Forbidden Feelings

by Amanda
(United States)

I never thought I'd ever like him. The first day I met him, I wasn't impressed. But everyone else was. I couldn't understand why some kid from another school won so many girls' hearts so easily. Was it his height? His short, blonde curly hair? Or was it his face, carved as if made of marble, without a single blemish?

His perfection sickened me, I paid no attention to him. But all of my friends gushed over him, and I never suspected that I would ever feel the same way.

But I had never actually MET him before. I had just heard rumors of him-he seemed like a jerk to me. But it wasn't until the second semester of school when our schedules got re-arranged and I finally got to see the real side to him. And that was when I understood.


This boy, I felt so sorry for him, yet so amazed by him at the same time. His father was in jail, his mother had been sick, and he had been moving around to settle in to a new place to call home. He never actually liked it here, and neither did I. In strange ways, we were the same-I had never met my father, my mother was emotional at times and it scared me, and we had been moving from place to place, never completely satisfied.

He seemed to handle his life much better than me. I couldn't tell if it was because he was a guy, or I was just weak. But I admired his strength nonetheless.

I wasn't usually that nervous around guys, but when we had to sit right next to each other in 5th period class, I couldn't get myself to talk to him. I could barely breathe, and I was always glancing in another direction.

He was the one who had the courage to talk to me. Little by little, we talked more like we were friends instead of strangers. It still didn't seem like enough for him to like me-or so I thought. When I told one of my best friends, Tori, that I liked him, she told me that she would try to talk to him to see who he liked.


I waited a few days before I got my answer. He had told her that he liked two girls, one of them being a close friend of hers. And each day when she brought my name up in conversation, he would acknowledge me. I was thrilled, but I knew that I couldn't get too excited because it would only hurt me in the end-I knew this too well from my previous crushes.

But time passed, and I began to believe that he liked me. The only problem was, Tori opened up and admitted she too had a crush on him. She never told me before because she thought I'd get mad, even though she clearly stated that she liked him longer; another "girl-code" rule: thou who has seen him first, keeps him. And she did seem to like him a lot more, maybe even love him. And the stories she told me of how they always talked and laughed, I knew I had to give up. She was so much prettier than me.

I told Tori I didn't like the boy anymore. I decided I'd help the two of them hook up, which is what I always did when I knew I was out of my league. But the more I talked to him, the more I forgot about Tori and how much she liked him. I was supposed to put in good words for her, but instead I knew I was flirting. It was because he really did like me.

I never lied to my friends, so when I told her everything that had happened, she got depressed and angry. She said she knew when two people liked each other, and that him and I were crushing. Her words hit me like a truck, "See? This is why I don't have crushes on guys my friends like. Because they get the guy, and I end up getting hurt. You know what? I don't want him anymore. There's no point in chasing after a guy when I know he doesn't like me."

I had to hold myself from shaking. Her words weren't filled with sorrow the way they should have, the way mine would have been. They were filled with hatred. For me. Tori hated me because he liked ME, not her. I felt sorry for her, but at the same time it wasn't fair. She was so pretty, she always got the guys she wanted. Her life was perfect compared to mine, and just because this one guy didn't like her, she got pissed! We had already gotten in a fight just two days before that, all bacause she thought I didn't care enough about her when she got upset.

But she had scared me then too when she acted like she hated me. I was afraid I would lose my best friend, but at the same time I was afraid I didn't know a thing about any of my friends. I was losing them one by one, and I had done nothing wrong.

But I gave up and decided to forget about her, hoping things would get better. I stuck by her as if nothing happened, and again flirted with the boy in 5th period. But now I don't know if I'm doing the right thing or not. Now I'm wondering, what if I get hurt too? What if I'm losing my best friend to some boy who's going to hurt me in the end, and I'll have nothing?

I want to take a chance. I love that crush feeling, but I hate that guilt feeling just as much. And what's worse is that I can't get him out of my head.