That Kid

I never thought I’d be that kid. From the time I was little, I was told by my nana and my mother who I was going to be. How I was going to marry a rich man and have kids with successful careers, as architects or cardiologists. I was supposedly in love with my karate partner Andrew. They thought he was the ideal man for me. He was smart, cute, strong, the “whole package,” as my nana would say.

It didn’t quite work out that way.

The first day of middle school is not as amazing as our parents make it seem. The bells leave a ring hanging in your ears, and the 8th graders look like giants ready to stomp on all the little 6th graders. Going from one teacher to six is hard to keep up with, remembering locker combinations is an all-new concept, and for most girls my age—boys. Boys, boys, boys. “Did you see him?! He’s so cute!” my best friend would turn to me almost daily, to which I would respond, “You’re too pretty for him Hannah,” and we would continue on with our day.

Andrew and I would hang out before school and lunch every day. Everyone always thought we were together, but he was middle-school in love with Hannah, and I, on the other hand, wanted to throw up anytime someone even motioned the idea of us being together. With this—every time my nana and his mom set us up for a date, we’d laugh and talk about my best friend, Hannah.

“She’s so beautiful.”

“I know, she really is super pretty,” I’d almost always reply.

“She’s a nerd, like me!” And as Andrew would go on and on, I found myself agreeing with him more and more, finding her hair beautiful and her smile breathtaking. Catching a glimpse at her eyes would cause an eruption of butterflies in my stomach. I started getting nervous talking to her, and I would feel the nerves Andrew got as well.

“Hey Hannah, can I talk to you?” Andrew scratched his head and looked everywhere but at her. I giggled because I thought it was cute that he was so nervous, but then I realized if it were me I would be struggling just as much.

“Hi,” she said, at a loss for any other words.

“I wanted to tell you…” While Andrew stumbled for words, he scratched his head, cleared his throat, twiddled his thumbs, and put his hands in his pockets. He looked at me, back at her, back at me, and back at her. “You know…” There he went again, the inability to talk, nerves choking him at the bite of every word he managed to form. He cleared his throat, twirled his thumbs, faked a cough. He looked at me empathetically. Hannah just stood there, dazed and confused. But she was still looking at him. She had a sparkle in her eye, her hair was tucked just perfectly behind her ear. “I really like… french fries.” He choked. His face turned beet red as he ran off to class. Hannah went after him, but the bell rang, saving him as he went into the locker room labeled "boys."

“Carolynne, what was that about?” she asked with concern. Before I could answer, her beautiful, perfectly symmetrical face gleamed with excitement. “Does he, like me? Like, like-like me?” she asked. It felt as if my heart had sunken into my feet. It was at this moment that it hit me. She would never look at me the way I looked at her.

She was beautiful in my eyes. I had seen no one as perfect as she was. I finally knew why I never found the boys she thought were cute attractive at all. She took away from all that. Her hair that hung slightly above her shoulders, her brown eyes that sometimes glowed green in the sunlight, the way her teeth were a little crooked because she hadn’t gotten braces—yet, it was all perfect to me.

Just as Andrew and Hannah were finding their middle school heartthrobs, I was feeling my middle school heartache. Later that night I would go home and cry to my parents. “I don’t understand why,” I remember barely getting out through a trembling chin and tears racing down my cheeks.

“It’s OK, there’s other boys out there for you,” they’d reassure me. Andrew wasn’t the only one. But to me, my short haired, sweaty, stinky bro wasn't what was making me upset. I wanted Hannah, but I knew I’d never get her.

The next day, approaching Hannah seemed to cause pain in my body. My footsteps felt as if I had tied bricks to them, and my limbs as if they were anchored to the center of the earth. I dreaded seeing her, knowing that she was going to say “Hi” to Andrew before me.

Even though my middle school heart was broken, I had finally realized I was that kid.