So the blog homework for this week as assigned by @rambo and @missy, since apparently I'm a proactive person today, is: "Have you ever had a secret admirer or been someone's secret admirer?" To this, I respond with a resounding "I don't know about part one, but I've absolutely secretly admired someone." For 6 years, to this day. But I guess today it won't be a secret anymore.
We both attended a Christian JROTC Air Force (military) high school in nowhereland/hickville, Virginia.
There was a girl: Long, blonde-haired, mid-western, average-to-muscular build (she played softball), Christian, and aspiring to be in the Air Force. Then there was me: Whatever hair color and style I chose that week and got in trouble for, half-Asian, barely 100pounds and whose extracurriculars were acting and singing, and despising the fact that I was stuck at a fucking military school (and resenting the military commanders who were "in charge of" me). Oh, and I have always been an atheist, so I grew to resent organized religion as well.
We were both brilliant, though, so we were in most Honors and AP classes together. That was nice.
I met her in 9th grade (Freshman year). I was smitten. That's when I kept her somewhere on my radar, and see who she was and how she acted. What did she like? Who did she make friends with? Luckily, there were only barely 500 people at my school, so it was pretty easy to assume where someone might be, knowing their schedule (we all knew each others' schedules, for the most part). I tried to be around her just so I could stare at her, her beautiful shy face and her warm smile. Sometimes she'd catch me and I'd say "Hey!" and she'd wave back. She never thought I was weird, but she never caught on either.
I'd make excuses to catch her softball games and talk to her for a bit afterwards. I'd always say something to her if we bumped into each other and she wasn't talking to someone already. I did these things because I'd never crushed on a girl so hard, and I didn't know what to do. I felt a need to observe her and see if there may have been even the slightest inkling of desire within her to date another girl ("blasphemous!"), because I would have had no idea if I could have even faced her if I had offended her with my love. I always knew I was flirting with her, and hard, but she never saw. Apparently, nobody even noticed I was flirting with her at all, even when I did it in front of her occasional boyfriends. I'd pretend I was going to steal her away from him, that I could treat her better, and we'd all laugh while I watched her kiss him, and my heart sank a bit.
I didn't know what to do, other than to be kind to her; so I ended up having awful, tumultuous relationships all through high school. I was rarely single throughout high school, after I felt she would never catch on to my advances. Any time I broke up with someone, another would ask me. It was my routine. I slept with some of them. I broke their hearts. I made them go crazy for me and broke them with my lack of love, since I wanted her more. I started drugs and used them to have fun, and didn't care about the consequences (which were very few, as I was as "smart" as a 4.5 GPA drug user could be). But it didn't help her to notice me. It pushed her away.
She joined the crew of military-inclined assholes who told the rest of us what to do; but I always loved her and hoped the best for her. Our senior year, she became Corps Commander, the most powerful and colored student at the school, in terms of military. I was thrilled for her, watching from my stupid Bravo Flight of girls who laughed at the military rituals and got in trouble a lot. I quickly became known as "the rebel" at my school, tattooing and piercing myself in the dorm room during mandatory study hall, cutting all my hair off and spitting in the face of the military customs I didn't believe made sense, and refusing to sing in Chapel because I felt religion was corrupt and refusing to salute the flag because I felt this country was broken. But she sailed through, and she went on to graduate from the Air Force Academy, 4 years later. I got $80K in scholarships and used none of it, went to community college, and dropped out from boredom after 3 years fucking around unable to focus on mediocre classes that I didn't want to take.
I swore to myself the month before graduation that I would tell her. Graduation came and passed. We grew so far apart in friendship and location and now it's 6 years later and I still never told her. She's engaged to a lovely man she met at the Air Force Academy. Their future looks beautiful, and I'm so happy for her. A year later, I'm now engaged, too, and I'm happy.
I still wish I told her 6 years ago before our graduation in May of 2011. I wish I had told her, "Hey, Allyson. I love you. I've loved you for 4 years. Good luck in life and be happy. I wish the best in the world for you."
But I didn't.
