The Best Worst First Date... Part 1

I had waited six years for this date. I kid you not. Six years and a lot of pining. Embarrassingly obvious yearning, not only to my high school acquaintances but also to him.

Xavier Safaryan

Oh, how that name used to hatch butterflies in my soul. Their wings would tickle my throat as I attempted to swallow those feelings in vain. It was painful how much I loved him. I, alone, tended to a garden of love waiting for his glowing presence to envelope me...

Only fools plant flowers where there's no sun.

But I didn't care. No, I couldn't care. I had no say in the matter as my gymnastic heart did flippant gainers in my chest. My heart... my usually steady heart... couldn't compose herself. She irreverently tried to escape my body and burst towards him when we caught a mere glimpse of Xavier's naturally tan visage in the hallways. Without my heart in her normal position, all I could do was stand silently, staring at him, hoping yet dreading that his dark chocolate eyes would see me.

I can just imagine what he saw: a strange, overdressed freshman who was a good foot shorter than him with chunky side bangs and wavy brown hair staring at his godliness, with her cheeks stained a passionate shade of red, unable to carry on through the busy hallway.

He must have thought I was crazy. And I was.

It wasn't some silly, superfluous puppy dog love for me. No, it was the worst unrequited love I had ever felt. It was the only love I had ever felt so intensely. I knew in my soul that he was the one for me. It had to be true. Why else would my heart have betrayed me so?

An entire year carried on like that. Hallway glances. Rouged cheeks. Blatantly obvious languishing. I did everything I could to try to connect with him, to make sure he knew I existed, to make our flowers grow.

Now, I cringe when I think about how many times I looked at his few photos on Facebook. I all but ingested the images of him sitting sullenly at Vatican City, smiling with his aunt in Portofino, and standing atop jagged rocks in Nice. Anytime I had the chance, I commented on pictures he posted of our one shared interest: cars.

Not knowing that his father had a Ferrari sitting in the garage, I commented on his images of sports cars like a complete wanna-be. He probably thought I was interested in him because his family was rich but I honestly didn't know that at the time. I simply thought he was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen. That's all.

Freshman year came and went and I hadn't really made any progress. I was so sick with love that it hurt. Sure, there were a few distractions such as the cute German exchange student who was my first kiss and the first boy to tell me he loved me. But he was only around for 2 weeks.

Sophomore year, I had a few more chances to ogle at him since we were miraculously in the same biology class. Science was typically my forte, but with the real-life version of Aladdin sitting just a few tables away from me, I found it hard to focus.

Then Junior year, I actually got to talk to him and it was as if everything was casually normal. My friend and I somehow stumbled into a situation where we found ourselves walking downtown with Xavier and a few other popular boys. One of whom was my dance partner in our P.E. class' ballroom dancing unit. So I was starting to feel like I was breaking into this crowd I had admired from afar. Well, when I say it like that, it sounds like I wanted to be a popular but that wasn't it at all. I wanted to be around him.

I was so excited to actually be there. With him. Walking. And we finally talked: about cars, of course!

HE was talking to ME. I am still so impressed with myself that I was able to play it cool, like I hadn't just spent the last two and a half years awkwardly staring him down in the hallways that seemed to simultaneously narrow and widen as he walked by. I felt like I had a chance. And as we went to the pretty main lawn of the nearby university, I had the opportunity to touch him, and you better believe I took it...

To be continued in Part 2...