Lainey and I were walking side to side toward environmental class, another science class for me that junior year.
“Hey, Lainey!” Someone called out from one of the shadowy areas of the school. They were just saying hello but my blood rushed to my face as I looked in that direction.
Lainey waved back and pulled me inside the class.
“Look, you can’t wait forever. What’ll happen if you miss your chance? You like him right? You do. I mean, you wouldn’t be talking to him every night if you didn’t.”
I wondered that myself.
“Lilly says I should, too. And Madison, also.”
“See, so go for it!”
I scratched my head still unsure. I sat on the stool, staring blankly at my caucasian teacher move around the room. She was a large woman who wore lots of collared tees. I think she was one of the tennis coaches too. I always thought she had nice blonde locks she didn’t do much with. Simplicity matched her well though.
Lainey and our senior friend, Jenny, started to talk about the classwork that was assigned to us. I’d be lying if I didn’t say my mind was elsewhere but I tried my best to focus.
He was after all just a boy and this was school.
Yet, my mind wandered off to incongruent thoughts from the silly George Bush calendar nailed onto the wall beside the board to the way all the tables immersed themselves easily on the paperwork in front of them. I watched as a thin Asian boy gaped at the girl beside him. His mouth stretched open in a fit of laughter when the girl whispered something to him. I thought he was gay for a long time because of the elegant way he waved his arm. Now, I'm not too sure and it didn't really matter whether he was or wasn't. I was just curious. I kind of liked him. He was just one of the many guys that intrigued me, whether or not the interest developed into something more.
“It’s not like I want a boyfriend,” I mumbled more to myself than to Lainey as I thought more about interest versus like.
“Think about it. You don’t have to do something you don’t want but you don’t want to regret either.”
She was right, I didn’t want to regret—saying it or not but I had to make a decision. This was that hard place and a rock people often talked about. I’d never liked a guy enough to make a move. For as long as I could remember, I’d always been watching from afar. Always. What made Warner different from all the other nice guys I crushed on? I obviously didn’t have an answer. I think if I did, the choice would have been a lot easier.
In grade school, I had a crush on a boy: Richard. He was two years older, Spanish-decent, tall and had sandy brown hair. Goodness, that boy was fine, I think. And he had the nicest smile in daycare for a while. Unfortunately, by grade four, I learned he had a girlfriend. Not that I was going to do anything about it anyway. I just thought, back then it was so damn easy to walk away.
These days, I lingered.
“What are we talking about?” Jenny beamed.
“Georgie has a crush on this guy—she’s planning to tell him.” Lainey grinned.
Jenny cooed, “Who is it?”
“You know those boys who break dance during lunch?” Lainey explained as she scribbled stuff on her worksheet. “It’s one of them.” I thought I heard a slight jeering tone in her voice.
As if giving me permission, Jenny nodded and smiled widely. “Our Georgie’s all grown up.” She was joking... I think.
As far as people saw me, I was the innocent girl who was having her first crush. Truth was, I found myself the muddiest. Being called fragile, small, princess, and whatever else anyone could add made me feel like shit—
"Sorry," I added when Mother Ani frowned. "It made me feel like trash pretending to be a treasure."
Just because Kent saw me as a white rose didn't mean that I did.
“And why is that?” Father Peter scribbled on his pad, today with a blue fountain pen. It was a beautiful pen, vintage-almost. “Why do you see yourself as trash?”
“When you grow up pretty, people only see pretty.” I brushed back a loose strand and leaned back. I traced the crown moldings in the air with my fingers. “I... grew up pretty. Oh, look it’s Georgie— the pretty one. Why don’t you smile for us? Try dancing. Smile! And when we start smiling over and over and over again for people, for others, how else can we smile at ourselves? All I had was this stupid beauty.”
Mother Ani placed a hand on my knee. “Yet, you convey your stories each day with such eloquence. You speak about your friends with so much admiration. All I've seen so far is a beautiful girl with a lot to say, a profound analysis of her own life.”
“Because pretty was stupid. I wasn’t stupid. I didn’t want to be just pretty. I wanted to be Gemma, talented and lovable. Maybe, Genevieve, smart and dependable. Even my brother, my younger brother, had a head over me for being a boy, being a genius and I don’t know. I was just pretty to everyone. Who wants that?”
I suddenly felt out of breath.
“Many want to be beautiful,” Father Peter looked up from his table. “Beauty is sought after.”
“Photoshop? Lypo? Anorexia? What? That’s not beauty. Real beauty comes from here.” I slammed a hand to my chest. Pressing down I said, “And I was ugly in there. I hated people for reasons I can’t even remember now.” My shoulders rose as I talked. “I gossiped about people, friends. I let others talk bad behind their own friends. I let them roll around in the mud I lived in. What kind of person does that?”
I felt out of breath.
“Do you punish yourself for your past?”
I turned away, fiddled with a stud on the chair and continued my story as I fumbled for an answer in my head.
Spring of our junior year, I was walking to class with Lainey when I admitted, “Lilly is starting to annoy me,” for the first time.
“How come?”
“I feel like she’s so bossy. I’m always following her pace and it’s so frustrating.”
She agreed and let me talk more. It just got worse throughout the years. I dissed Lilly. I talked about Madison. I even talked about Lainey to other people. So, I hated pretty because everyone thought Georgiana couldn’t be a bad person.
Warner knew me, I thought.
He knew how much I didn’t like myself and still, he kept talking to me. Day in and day out, he’d message back. He’d ask me about my day, about my stupid heart malfunctioning and he accepted it all.
Knowing that he could accept me did the trick. That same day, that same gloomy day under one of the trees in our usual hangout spot, I told him through a message that I liked him.
The bell had just rung for the last class of the day. I was going to head up to class with Lilly when Warner called out.
“Georgie, you said to ask you... What did you have to say?”
Everyone froze on the spot. I might have swallowed a breath mint I was sucking on. I wasn’t ready. I actually forgot about it for at least a few minutes before the bell. I messaged him over the weekend to ask me at school, if he remembered, about the thing I had to say to him. The thing I had to say was the thing I debated about with my friends. Lilly pushed me forward, said something along the lines of, ‘Go.’ I stumbled forward, phone in my hand. We faced each other but I’d never spoken to Warner outside of those messages. He was words on a screen. I opened my mouth but no words came out. A moment later and I saw people rushing to class.
“You know what, forget it!” I said, dismissing myself.
“Really?” He called out.
I took another second to dwell on the question. My fingers just started to press the buttons. I. Like. You. I flashed the screen on his face. My heart jumped out and I could feel my breathing start to hitch. Then nothing. He said he’d think about it.
For the first time since mine and Lilly's seven-year friendship, I grabbed her by the arm and leaned on her. I didn’t know if I wanted to cry or if I was relieved. I wasn’t sure if it was hurt I felt or freedom.
I think that was the first I’d ever been honest without restraining myself.
The simple but heavy words, ‘I like you’ that never escaped my lips that Warner received- they were words I truly feel.
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