Damien

Oh Damien. This is a fun story to remember, I’ll tell you that much. 9^th grade. I finally felt like I fit in somewhere. I had new friends, a new step mom, what I thought was a new, better, me!

I remember being so super excited because I had developed a crush on a new guy. He was SO smart, SO funny, and to top it all off, SO popular. I thought he was attainable.

I remember vividly the day I decided that I would finally confide my crush in my new best friend, Kelsey. On my way to Biology, I had passed Damien in the hall. He stuck his hand out for a high five. I returned it, but instead of just a handclap, he grabbed my hand and kind of pulled around so we were facing each other again. He didn’t let go of my hand for a couple seconds. We both laughed and continued on to our classes.

I was grateful for the movie that day, because I had a very long, very detailed note to write. The high five in the hall way made me so happy that I was able to ignore Matt throwing bits of paper and pencil shavings into my hair.

And so I dove into the note explaining in great, all be it, exaggerated, detail my run in with Damien. I expressed how magic the moment when our hands touched was and how I just knew that we would be together forever and get married and have six babies and live in a giant house with a boat and an elephant in the back yard… just ridiculousness. I knew I was being crazy, but it was all in fun. I knew she would understand that I was just completely and utterly twitterpated.

So I gave her the note as we were walking to our next class. I warned her to read it quickly, however, because he was in our next class. She told me I was being ridiculous and it wasn’t like he was going to take it or anything. Can you sense the foreshadowing?

When we got in the class room, Damien came over to talk to us. “Kelsey, what are you reading?” He asked half interested half not.

“Just a note, Damien. Go away.” She said keeping her attention focused on the note.

“Well… can I read it?” At this point I interjected and I so wish I had just kept my mouth closed.

“Ha! No. Definitely not.” Of course that sparked his interest.

“Why not? What do you have to hide from me?” He asked trying to sneak it from Kelsey’s hand.

“Damien. I’m serious. Don’t.” So then he had to have it. He snatched it from Kelsey’s hand. I gave it my best effort. I chased him all over the room pleading with him to give it back. So then he ventured somewhere he knew I could never follow. He ran out the door and into the boys’ bathroom. I knew I was doomed. I walked dejectedly back into the class room and took my seat. My friend asked me what happened and I just shook my head and sat down. Damien came back a couple minutes later, handed me my note and said, “I can’t read cursive.” And sat down. I knew he was lying. I was mortified.

A couple days later, my friend Summer came up to me at lunch. She explained that Damien had been talking about the note in her class. She said that he said he couldn’t read cursive but that he actually read everything. He just didn’t know what to say.

I was even more mortified that he was talking to people about it. I knew my days of coolness were over if they even ever really began…