, I’d seen him worse. She knew nothing about him, they knew nothing about each other and that’s what made them break up after roughly two weeks of dating.

The summer we were going into high school, my parents didn’t pay for me to go to summer camp. I spent that summer moping that I couldn’t be with him. But we’d FaceTime while he was there. We texted a lot and I see him when we dropped off or picked up my little sister. The camp director even let me go on a couple field trips with them and volunteer with them. I only did it to be with him. I asked to work with the 6-9th grade classes just to be with him.

That summer I passed up another opportunity to sleep on his shoulder on a bus ride.

In high school we never talked to each other, we rarely talked at church. He knew I liked him; I felt like he just dragged me along and he was enjoying the ride while my heart was being stomped on. So I decided it was time I moved on. I started thinking about other things and trying not to focus on him, which was kind of hard, because in the places I was at mostly, he’d be there. I slowly began to stop liking him.

I started looking at other boys, seeing who looked better. I started flirting with them, but I never dated them. I even had a fling with an older guy just to make James jealous, but he didn’t care. So I didn’t either. I left the idea of being with boys for a while.

Eventually the thoughts of him started to fade. When I interacted with him I wouldn’t shake like I used to. Though, when I did think of him, butterflies would still appear in my stomach.

I think I will never get over him being the first guy I loved.

My first crush was my first heartbreak.