Jane ~ My Loser In Aluminum Foil

He (yes, he) changed my thinking and now he’s helping me confront my demons.

I started freshman year with one goal and one goal only. I would not like anyone. no one. I wouldn’t fall back into those stupid ‘crushes’ and get myself hurt again. I made it halfway through the year before I met him. It was cold, a think a Wednesday but I’m not exactly sure. My brother and I were under the stairs after school with some friends. I was reading something or other, thinking about the massive studying I had to look forward to, when bri came over and started talking to us, I had never met her or the other two people she brought with her. I found out one of them was my brother’s girlfriend. And the other, well I didn’t know who the hell he was, except that he was quiet, or at least that was my first impression. Somehow I mentioned something about lesbians and my brothers girlfriend and bri twitched, the other guy didn’t seem to care. It kinda pissed me off. I’m not bi or a lesbian but I believe that marriage is about love not sexual preference no matter what, so I was pissed. After a little while the three of them left and I figured I’d never see the guy again so it wouldn’t matter. I had the journal my friend and I had been passing back and forth though so I wrote about him in it. And I’m confronting my fear of the past and rereading the journal to put it here.

“I’m surrounded by homophobes...it’s pissing me off! God and [my brother] went out with this chick XP blegh! Oh well my music is on and I can’t hear em! Thank god at least one of em’s normal, to me at least. Not bad looking either...BAD THOUGHTS BAD! *Hits self in the head* oh well now I’m chill...sorta? Hehe you didn’t write a play! Damn now the normal one [the guy] is gone...I’m leaving see ya later.”

A few months or so later he made his second appearance, only unaccompanied. And he decided that i was gonna be his new ‘target,’ and, well, pretty much play harassed me for a while. To be perfectly honest I hated him, and our appearances had completely changed since i’d last seen him. He had died his hair; I had cut mine short. I doubt he remembers the first time we met. I’ll never forget it. So he kept play harassing me and he always told me “your hatred towards me is just your way of telling me you love me.” At the time he was wrong, but soon he was right. I’m not sure when exactly I started liking him, that rainy Wednesday under the stairs when I first saw the compassion he didn’t like sharing with people, or when we just sat together for over an hour not saying a word, or when I didn’t want him to see me during finals cause I was dressed like a freaking loser. I remember confronting it around valentines day, but I know I liked him before that. My friend Jessi found out and well, she threatened to tell him. She was close to him and I’d kept it a secret for about three months. I didn’t want things to be different. He found out on March 20th. It wasn’t even Jessi’s fault, it was mine. So on April 20th 2006 I had to talk to him face to face for the first time since he found out. We sat there, and we talked, and I could feel the awkwardness. And then, then Jessi shoved her face against the window and I couldn’t help it, I walked to the window and just started calling her a bitch with him right there. I was so scared that I was gonna get hurt that I just kept calling her a bitch, over and over again.

(See I have this problem where if I see someone I love and I’m in pain I yell at them or I cuss at them or I ignore them or I mask my sadness with anger, because if I don’t, I’ll cry.)

So I yelled so he wouldn’t see me cry from fear. I don’t think he knew or knows how much he meant and still means to me. After Jessi left I told him I liked him and there was awkward laughing and then he had to go, so I walked him to his car, and then I walked home. I knew I would regret it all later. Now though, I don’t, because regrets are silly things that hold us back.

So we didn’t really talk much after that day. I thought he was ignoring me. He hadn’t said if he liked me and I knew the chances were slim.
1.] Jessi told me he had a thing for Hannah (which still haunts me to this day)
2.] He was a senior and 19
3.] My mom had to meet him; which meant dinner with him; which meant not good.
4.] My dad was not interested in it at all. In fact he didn’t want it to happen.
Small talk with him was attempted by a few of my friends, I didn’t hang out after school under the stairs anymore, I was petrified to. That meant giving up some of my friends, and I spent most of my time at a bench nearby. I was supposed to ask him to prom cause he said he would say yes, but he wouldn’t ask me. I would sit with a few friends and sneak glances into the building whenever I could. One day not long after he just walked out of the building and plopped all of his things on the table. And that was that. The next few days he came by himself but when he figured out that I wasn’t gonna ask him quite so soon he started bringing his friends over. I kept backing down whenever I was gonna tell him, I just couldn’t do it.

Finally two weeks before prom I everything was falling apart. My brother said he would take me if I couldn’t get [him] to go with me, but that would mean my brother couldn’t take his girlfriend. I didn’t want to do that so I went over to talk to my friend, who was going with another freshman. [He] was over talking toa friend while I talked to my friend but then I just walked away from him after he finished lacturing me on going for it, I’m not sure what possessed me but I just walked over to where [he] was standing, now alone, and [he] told me he had to go, right as he was getting his stuff together I just stared at him and said;
“Why are you doing this?”
“I know you like me.”
“Yeah, I thought we established that.”
“You need more self confidence.”
I stared at him then I turned red and looked down, I sort of mumbled;
“I had self confidence it just sorta doesn’t exist anymore.”
He moved back to pack up his things and out of no where I just blurted out;
“Look, will you go to prom with me?”
He did this sort of half smile I-told-you-so-thing and stopped packing up, then he said;
“Sure.”
I stared at him and then I said, “ you realize you have to meet my mom?”
He just nodded and said “ you realize I’m having dinner with my friends before.”
I nodded. Hannah again.

Then he just left. But to this day his words haunt me; “you need more self-confidence.” He knew what I thought of pity dates. I made it very VERY clear early on that I’d rather be rejected than have pity taken on me. So that weekend he met my mom and the weekend afterwards was prom.

And just so he knows “yes I had a ‘good time.’” I doubt he’ll ever see that but I never told him. He is such an amazing person but everyone is stuck on the belief that he’s a perverted loser. No. You don’t see what I see. There’s something there; it’s not all bad. He has a mature side; true he doesn’t show it often, but its there. You don’t know him. I think it’s all just a sort of shell after the whole fiasco with his first girlfriend. Its easier to hide pain by being a jerk, I mean I’m a cynical bitch at school so people at school won’t know it still tears me apart. He told me prom wasn’t pity, but a ‘trial’ date. Trial for what? We don’t have a future, he’s graduated and I’m sure he’s moved on but so many things still bother me. He is the best and worst thing that has ever happened to me. When he gets a girlfriend I’ll probably just sort of disconnect from things, but I’ll find a way to work it out. If you are gonna read this and talk shit about it then don’t bother, you obviously don’t know him or me very well. So this wasn’t all good, but then what in life ever is?

(jane is morgan for those of you who cared enough to read this entire thing.)

I wrote this on a Saturday night in February, in the journal that he stole at one point but never read because I made him give it back.

Isn’t it funny? How you can put up your defenses cross your arms, shake your head and without realizing it you do exactly what you were shaking your head and crossing your arms over. And its not until you do something on purpose to get their attention. That’s when you understand. Or maybe its when you can’t stop thinking about him. I don’t know how it happened. I fell into pain. Not love, not like…. Pain. Sadness…because it had to be the one that’s unattainable. The one guy who will never think about me likes that. Even if he did it would be hard for a lot of people to take. Now its midnight. Maybe it’s his eyes, or his smile. Or maybe it’s for the same reason I’ve ever liked anyone, he gives me attention. Not a lot, but some. And I can’t get him out of my mind and he doesn’t even think about me. I just had to feel this way. The one year I was gonna be free…but I can’t help it. I’ll deny I like him to a fault I’ll shake my head and make a face, followed by “are you kidding?!” and I’ll hope you are because if you aren’t my illusion will be shattered, and the worst part is he’ll never know how much I like him, he’ll never guess but that’s good cause if he really did find out he’d probably make a face and say “what the hell?!” then, well, I wouldn’t smile much. Maybe that’s why I like him, he makes me laugh. the part that hurts the most is I never see him and he’ll never know.

And I guess he won’t.

My knight in shining armor turned out to be a loser in aluminum foil, but i don’t really mind. Its been 10 months, and its taking a while, but i’m content with what i’ve been through, the good and the bad. I just hope I’m as vivid in his memory as he is in mine.