The Swiss Miracle

So there’s this thing called L-o-v-e. I’ve never really lived it.
Except…
Except that one time in sixth grade. My best friend, Ernie. Oh, but I was so stupid. So, so young. By stupid I mean blind; I couldn’t feel him loving me. I was even after another boy. Now that I am older, I can’t believe there was actually a time I was after him. As for Ernie, I realized I, too, was in love with him too, except I found out late, way too late. By “late” I mean “Sixth Grade Prom”. I can remember that night as if it happened just yesterday. The slow dance music was on, and I wanted to dance with Ernie so badly. He was going to ask me, he really was. He walked towards me, and nervously began that beautiful sentence:
“Would…” But then my dad called me for dinner and he kinda spoiled the moment. When I was finished, the low dance music had ended. What I felt afterwards was indescribable. As my dad drove us away, I felt as if bursting to tears, because I would never see Ernie again. Why? Because I was moving to Nashville that summer. I should’ve told him. I should’ve told him I loved him that night… but embarrassment and fear took the place of desire. As I rode along in the car with my two older brothers, I could feel the guilt’s weight over my body…

The first days in Nashville were tough, but I eventually learned to adapt. I made new friends, years passed. I don’t know why, but most of my closest friends are one grade ahead of me. That never seemed to bother me, until I realized I wasn’t going to Riverhill High School with them, once I finished ninth grade.. Instead, I would attend Greendale High, home of the Greendale Beavers. It wasn’t exactly Harvard, but it was a nice, decent building; just ideal for a fresh start.
As always, the first day is always a blur. I missed the first day and the next, because I was sick. It was a great relief when I found Carlie Knight, a girl in my class with whom I shared many things in common. (Like being obsessed with twilight, Robert Pattinson.) The only thing we definitely didn’t share was the fact that I love Miley Cyrus songs and Carlie hates them.
“Her voice!” She would tell me.
I told Carlie, eventually, of sixth grade, how I never forgot Ernie, and how I wished he knew. Carlie always told me the same advice: To forget him; it’s the past after all. She even copied the same phrase on Facebook: “…Forget about the people about your past: There’s a reason they didn’t make it to your future.” But how is that going to help me correct what was done four years ago? I needed a freaking time machine, that’s what I needed. Carlie tries hard, I know it, but she doesn’t seem to understand this obsession somehow. I love her anyway. (I’ve written that several times in her notebooks.)

Love, it’s complicated. Will I ever forget Ernie? None of the boys at the school see to catch my eye. To me they all look the same. And boys, they’re so immature. The ones in my classroom, to begin with. They play all class long until whoever is teaching grows exasperated and throws extra homework or something sick like that… And whenever I see a happy couple roaming the halls, I think even more of Ernie, and I depress myself thinking just how everything could have been different. How can I survive High School, when I am still living in sixth grade?