Unreachable Love

The day of the carnival soon rounded the corner and I was nervous. If it wasn’t for the fact that I wanted us to go as friends, this probably would have been our first date. But I tried to remind myself that I didn’t care.

Oliver walked to my house and rang the doorbell. My father answered and yelled up the stairs for me to come down. I was right there beside him before he even finished his sentence.

“Speedy today, are we?”

I just grinned. I think everyone within a five mile radius could tell I was both nervous and double excited. My dad gave me a one-armed hug and then told us to get on out of there. I was glad to. It wasn’t supposed to be a date, but it sure felt like one. He even said, “You look very nice.” I was wearing my gray flowered blouse, my dark skinny jeans (not my style; Ciara let me borrow them), my pink sweater, and my black and gray poke-a-dotted ballet flats. It wasn’t supposed to look “nice” but more casual. I told him thank you anyway.

We walked in silence for a little while. The only sound was our feet crunching against the leaves on the ground. I noticed out of the corner of my eye, Oliver looked down at me, searching my face maybe.

Oliver opened his mouth several times but no words came out. He was fumbling with how to say something.

It felt awkward now. I didn’t like it. No, not at all. I knew this night wouldn’t go well. Maybe that’s the reason I was nervous. I was afraid this would happen.

“Okay, I want to get this out of the way.” Oliver said suddenly. “We are here as friends, only friends, alright?”

“Um... Okay.” I knew this already. Shouldn’t he?

“So that means we’re not talking about anything that is out of the friendship zone, understand?”

“Yess.” I got what he was trying to make a point of.

“Okay.” He seemed taller now. Like he’d gotten something huge off his chest. I chuckled silently. “Would you like to share what’s so funny to the rest of the class?” he asked, smiling.

“Nope.” I closed my mouth tight and demonstrated locking my mouth with an invisible key and then throwing it onto the ground. I skipped away from Oliver, toward the bright lights of the carnival up ahead.

He started jogging after me and it turned into a chase. Or a race. I ran as fast as I could now toward the bright lights. The first thing I saw was a carousel and I wanted to ride it so I slowed down, forgetting about our chase. Oliver popped up behind me and tackled me to the ground, both of us cracking up like we’re the best of friends. And really, we were. After we settled down we just lay there and that’s when I noticed all the people staring at us. Some of the mothers looked annoyed but some children we giggling at our child play.
Oliver got up and offered me his hand, which I automatically took. We brushed ourselves off and Oliver asked where I wanted to go first. I immediately responded, feeling like a little girl again. “Carousel!!” I yelled jumping up and down.

I’ve always loved the carousel. Ever since I was little. Dad would take me on it and I’d squeal, “No! No, I HATE horsies. I want to ride on the unicorn!” and my dad would try to convince me all the horses were really unicorns in disguise. I would get mad because I knew it was a lie. “Unicorns don’t hide who they really are,” I’d say and go sit down on the bench that doesn’t move, instead of the horses that went up and down.

Oliver led me to the line for the carousel. It wasn’t that long so we got in on the next round of people. When I was looking for which animal to ride I noticed a tiger over in the back. “Tiger!” I yelled and ran straight toward it, pushing people out of my way so that I’d get there first. I jumped on the tiger’s back and Oliver jumped on the horse beside the tiger.

“Eww.” I said giving the horse a disgusted look.

He had confusion showing on his face. “What you don’t like horses?”

“No. Every little girl when they were little, wanted a horse or a pony. Me, I never did. I hated horses, still do. I liked unicorns when I was little better. But now I like tigers.” I laughed at my childness I’d displayed in the past couple minutes. “What’s your favorite animal?” I asked.

“I like elephants.” He said real simply. I started cracking up and almost fell off the black and white tiger.

“You gotta be kidding me.” I said still laughing.

“Nope.” He said grinning wildly. “They’re just so big and have those floppy ears, they’re awesome!”
The ride started going and we went up and down on our animals. I could tell, this night wouldn’t be like I’d thought it would. With us being all nervous around each other. We were back to our normal comfortable selves. It felt so right, but inside I knew it also felt wrong.