Crushed

A crush meant painting my toenails electric blue so you'd notice. It meant teasing my hair, but this was way back in the eighties, before the toenails and my obsession with Felicity. Crushes meant relinquishing the teacher's pet title and making you feel like you were better at math. It meant laughing at your jokes, even if they really suck. Sometimes it meant listening to you whine about a classmate--your soulmate according to your dreams. It meant hours of conversation that started with Keanu Reeves and ended with me bashing Britney Spears. Other times it meant crying my heart out, while my roomies sleep, seeking the bathroom as witness to my pathetic existence. And then there were times it meant seeing the back of your head, thinking to myself, "Oh God, I am ruined." It meant nights of tossing and turning, wondering, praying for the significance of a gesture, a word. And now, I discovered it meant subjecting yourself to the possibilities--the good, the bad, the ugliest. It meant accepting defeat. It meant promises to oneself, that this should never happen...never again.