There was a guy I had a crush on as a kid.
I don’t really have crushes, so that made this unusual.
I liked his face, I liked his body, I liked his sense of humour and his personality and his energy. He annoyed me sometimes, but I wanted to be around him, and I enjoyed his attention.
I was not the only one who liked him. Everybody liked him. Every girl I ever knew liked him. A few guys, too. And he knew it.
He was always dating someone. As long as I knew him, he always had a girlfriend. Sometimes for a week, sometimes a couple months. One after another.
I thought about shooting my shot a few times, but always found a reason not to. When he was dating someone, it was because I wasn’t a homewrecker. When he wasn’t, it was because I didn’t want to be just one more name on his list. One more person he could cross off the parade of people lining up to be with him.
He was cocky. Still is, honestly, all these years later. I think it’s because he was handsome, and charming, and funny, and athletic, and even teachers and other kid’s parents could be swayed to let him off the hook if he got caught doing something stupid.
We were just kids, and poor kids on top of that, but I always sort of got the impression that people didn’t often say “no” to him. That he always- not maliciously, or selfishly, but perhaps in a naive and childlike sort of way- took it for granted that people could be persuaded to his side. If he was funny enough, or charming enough, they’d roll their eyes and let him carry on.
That became another reason to refrain. As much as I liked him, as good as being close to him felt, I felt like more than that- more than the compulsion to move closer- was the certainty that I shouldn’t. That as much as it may be what I wanted, he was the kind of person to push the envelope, and more than he needed one more person in the long long line of his admirers was the need for least one person in his life who could tell him “no”.
You can love someone and tell them No. I am aware of this. But knowing how I think, and knowing how I love, I would have devoted myself to that role. To being the person who looked out for him, doing what he needed, not just what made him happy.
I know that’s who I am. I’ve had friends and family both, and acquaintances, who fell in and out of addiction and mental health crises and pyramid schemes and bad relationships, and I know I can be obstinate. I know that if I see someone I love doing something to hurt themselves, I will get in their way, even if they end up hating me. Because I would rather they hate me than be dead.
I’ve let go of people I loved because they refused to stop trying to die. I’ve held people back from cliffs while they cursed me out trying to throw themselves off. I will leave before I enable. If I am to attend a funeral, I will not sit there knowing I helped put them in the ground.
But I am also tired. And I want more for myself than to be a caregiver for someone else, to follow along and watch after someone else’s needs at the expense of my own. And imagining a future together as we were, that was all I could see: him, living life half-cocked like he always had, and me, trailing after like a nanny, being what he needed and not what he wanted and slowly growing to resent him for my choice.
We would have grown to hate each other.
And years later, drinking sodas together over a bonfire in the dark, he told me he’d been a bit im love with me when we were kids.
And me, still a bit in love with him, said that I’d been a bit in love with him too.
We moved on as friends and never spoke of that again.
Years later once again, we meet by chance. He offers me a bottle, which I refuse. I don’t drink. I can’t start- not seeing what it’s done. He teases, the way he does before he gets his way. Goes through all his charming persuasions, the ones I’d seen him pull on others when we were kids, and I tell him flat out: I’m not drinking. I said no. And if you keep thinking you can twist my arm, think again- ‘cause I’m far more likely to kick your ass.
He did keep trying- disappointing but predictable- but eventually dropped it with a laugh. Gave me a funny sort of smile, then, that felt fond, and told me I’d always been the hardest son of a bitch he’s known.
Of all the things he’s ever said to me, that’s the line that makes me proudest. That’s the one that still makes me glow a little.
We’re both adults now. He’s got a kid, and a wife, and a house. I see him around, but I don’t know if he’s seen me. He’s scruffier than he was, but he still grins like he did when we were younger.
Sometimes I see him out and about with the beautiful woman he married and I remember drinks by a bonfire and a conversation we both pretended not to have, and I wonder if he remembers.
I don’t have a crush on him anymore. Can’t really even say I love him. It’s been too long, and I don’t know him well enough anymore to even say I know him. We’ve both changed. We’ve both grown different.
But I think about it a lot. Not what could have happened between us, but how it didn’t.
I know he’s still cocky. Still flies a bit too close to the sun.
And to be fair, I’m still a bit too rigid. Still have to resist the compulsion to mother people instead of experiencing life beside them.
But I think about that negative space, mostly. How close we were as friends, as almost-more, moving together but still apart- like Icarus and gravity itself, him always flying higher and me the stubborn force fighting to stop him from flinging himself at the sun. How I knew that if I’d pushed too hard, I would have dragged him down to fall on the rocks instead. How he knew- maybe, maybe not- that the nature of gravity can’t be changed, that he had nothing to offer me that would turn me from my own stubborn march in my own stubborn way.
Want and need. Desire and require. Overthinking. Overstepping. Boundaries and persuasion. Opposites attracting, similarities that cause repulsion.
I think about that a lot.
And I wish I had a word for whatever special little thing we aren’t anymore.
