Hidden

As I sat at my computer desk looking though the Facebook photos of a cute guy I had met a week or so previous, I giggled to myself. In my younger years, I wouldn’t have even thought of talking to someone I found attractive. Looking through their photos is basically a more advanced version of staring at them through my bangs from across a crowded classroom filled with chatter, which I do all the time. It causes me to come across as creepy and my crushes stay as far away from me as possible.

Ever since I was little, I had been shy and awkward. I wouldn’t talk to people who wanted to talk to me, but I talked to people who didn’t. The thought of getting close with someone made me squirm in my skin and I did my best to shy away from the uncomfortable feeling. I had best friends, but I always seemed to be more attached to them than they were to me. This was the same with Kelly, whom I met in fourth grade, but without meeting her I wouldn’t have met her twin sister Marlene.

Marlene and I had become inseparable, save for the few fights we had over our years of friendship. My heart sank to my toes and I cried for days when she told me that she and her sister were moving to San Francisco. We vowed to never get a new best friends. She was all I had and I was all she had.

I’m the kind of person who has friends who know close to nothing about her. I don’t open up easily and I have walls built up so high in my heart and mind that even I can’t see over them. I spend most of my time at home, alone. My parents are always at work and I don’t like to be around my step mom for more than a few minutes. She and my dad know the least about me out of everyone, and ignore what they do know.

I am not a religious person, yet they make me go to church and participate in saying grace before meals. I do not believe the same things that they believe in, no one knows what I believe. I avoid talking about things that make me uncomfortable, and that is definitely one of the things.

The romantic relationship part of my life is non-existent. I am fifteen-year-old sophomore who has never been on a date. The only kiss I received was on a dare in sixth grade, and the closest thing I’ve had to a relationship was a little boy that used to run around telling everyone I was his girlfriend. If I hadn’t have had it bad for his friend, I probably would have dated him, but it wouldn’t have meant much considering we were both about three years old at the time. I’ve had plenty of crushes, but I tend to admire them from afar and never get within five feet of them.

Whenever I meet or see a new guy, my imagination goes crazy in thinking up daydreams about stolen kisses and relationships. I always end up thinking up impossible situations and scenarios where they like me and ask me out. I think of them hugging me, holding me, and reciprocating the feelings I have created for them in a matter of minutes based on the fact that they’re beautiful and/or single. Sometimes I feel so desperate that I even create scenarios in my mind where my best friend Marlene and I becoming intimate, but I shove them away and stick to strangers. The lack of romantic love in my life has made me cry on more than one occasion, but not even Marlene knows that. I prefer to keep to myself, to keep my secrets locked away for no one but me to weigh upon.

There is a new guy in my life, other than the one who’s pictures I had been looking at. His name is James. Marlene and I had called him last night while we were at the park by my house—she was in town, visiting from San Fran. He has a deep, almost husky geek kind of voice and I thought it was absolutely adorable. I don’t even know what he looks like, and already I am thinking of going to the movies with him and having him hold me throughout the entire thing, or kissing me so much I don’t even remember the movie. I have it in my head that he is tall with sexy-flippy hair and maybe a piercing or two. Those are generally the kind of people that Marlene hangs out with. The best part is he asked me for my number.

I know that I’m a boy—and sometimes girl—crazy, hopeless romantic, and I have come to accept that I am most likely never going to find someone who will love me. I have all but given up all hope, and I figure that I’d rather wait for them to come to me than risk being rejected. James asking me for my number was him coming to me, and I couldn’t have been more excited. Now, all I can do is wait for him to text me. He promised he would, and I don’t want to seem desperate or anxious. I don’t want to live on false hope, and why would he like me anyways? I’m nothing more than a small girl, standing at almost 5 foot and weighing 115 pounds. My hair is long, curly, and a boring blonde. My eyes are dull hazel, and are hidden with thick, rim-less glasses that correct my horrible vision. I’m smart, but I don’t like to show it off, and I work hard to get straight A’s in honors classes.

I’m nothing special, so all I’m expecting is a simple friendship. For now, that’s all that I can ask of anyone who is willing to talk to me. Though, I couldn’t hide my small smile as my cell phone vibrated and flashed one new message from a number I didn’t recognize.