Thrill of the Fall

The fact that she always drew his eyes in a crowd was not totally ridiculous, given the fact that 99% of the high school males found their eyes walking circles around her and the group of friends that was never far from her side. She was wonderful, beautiful, and smart. She was probably ranked in the top of the class.

Astin Caignon. Even her name sounded like rich and decadent as it came off his tongue. Or it would have had he ever really said her name out loud. He was far too shy, among other things, to even think about talking to her. She was crazily popular, everyone loved her. Sure, she had friends who weren’t so popular and she definitely wasn’t one of those snobby nosed cheerleaders that every school seemed to have in abundance. But he wasn’t even on the lowest of tiers of the food chain at their high school. He doubted that she had ever even heard her name before in the almost twelve years that they had gone to school together. He had gone to school with her since kindergarten, even spending three years of elementary school and a handful of classes in high school together. But, as most teachers did, they were sat in alphabetical order, not really putting them anywhere near each other.

He could still remember the first time he saw her. He was always early to everything due to his mother’s not wanting to make a bad impression on anyone when he boys were younger. So he made it to first grade almost a half hour before class started. He was the unlucky first one there, but it also gave him a chance to watch every other boy and girl that came through the door to Mrs. Watson’s class. A few of his lifelong friends would walk through the door, but the one that caught his attention the most was the blonde girl with the diamond earrings. Later, he would find out through multiple sources that she has gotten her ears pierced right before first grade because every single one of her friends were doing it.

Her friends giggled like most little girls, calling her “A.J.” as they laughed. And at that single point in time, he knew that he preferred blondes over brunettes. When he went home that night, he told his mom that he was going to marry the pretty blonde girl with the boy’s name that sat in the first row at class. She smiled at him, believing that this would be the first of many crushes that he would have.

But when it hit fifth grade and her son was still infatuated with Astin, she had to sit him down and explain to him that sometimes, things just didn’t work out like you hoped that they would. But he just wasn’t taking that as an answer. At eleven years old, most boys were just a little bit beyond stubborn. Her son was among them. She was sure that he would eventually grow out of it though.

And he seemed to when they hit high school a couple years later. He didn’t have any classes with A.J. and he seemed to forget about her all together, even dating a couple girls that he brought home to show his mom. But he always just had that funny feeling anytime he saw her, which wasn’t really all that much.

But A.J. had never even said so much as two words to him. Well, she might have given him a nice “hello” when passing him in the hallway. But he had never really had the guts to say anything back to her. She was so popular and he was just that one shy kid. Sure, he had friends all the way through high school and he was never really a loner, but he was never popular like A.J.

Eventually, he started a band with his best friends. And he found himself liking the idea of playing music that he had written in front of people more and more every single day. He doubted that A.J. even knew that he wrote songs about her and for her.

He was one of the few that rarely paid attention to the rumors that were constantly going around about the girl that he was so damn infatuated with. The biggest ones were always the cocaine rumors. Sure, she was skinny. But she was from one of those upper class families that prided itself on their kids being the best of the best at everything that they did so he doubted that Astin could get away with drinking a glass of champagne on New Year’s Eve let alone with hiding an addiction such as one to cocaine. But their high school was small, so the rumor mill was constantly running with any sort of little statement that probably was nothing. But everything was big deal there. And the fact that Astin’s best friend was Evelyn Beck, the biggest whore in the school, didn’t help Astin’s case very much. Everyone just assumed she was guilty by association. But he knew better. He knew that she wasn’t like that. She wasn’t really popular because of what she did, per say. She was more popular because of her background and her family. Her family had money to spare, lots of it. And the whole world knew that those who had money to throw around went much farther than those who made just enough to get by, like his family did.

It was one thing that his mom had tried to force into his mind: girls that came from a family like Astin Caignon’s did not mingle from a boy who came from a family like his. But he wasn’t having any of it. He was infatuated with the idea of Astin. She was a wonderful picture of perfection in his mind and nothing less than that would ever be good enough for him. The girls that he would date for a few shorts weeks, some even days, could never stand up to what he thought Astin would be. What would he do if Astin turned out to be nothing like he imagined her, his dad would ask. And he never had an answer, because he was so damn sure that A.J. was the picture that he drawn her out to be inside his head. The rumors weren’t true, he was sure. And no one would tell him otherwise.

His friends would make fun of him if they ever knew what he thought about Astin. They would tell him that he didn’t have a chance in hell, that A.J. would fall for him the day that Hell got a covering of snow that was three inches deep. But he couldn’t give up on the idea. The best kept secrets are the ones that are only kept to yourself, a thing that he knew perfectly. He had told his parents, but only because they had accidentally found him writing her a note that he would probably end up throwing away in the fifth grade. By his senior year, he had successfully tricked his parents into believing that his infatuation with Astin was completely gone. He fooled every single one of his friends into that very same ideal, not that they ever would have guessed he had a crush on the most envied girl in the school system.

But not himself, he had tried to do that for six or seven long years and his senior year was the year to change that. He was going to let her know who he was. But he wouldn’t do it right away. He couldn’t go from being nothing for over ten years to being something in a week. He would do it the only way he knew best. Secrets.

And maybe, just maybe Astin would figure it out and let him in.