About Magnar

It was supposed to be a joke, a jest, something we were all supposed to look back at and laugh. And yet six months later I often wonder if it was a warning- a thinly veiled warning amidst the many jokes and general celebratory speeches that made up the Orientation Day Opening Ceremony.

A warning of what was to come; the angst, the longing and the uncontrollable fluttering of butterflies in my stomach whenever I’d catch a mere glimpse of him in class, around the school, or even when someone mentioned his name.



“Don’t fall in love,” our school’s Principal tells us as he concludes his speech after congratulating all of the new arrivals for the A Levels program. “I know we’re all young and curious here but don’t fall in love. You’ve already got enough to deal with. Of course, if you do fall in love…” he lets his words trail off and all of us ‘old’ people- the people who have been at our particular educational institution for several years now- laugh at the inside joke.

School’s incredibly conservative when it comes to relationships. If you get caught doing anything marginally inappropriate, even sitting too close to each other, you’d get suspended. The Board of Governors easily gives Dolores Umbridge a run for her money.

“…well, we can help you get over it,” he finishes. “But don’t do that. It’ll save all of us a great deal of heartache.” With that, and another joke on hormonal teenagers, he ends his speech leaving most of the newbies confused and us ‘oldies’ to comment on how the man says the exact same thing every year.

My friends and I joke about it. We’re all too happy to get back in.

Two years of agonizing A Levels,
college applications and the general existential crisis that comes with growing up, is ahead of us.

Today is a day to party; we won’t get to do that for quite some time.

The corridors are packed as we exit the auditorium, each with their own time table in hand looking for classes and teachers as quickly as possible so we can all join the fun in the Bake Sale downstairs.

I wave good bye to my friends as I run in the opposite direction, looking keenly for my old Maths teachers; I have to tell them my grade. I’d got an award for it after all.

I’m not really good with crowds and tend to feel claustrophobic in especially crammed places. The corridor is no exception. I walk slowly, trying very hard to make my way out of the little hell chamber when I first see him.

The world stops.

Time itself seems to have slowed down.

I’ve had crushes in the past. Heck, I had even tried my hand at dating once and that lasted for a full twenty eight hours before I called it off.

I’ve always assumed that maybe guys are just not my thing. Maybe I am asexual, maybe I like girls-

I’m always surrounded by them anyway but…

…there he is standing three people ahead of me, looking intently at his time table as though that is the most interesting thing in the world.

My heart skips a beat. Everything around me doesn’t matter. The nausea that I feel in crowded areas- everything is gone.

It’s just me and him in the planet and everyone else has faded into the background.

That is until someone claps my back bringing me back from cloud nine. It is my annoying, childhood friend, Anna. I quickly greet her and turn back to look at him but he is gone.



Economics makes me nervous. I’ve never studied it before and the people who do study it aren’t my crowd. I don’t see a single friend in class and that scares me even more. In all my other classes I know everybody. We joke around and drive our teachers nuts but Economics?

It’s foreign and I keep my head buried in my bag, pretending to be tired of the day already- something which I’ve seen the cool kids do. I’m not tired. I love school but people who I don’t know don’t need to know that.

In typical sensational, smart student with social anxiety fashion I’ve seated myself in the second seat. The rest of my class occupies the last few. I feel awkward and count the seconds to the teacher walking in (which is approximately three hundred seconds after the first bell has gone) when the chair in front of my desk creaks.

I look up and find him putting his bag on the desk. Suddenly, there’s a quick sand in my stomach and I can feel the contents of my lunch sink further and further.

He smiles at me and I bury my head in my bag again.

Laughter- his laughter rings in my ear and I want the ground to split open and swallow me whole.

Luckily, the teacher walks in.

It took her three hundred and fifteen seconds.

Damn her.



His name is Magnar and he’s from some Scandinavian country. He’s smart- might actually be well above my league smart and he’s in the popular crowd. He’s good at sports. He likes rugby and he was the president of some really important society in his old school.

He’s also different. Whatever that means.

He’s charismatic and many people think he could be Head Boy next year.

He’s also seeing someone.

She’s from the Liberal Arts department but unlike the people I know from Liberal Arts, she’s a dunce.

To put it mildly.

Granted she’s pretty but that’s it.

She can draw really well too, I’ve hard.

But I can’t help but judge her and him for being so shallow, wondering how someone of his intellect can speak- let alone spend as much time as they evidently do- with someone like her. It makes me angry- so, so angry to think that that stupid tv show that my brother likes to watch, something Park, might be right about smart guys liking dumb girls.

It shouldn’t.

And yet it is.

On Friday night, I silently watch her post pictures of them spending time together at someone’s party as I seethe over how odd of a couple they make.

He’s too tall. She’s too short.

She smiles too much and laughs like a pig.

He’s a lot more sensible and reserves his smile for better, more intimate pictures.

I spend the entire weekend- two whole days trying to style my hair as perfectly- if not better- as hers is every morning.

But come Monday my short, thin hair is a mess and I refuse to leave my bedroom.

My parents are shocked and my elder brother gives me a questioning look as he drives off to school alone.

I decide to stay in bed all day, crying.

Why can’t I be as pretty as her?

I vow never to forgive him for his insolence.



I didn’t think I’d miss him but I did and when he smiles at me in Economics, it makes my day. Gone are my vows of never forgiving him. He smiles and I smile back and that’s it.

By the time Economics is over, I’m back to being happy, silly, awkward me.

My friends notice that something’s different.



It doesn’t take long for my friend Hailey- who’s transferred to Economics- to figure out what’s wrong. She notices my behavior in class. How I’m usually really happy and ’chirpy’- as she describes it- in said class.

And so she decides to drop the bomb at lunch.

“Caro’s got it hard!” she announces to every one of my friends and others as we stand in canteen queue.

Anna laughs. “Really?” she inquires. “Wow! Will you look at that…”

Maria simply shrugs and mouths a “who is it?” while Aaron and Sean, my friends- not-friends from physics, giggle like eighth graders.

“Carrie’s in love?” Aaron exclaims.

“Announce it to the world prat,” I say, punching him in the arm.

That encourages him.

“Caro’s in lurrrve!” he practically announces and my mate from ICT, Caleb overhears it.

“Is it the physics teacher?” he teases me. Everyone thinks I (A) have a thing for, or (B) worship my physics teacher who also writes for NASA sometimes.

I roll my eyes and in doing so, my eyes land on Magnar. His girlfriend is speaking to him but he looks deep in thought.

I frown. That’s not how he acts around her. Usually he’s paying close attention to her- as though her rants are the most important thing in the world (they aren’t)- in an amused but really fond kind of way.

Maybe he’s deciding what to have for lunch, I think as I step up front in line. Sadly for me, I haven’t decided what to have.

Whole wheat noodles, or Caesar salad?



Halloween Party is one of those events in school where we have no adult supervision. All of school’s rules about relationships, conduct and so on is thrown out of the window and for one night, everyone gets a free pass.

Most people take it as an opportunity to exhibit first degree PDA.

For that very reason I’m not particularly enthusiastic about the party.

My parents, however, being proud alumni of the institution, force both me and my brother to attend it. With proper costumes.

For some strange reasons my parents assume that Fred and I are friends. We go as Hansel and Gretel.

There has never been a more awkward Gretel in history. Luckily, Anna knows my pain, and she and Maria- along with many others- have already picked a Halloween costume of my choice.

After a few minutes of bickering, I convince Fred to drop me off at Anna’s.

I quickly change into a Princess Leia costume and we head for the party.

The Halloween party itself is great.

Better than I’d imagined.

And yes, I’m one of the people who organized it. My best friend, Zoe’s band is playing and, by the looks of it, everyone’s enjoying it. A couple of people even congratulate me on the party’s success; I’d remained insistent with my theme and band idea.

Everyone has a blast. My friends and I dance- not that I can dance much- and raid the banquet. I’m having fun and after hours of fooling around on the dance floor, I take a break and head outside for a bit of air.

Bad mistake.

Magnar and Mandy, his girlfriend, are out with a couple of people, posing for pictures, selfies and what not.

He’s dressed as Han Solo and she’s Princess Leia too. We’re wearing the same outfit and even then she’s managed to make it work better than I have.

They look so happy together and then it happens.

Something snaps and I feel tears welling in my eyes.

It’s so damn unfair! What did she do to deserve him?

She doesn’t even know him like I do!

And yes, in the past few months I’ve managed to find out a lot about him. I know his favourite movies (Star Wars, no surprise there), his favourite band (Led Zeppelin and Marilyn Manson. My favourite too), I know that he loves debating, that foreign affairs is something he particularly likes and that he’d really like to work for the UN someday.

I also know about the subjects he likes and I could talk to him about it. We could debate well but for some reason, he’s never spoken to me beyond the smile he gives me every now and then in Economics. Heck, he doesn’t even talk to me when our Economics teacher makes us do group stuff together. He talks to everyone in the group but me.

I know I haven’t made my crush obvious. I’m pretty sure he views just as everyone else does.

Because he isn’t the first one I act all weird around; that’s how I behave around everyone I don’t know.

I look at him and his girlfriend and the people he hangs out with and feel really bad. There’s a lump in my throat and a burning sensation in my eyes.

I turn around and walk, careful not to draw attention to myself, towards the rest rooms.

And that is where Zoe finds me an hour later.

“Caroline, what’s wrong? Why you been here all this time?” she asks, knocking on my stall.

I clear my throat and open the stall. If there’s anyone who can console me, it’s Zoe.

“Caro, have been you been crying?” She’s shocked. I don’t think Zoe’s ever seen me cry. Not in the four years we’ve known each other anyway. I nod in response. I’ve been crying and there’s no point to hide it since my face is red, my eyes redder and whatever make up Hailey had done is gone.

“What’s the matter?”

I can see various emotions run through her face as she studies my face.

“Nothing’s wrong,” I tell her, lying through my teeth, “I just.. I got emotional. I won’t be here next year.”

But Zoe doesn’t buy it. And why would she? She knows that I don’t cry over something as petty as graduation.

“Something’s wrong,” she states, “is it… Magnar?”

I blink, stunned. What?

No one knew the name. Heck, Zoe doesn’t even know that I have a crush. Because Zoe attends a different school. I never got time to tell her. So how does….?

“Marshal,” she tells me as though reading my thoughts, “I never told you. Magnar used to attend Marshal’s school before he came here for A Levels. Him and Marshal are best friends. He likes you, Caro.”

“But…he has a girlfriend,” I say, dumbfounded.

“He’s breaking up with her,” she goes on, “right about….now.”

And surely, at that very moment, we hear the restroom door open and Mandy’s voice is heard.

“I can’t believe it, Ashwyn!” she yells. ”Like why?”

“Let’s leave,” Zoe tells me, and I nod. We walk out of the stall to find Mandy leaning against the sink, talking on the phone.

When she looks at me, she narrows her eyes and, well, glares. at me from head to toe.

“What does he see in you anyway?” she retorts.

I say nothing but Zoe is quick to respond.

“That she isn’t an egoistic megalomaniac who thinks the world should kiss the ground she walks on,” she scoffs.

Mandy says something but Zoe drags me out of there.

“That was rude,” I say, “you don’t know her.”

“She was his girlfriend,” she answers, “I’m pretty sure I’ve seen her more than you.”

I would respond but I really don’t have anything to say.

He broke up with her. What does that mean?

“Give him some time,” Zoe tells me, “Let him get over her…well, not over her but- ya know, let some substantial time pass before the break up. Let him approach you.”

And so I do.

I give him space.

I do it every day when he smiles at me in Economics.

I do it whenever we bump in the hallway and he takes it as an opportunity to make small talk, something which I’m horribly at by the way, but somehow manage to pull it off anyway.

I also do it when Zoe invites me to date night and he’s there, and we’re often left alone talking about football and culture.

And I also give him space whenever I feel my heart flutter, lungs stop and knees tremble whenever he holds my hand underneath the desk as we pretend to go over our Economics project while we’re actually talking about the evolution of capitalism.

And I smile because his smile is really that contagious, and everything’s just perfect.