The Crush of '93

W was in grade 11 when I met him. To fulfill the compulsory art credit he was stuck in my grade 9 art class. I can still remember stealing glimpses of him from the other side of the big U-shaped table.

My then best friend H asked me to go to the mall one day. Her cousin’s boyfriend who was old enough to drive would take us there, she said. H’s cousin J went to a different school, a public school in the same district, where she had a reputation for her good looks. “You’ll never guess who J’s boyfriend is,” H said over the phone. I didn’t have to guess. With my luck, it could only have been the boy I liked.

It wasn’t till later that I told H about my crush. So there was no way she could’ve understood what hell I went through that day in the backseat watching J feed frozen yogurt to W as he drove.

Considering what an introvert I was, I probably would’ve never managed to befriend W if he hadn’t been dating my best friend’s cousin. Outside of art class, we might as well have been complete strangers. But in a unique and narrow dimension, he quickly became one of my best friends. We would sit together in class every week and doodle dim-witted notes in each other’s art books while the lesson went on with its business. For the rest of the year we exchanged letters back and forth, on school-related bits and pieces, general likes and dislikes, future goals and dreams. And as if that wasn’t enough, we would talk on the phone after school practically every day, which went on even after he switched to J’s school the following year.

It was the best non-relationship any teenage girl could have wished for.