@emi5027

1 year ago

When I was in high school I had a crush on this boy. Before I ever talked to him, a friend of mine asked me if I knew this guy that went by a silly nickname. If you're wondering what I said in response, I think the better question would be who didn't. What I knew at an arms length was that this boy was loud, he was obnoxious, and so very confident. He'd run around the cafeteria, classrooms, and hallways begging people to stream the music he made. He wore funny clothes and bleached his hair spontaneously. And, admittedly, I thought he was a little kooky but I really admired him for how sure of himself he was. Somehow we ended up in the same social circle and one day we started talking. We found out that we went to the same pre-school together and I just never realized it was him. The conversation wasn't long but we bonded over the fact that we actually knew each other for a long time in a sense. Whenever he was around others you could just see how people gravitated towards him, like moths to light. He could liven up any room he walked in. So time passes and after getting aquatinted with each other better through friend groups I was curious and gave his music a listen. It wasn't anything special, but it was the beginning of something exciting and you could obviously see he had both talent and potential. The following year we ended up in the same math class and that's when we became proper friends. Of course, he continued plugging his music wherever he went and as it was high school, some people were bound to judge and mock. It always made me so upset when people would laugh at or make fun of him because you know they would never allow themselves to as live freely as he did. As angry as it made me, he would just let all of it roll off his back like he never even knew what they'd said or done. That just showed what I really loved about him. We'd always chat away in class, such fun and effortless conversations, the teacher even had to change our seats because we talked too much. He'd just make you feel so comfortable when you talked to him, no judgment. He'd make you feel like the funniest person in the world. Another friend of mine that was in the same class would always ask if we were dating, so maybe our chemistry wasn't as deluded as I'd thought. She'd ask and ask but I could just never admit that I had a crush. When COVID hit and school went remote we used to talk frequently over DM's, but then the messages started to fizzle out. It went from a few times every week, to once a week, to once a month, and then nothing. I remember always telling him how talented he was, probably every time we spoke. Though, I don't think he ever knew that my words were deep and genuine. Fast forwarding to senior prom and graduation, a long while since we last talked, we'd catch glimpses of each other throughout both of those nights. His hair was long and no longer bleached and brassy, his sense of style changed, and his music was completely different from before. Despite all these changes you could just tell he was the same without him having to even lift a finger, I don't know why but I am very sure of this. I knew that he saw me and he knew that I saw him but now we were strangers and neither of us approached one another. Now I'm in college, still thinking about him from time to time. I don't care about the dating, I'm actually not even sure if he liked me back. I just wish I could have expressed to him how special of a person he really was. I know that one day he will make it big, and I will always admire him even if it's from the background, just like before we started talking.

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