Forever Crush
Published: September 29, 2025
Today, I wore the outfit I was mildly afraid of and… it was fine. Nobody really cared about it except for some teachers. As much as I really do love myself, I am really tired of myself. It’s like dealing with somebody you truly don’t hate but for some reason they get on your nerves to the point you kind of despise them and wish they’d leave every room you’re in together.
I guess it’s because constantly I am afraid of things, like wearing a damn t-shirt, and I think everyone's obsessed with it or me. I’m truly not sure if I am a raging narcissist or just insecure. Obviously both is an option but I do try to have a positive opinion of myself. It just gets tiring thinking everybody cares all the time. It’s probably a symptom of being seventeen. But when I look around, nobody seems to care like me. They just don’t. I really cannot put it into words how perfectly okay they seem. I know I’m not exactly normal, something *is* off center in my brain but I feel like I really am just a little outside of it all. And it feels sooo idiotic to think like that, it feels so Disney-channel to feel that way but I guess there’s a reason they make the movies, right?
In other news: I am crazy for normal things, too! Man, where do I begin. Sooo way back in sophomore year I swore this guy liked me. And I liked him back. We would snap (I pray for the downfall and abandonment of that app every damn day), okay we would only snap. He first started snapping me after we were all (‘all’ being the kids in SpEd) messing around while studying for a biology test. And I wasn’t even remotely confident so all my snaps were typically the wall. We never talked through social media or anything, in fact, we only talked in person- which is kinda a girl who hates the new-age online world’s dream. Anyway, there would just be moments, ya know? Like, he once lended me a highlighter, that I didn’t ask for, and then fist bumped his friend right after. And once when we were making our biology projects, some other boys were making jokes that I was a lesbian, because I’d never had a boyfriend before. They said something, I don’t remember, and then the boy I liked came across the room and was like “wait- wait- wait she’s what??” And I explained I wasn’t.
Once after state testing, I went to a room when I was done and two other boys did too and they began saying that the boy I liked and I were talking. It was so random, and this was right after we started snapping. When the guy I liked came into the room and the other boys kept making their jokes, I don’t know! Okay- I swear there was something. And (I know this is long-winded, bare with me!) Diane, a girl in our class and also in track with him, was joking that this other girl, Tatum, and him were dating. I looked up at him and, looking at me, he just shook his head smiling. Oh, and another time, I’m literally cringing thinking about it, he was blocking the way to the whiteboard and I needed to get through it so- partially in an attempt to not sound awkward- I said “Please move” in a bit of a mean tone and then he whispered to his friend and his friend asked if I was mad. I’m really hoping I don’t sound seriously crazy! Anyway, to finish sophomore year off- He got a girlfriend. Oh my god. He just said it one day. “I went to my girlfriends over the weekend.”
To be honest, I wasn’t heartbroken. I’ve never been heartbroken, only disappointed. I had a weird empty feeling in my chest, in my heart, but then I moved on with my life. That was that. What did I expect? I never snapped my face. We never actually talked. There were only moments to base my feelings off of. It's not like I didn’t know about this girl, either. Diane had talked about them before, but nothing serious. Just joking, like “Oh what about you and so and so.” I never thought of her as competition for me to get ahead of, frankly, I was too inexperienced to be in the competition. I just liked to think he liked me. Because I genuinely liked him, too, and I don’t get to say that enough.
In junior year, he was still with this girl. We never talked, I stopped snapping him soon after hearing he had a girlfriend, and still, that was that. I had recently acquired new friends and I told them all I just said. Now, he was just a guy I had liked a lot. Maybe a few weeks later, he snapped me. Out of the blue, buried deep in my friends list and suddenly shooting to the top. And, like a hopeful dumbass, I responded. With my face. But just a few hours later, he started sending snaps of a girl I could only assume was his girlfriend and I just thought how weird it was. Why was he snapping me? He must’ve had to search for my user, too, to snap me. I cried and I let it go. Whatever. It was nothing. And that’s what I told my friends.
I stopped liking him so much, sorta, and went on with my year. I saw them together at prom. The way they looked, they made sense. Both athletes. That’s just the way it works in highschool, isn’t it? She wore a light purple dress and he wore a gray suit with a purple tie and I hate that I remember that. I hate that I'm writing, basically, an entire essay on nothing!
So we move on, or in my case not really move on… To senior year. Right now. And it’s not even a full month into the year and I just swear there’s moments. Only today, has there been one this year.
I quit student council. And being in special education, this was important to my SpEd teacher, so she instantly had to know why. So I started explaining. As I was explaining two things happened. 1, the boy I had liked went over to get coffee from the pot that was right next to my table. 2, a group of boys who needed help for their test entered the room. Naturally, the room filled with loudness. And as my teacher went on to help the test takers and I kept explaining thinking she was maybe hearing over the loudness, he was listening. He was watching me talk and then I stopped, because I wanted my teacher to hear. He said, “So you quit over the dance?” (To make a short story shorter, I wasn’t aware studco had to attend the 8:00 homecoming dance and at 7:30 I was informed of that. One panic attack later, I wondered why I was doing this and quit.) A little bit of me takes offense to his question. Like, yeah, I did. But also my story wasn’t over and I said how I was in the school parking lot having a panic attack or something, I don’t know I’m not a good irl-storyteller. And he said it was alright. He said it was alright again. And then said “You know what, fuck it we ball.”
Fuck forever crushes.
