100th post, Boys I've loved #3

From this point on, I won't use full names. Not to protect the innocent, because I was probably the only innocent one, but as a gift to the boys who probably don't want their wives to say..."You DID WHAT?"

In 7th grade I met James L.E.L.  He was a year older.  We would pass notes in a history class and that was it. I was in love. All I needed was someone to pay a little bit of attention to me.  He had hazel eyes and light brown hair straight out of Starzky and Hutch.  He was funny and a bit aloof.  I didn't blame him for being a bit distant, I was younger.

I have to say something about what I was like in 7th grade.  I was extremely skinny.  I had glasses that changed color when I went out into the sun.  I had crooked teeth and skin that glowed.  It was the age of Farrah and Princess Leia, so I didn't quite feel like a looker, you know what I mean?

It was the first time I felt like a boy noticed my mind.  Like all good stories, James left to go to another school the next year. This did nothing but inflame my passion for him.  I would write Mrs. Larson over and over and over again on reams of paper. I kept all the notes that he had ever written to me in a jar above my bed.  I would pull them out at night and read them with a flashlight.  The image of James filled a lonely childhood.

James had a large home across the track field from the school.  My history class was the last period of the day. Luckily, I sat by the window. He would come home from school at 2:03 and I would watch him walk down the street and into his house every day.  It is the only thing I remember from my eighth grade year.

I pined for James through my ninth grade year. I became friends with his sister even though she was a bit unkind, just so I could go over to his house and somehow get a glimpse of him.  I was euphoric for weeks if he said "hello" to me. Even though I had some flings and hard crushes, my heart longed for James. I pined for James through my tenth grade year.  In my eleventh grade year, I finally got the guts to ask him to a girl's choice dance.  Five years I had waited for that night.  I borrowed a dress, I braided my hair, my makeup was impeccable.  He had no idea how I loved him.  He had no idea how many nights I had spent lying in my bed wondering what it would be like to kiss him.

I picked him up for the date and we had dinner at my friend's house.  He was sarcastic.  He was ungentlemenly.  We had nothing in common to discuss. He was unkind to my friends. In short, it was a disaster.  I don't know why he changed that night. Maybe his secret love was out with someone else. We went to the dance and he disappeared for about forty-five minutes.  My dreams of slowdancing with James and laying a wet one on those lips never happened. When I got the photos from the dance, the group photo turned out okay. I'm wearing black.  How appropriate. Thanks to my friend Heidi (thanks, Heids!) I have a scanned copy below.  

The couple photo where James and I stood alone didn't turn out so well.  It showed a boy desperately not wanting to be there and a stunned looking seventeen-year old whose years of hopes and dreams had been dashed in an hour. When I picked the developed photos up, I couldn't bear looking at them.  I didn't want to give him a copy. I told him that the dance photos never arrived and must have been lost.

I had to tell the lie because the picture told the whole truth.

Unfortunately, it wouldn't be the last time that a James threw me for a loop.