I'll Forget About You

I wasn’t quite sure what his name was.

He had light brown hair and what appeared to be blue eyes. It didn’t look like he hung out with too many people, not that I’d seen him with anyways. But then again, there wasn’t much that I had seen of him. There wasn’t even much I knew about him. I didn’t really know anything at all, firstly noted by the fact that I didn’t know his name.

I knew that he had a class right next to mine during second period. That was about all I knew. Very occasionally I would see him walking out in the halls after the bell rang, far ahead of me by the time I had gotten out of my own class. He had fast legs, this one.

I was always the slow girl.

There were a select few times that I would catch him around the halls during the day. This was only sparingly, however. It was a rarity to see him anywhere but in that class he had next door to mine.

At times I felt my eyes searching for his face. His jeans and his t-shirts. His hair. And I still didn’t even know his name yet.

It was a sick little infatuation that I couldn’t get over. I was prone to this sort of thing though--getting a little too interested in boys who likely didn’t even know I existed. This was normal for me. Perhaps I could just look to the end, when he would drift out of my mind and I would stop thinking about him.

But that hadn’t happened yet. I had only discovered him weeks ago. He was still fresh in my mind; the unsolved mystery of the stranger in the hallways.

In second period when I was bored, distracted from whatever we were being forced to learn, I would let my mind wonder to what his class was doing. Were they learning the same boring material we were? Was he just as distracted as I was? Surely of course he couldn’t be thinking of what the class next door to his was doing. There was nothing special about “Intro To Business.” Much less though, I wasn’t so sure there was anything so special about what I had heard was the accounting room.

Hours, days, weeks. They all melted together somewhere along the line.

Hours passed to create the days I dreaded. This year had dragged on for far too long. I was a junior currently experiencing senioritis. An entire nine weeks left of school never sounded appetizing, especially when the teachers had decided that projects were the best thing to assign at the end of the year.

Days would pass, forming the school week that no one ever looked forward to. Sunday nights were only full of worry and dread for the next Monday to follow it. Homework was hastily completed, last-minute reminders that a certain assignment was due the next day only being remembered upon finally laying down in bed. School was exhausting me.

And yet I still looked forward to the stranger next to my business class. Seemingly he was the only person who could hold my interest at my school, and not even have to say a word to me.

Sometimes it scared me how little it took for a person to grab my attention and run with it, not even knowing that they possessed it in the first place.

I suppose somewhere along the line I’d caught his name. I’m not sure where and I’m not quite sure how. Perhaps after I had seen him driving out of my neighborhood one day as we passed him, my interest was peaked even further. I had to know now.

His car was quite distinct, to say the least. I wasn’t aware of too many other yellow Chevy’s running around town, and most certainly not around school. This narrowed things down, I suppose. Somehow.

His name was Garrett. Garrett Nickelsen. I’d caught his last name upon some social networking site--Facebook or something or other. In a hasty move I decided to add him, hoping that he’d accept the friend request. At least I could say I was his friend in some way now. I wasn’t jus the pathetic infatuated stranger who had only come across his name by chance.

And I’d only come across the fact that he lived in my neighborhood by chance as well.

All of these coincidences were starting to make me wonder if maybe Garrett and I actually had a chance--at something, perhaps. Something more than just the girl who thought about this stranger more than she should. I was getting awful sick of playing this roll throughout third and what was now the beginning of fourth quarter.

I suppose the one fact that made things the most disheartening was that somewhere along the line after I learned what his name was, I’d found out he was a senior. I was a junior. One year of space between us. Well, that wasn’t that much, was it? No, not necessarily. There was still some sort of hope, so long as maybe someday I’d run into him and we’d officially meet.

That whole deal that involved the exchanging of names and being brought to awareness that the other soul existed was quite important for the forming of any relationship. The most I could pray was that he’d be out and around the neighborhood the same time I was someday. Maybe he’d say hi to me. Maybe I’d just return the gesture. Then after that, I’m not sure what happened to the story. It was all up in the air after the initial greeting.

Or maybe I’d bump into him in the hallway. I’d offer some sort of apology, and he’d dismiss it, saying “no problem.” Maybe things would just be easy and we’d hit it off. Maybe for once I could just get what I wanted when it came to boys.

I could only be so lucky to a certain extent, of course.

There really only was so much luck in the world. Who was I to hog it all?

Finding a gorgeous boy around school, further to learn that he was within walking distance of my house. I suppose I can’t ask for too much. Perhaps I was supposed to just create the rest of the story, and stop waiting for some other coincidence to bring us closer together somehow. I think we were as close as we could get, for now.

But anyways, the year was flying by as I watched my grades slowly deplete as the days ticked by and my will to care about anything went out the window. Days turned into weeks, weeks slowly became a month. The last quarter of the year was slipping away into oblivion, and yet I felt like the end of the year was still so far away.

Perhaps the only reason I would find myself wishing the end of the year would never come, is so that I could have just a few more times to see Garrett. To watch him walk in the halls in front of me with his fast steps while I hung back. Just a few more days to give us any sort of chance to run into each other.

The fact of the matter was that Garrett was going to graduate, forever done with high school while the rest of us non-seniors were stuck in school for another two weeks. I wouldn’t be seeing him around the neighborhood. I likely would never see him again in my life.

He would graduate, go to college, get a life. And then what, would I be doing the same? Moving through my senior year, awaiting graduation and college?

I suppose so. I suppose that is what was expected of me.

We never did meet that year.