I Still Think About My High School Crush
[big][b][i]The Happiest/Saddest Night of my Life: Part 1[/i][/b][/big]
[sep]
According to those I've shared this story with, it's the saddest thing they've heard, so... I hope it justifies it's length, haha. This is a story of what brought me to the happiest night of my life, but also, the saddest one. The night of my high school crush's Sweet 16. It's somewhat lengthy, so I divided it into sections and posts for anyone who just doesn't have the time to read it all in one go, haha. And interestingly enough, our absence from school, on the same school day, would act as the catalyst to which our whole friendship and this whole story, came to be.
[sep]
[b][i][u]Freshman Year[/u][/i][/b]
Background Information to remember:
Name: Charlie
Size: 5'11" (180 centimeters)
Build: Really skinny. No muscle whatsoever. Not athletic, in the slightest. "Skin and bones" one might say...
I was mostly a loner, in school. Didn't speak to anyone and they didn't really speak to me much, either. I considered myself to be someone who went to school to simply fill an empty seat.
My school was a small one. There was only one lunch time and everybody in the school ate simultaneously. Some students would neglect lunch to work on anything they missed from their previous absences. We would go to the room of the class we wanted to do make up work for. My crush and I, missed the previous day. We had the same classes, but at different times, so we had never met one another.
During lunch, the tech teacher, Mr. Rosenthal, was leaving the classroom and was about to lock the door to it. I approached him letting him know that I planned to do make up work. "Alright," he said. "Don't let anyone in". I entered the classroom and he closed the door behind me. It locked. It was a large white room with computers galore. There was only one other person there. A girl sitting at a computer: Cassidy.
[b][i]Meeting Cassidy[/i][/b]
I liked her, the moment I saw her. She was really short (maybe around 5'2" or 5'3" [157 - 160 centimeters]), had a slender body, beautiful black straight hair, and brown eyes. She spoke out rather quickly. "Here, you can use this computer!" The 2nd computer to the right of her was already on and ready. And while speaking to people you like is usually very difficult, this was different. If I could describe the environment she's created by her body language and words, it would be... hospitable. "Thanks". I sat down at the computer. I wanted to say something. "Did you miss school yesterday?" I asked. "Yeah, I did. You, too?" "Yup". We hit it off, immediately. I'm still not sure what it was, but her dialogue seemed inviting. I would normally be insecure about speaking to others, as I would wonder if they even cared for the conversation. But I liked the conversation we had so much that I couldn't really pay attention to my insecurities, at the time. We laughed, throughout. And when lunch time was over, neither of us didn't really get much done. She had to leave because her next class wouldn't be Intro to Technology, the class we were in. We said our goodbyes and she left. I would't make contact with her, until a month later.
[b][i]FaceBook[/i][/b]
It was around this point that MySpace just died out to FaceBook. In case anyone here is too young to not know, MySpace was a worse version of FaceBook. The creator of MySpace, a guy named Tom, would be automatically added onto your Friend's list the moment you made an account. So imagine making a FaceBook account, where you automatically become friends with Mark Zuckerberg. I mean, you could still unfriend him, but... still weird.
I had made my account on FaceBook. And even though it's been a month, I wanted to add Cassidy, immediately... But I couldn't because I didn't have any other friends, not even Zuckerberg. I needed to add a couple of friends first, before sending her one. Luckily, for as long as people know who you are, they'll add you. I just started giving some random friend requests to people in my classes. They accepted me, but no one would speak with me and I wouldn't speak with them, haha.
After adding a couple of friends, I got into Cassidy's profile. I was afraid of sending her a friend request. Did she remember me? Would it be weird to add her after meeting her a couple weeks ago? I thought, f**k it... I don't even see her during the day. I just met her by coincidence. May as well give it a try. I friended her and a while later, she accepted! It was a good first step, but... there's not much point in being friends with anyone if there isn't any form of interaction. So I tried to find a moment to reply to one of her statuses.
A few days later, she made a post on FaceBook about a limousine. I can't remember what it was exactly, but I had found an opening in that post. I replied to it... then she replied back... then I replied to hers... and after about 6 or 7 replies, I replied to her in PM and then we kept talking from there, till the end of the day.
[b][i]Friendship in the Making[/i][/b]
We kept in touch with one another every day, online. She even gave me her number. But because I was an insecure kid, I made a rule to adhere to. I will only message Cassidy, if she's messaged me first on the previous day. Oddly enough, I think she followed a similar rule because we would take turns messaging each other first, each day.
This is so embarrassing to share... but I remember going online on FaceBook and seeing her online and just waiting for her to message me on the days she was supposed to message me first. Legit, I wouldn't even scroll around or click anything, I'd just sit there and wait, hahahaha. It never took long for her to message me though :) It took about a minute or so for her to notice me and we'd start chatting, till the end of the day.
On a couple of days, we would speak about her troubles. She told me I always helped her feel better whenever we would speak. By the end of those conversations, she would tell me "I don't deserve such a good friend like you." I had mixed feelings about that comment. On one hand, it's the only compliment I would ever really get at the time from anyone outside my family. But on the other hand, she sounded as if she was bringing herself down. I didn't really know how to deal with that comment. I would brush it off, saying: "Nahhhh, you totally deserve me! :D". We grew closer over the next months.
[b][i]Runner[/i][/b]
After a class ends, you have about 5 minutes to go to your next one. I was making my way towards my 2nd period class, until stopped by the screams of a girl, "CHARLIE!!!!!!!!!" Damn near everyone in the vicinity turned to the source. It was Cassidy. She was running towards me, swiftly, making her way around any student standing between her and I. I wasn't sure what was happening, it was a bizarre scene. I felt happy to see her and confused to see her running so quickly. Mostly confused. This was the first time I'd seen her since we spoke in the lab about 2 months ago. I thought she would slow down as she approached me, but I clearly didn't know Cassidy, at the time. She kept running at full speed.
By reaction, I quickly opened my arms at the last second to catch her. She crashed into me and I damn near lost my balance and almost sent us both falling. She hugged me and said "Hi!". "Hey! Uhhhhmm..." I didn't know what to say. I could barely speak to others, much less to someone who intentionally crashes into online friends. "I'll message you after school!" she said. "Ok!" That was it? Run, smash, hi, bye?
But she followed through in what she said. Apparently, I was much closer to Cassidy than I had originally thought, for her to act as she did in school. It wasn't the only time it occurred, it became a pretty weekly thing. Time to time, if she would take notice of me going by a classroom, she'd scream out, "CHARLIE!!!!!" and make a mad dash towards me. She never slowed down until we would collide. Clearly, our first experience wasn't enough to change her mind. But I was getting better at keeping us both standing. And if I were to be honest, those were the highlight of my days. All I really needed was someone to speak with, but she went above and beyond. I wanted to be acknowledged and she would, unknowingly, give me exactly that with every human collision. "CHARLIE!!!!!!" Because every moment she collided with me, everyone knew, I was Charlie.
[b][i]Al[/i][/b]
Al was a somewhat popular kid in my class. Blonde hair, blue eyes, and a pretty good build. His sense of humor was peculiar, but he still had many friends. He was also good at speaking with the girls of the school. And although we didn't really speak to each other, I thought he was kind of cool. As weird as it may sound, he was a reminder that you could be a bit weird, yet still have friends. He became a bit of a friendly role-model. And although he may not appear important now, he plays quite a role in this story later.
There was a fire department nearby that held a workout gym. Our school partnered with the fire department to allow our P.E. class to work out there. And when we were done with it all, we'd get "somewhat" cleaned up and head back to school. There weren't any showers to use, so we just body sprayed ourselves and walked our sweaty asses back to class. There was one day when Al didn't bring with him his body spray. Luckily, the insecure part of me made sure to triple check that I had one in my bag. As I sprayed myself, Al asked, "Hey, mind lending me that when you're done?" I handed it to him and he began spraying himself.
I shit you not, the 2 prettiest girls of our class immediately converged around him, the moment they took a whiff of the spray. They began complimenting him on how good he smelled, dragging their hands around his chest. I thought I was in a comedy movie. I thought God was looking down at me, laughing, saying "Hahaha, you made that happen! And the funny thing is that it won't happen to you!"
"Thanks, man". Al threw me the bottle. After catching it, I waited for just a very small moment, to see if some girl would approach me. I didn't speak with anyone in my class, so I'm not sure what I expected. I put the spray back inside my bag and started heading out. I know it's stupid, but that was my low self-esteem at work. At that moment, I felt like a tool to hand body spray. During those days, my lack of interaction defined my worth.
[b][i]The Toughest Test[/i][/b]
FaceBook had a couple of fun activities back then. They had this game where you can answer randomly generated questions about your friends in a yes or no format. For example: "Do you think Marcus brushes his teeth every morning? Yes, no, or skip?" If you answered a question, those very same friends in the questions would get a notification stating that someone answered a question about them, as well as the question itself, and the answer. It would not, however, say who answered the question.
Answering these questions would give you some FaceBook tokens. These tokens could be used to find out who answered a question of your choosing. It was a pretty fun way to pass the time. Most were goofy, none too serious. And if "User 1" would use their tokens to find out what "User 2" answered about them, then "User 2" would get a notification saying that "User 1" figured out he/she said it. And as I was answering stupid questions about my friends, I was faced with a rather surprising question.
[quote]Do you have a crush on Cassidy?[/quote]
[b]Well, f**k me sideways.[/b] I did not sign up (on FaceBook) for this shit. What were the chances of this question landing on her?
Should I say "Yes"? It's the truth.
Or "No"? She'd get the wrong idea.
"Skip"? Probably won't get another chance to tell her like this.
I shit you not, I stayed seated, staring at that question for an entire hour long. It was a goddamn 1 question test. I believe I knew the answer all along, but just couldn't bring myself to answer it. Nonetheless, I finally did. [b]YES.[/b] I remember immediately walking over to my bed and thinking about what I've done. How would she react? Would she stop talking with me? Would she tell me she felt the same? Would she even find out? I mean, she still had to pay her tokens to unlock who answered the question. What if she didn't pay? What if she didn't care? What if I'm just killing myself over nothing? A few hours passed and I heard a *ding* on my computer.
[quote]*Cassidy unlocked your identity from the question: Do you have a crush on Cassidy?: Yes*[/quote]
We were both on FaceBook's online chat. So I waited. I waited for her to send me a message. And I kept waiting... But she didn't write to me that day.
[b][i]Silence[/i][/b]
I was at school the next day, thinking about the question. Did I make the right or wrong choice? Was I right to find this out so soon? Does this mean I could move on to someone else, instead? To who? I didn't talk to anyone. I didn't even know where to begin! Would it have been better had I not answered that question with a "yes"? A skip or a no, maybe? Did I just lose my crush? Did I just lose my only friend? "CHARLIE!!!" Everyone turned. And so did I. My worries evaporated into thin air. Cassidy was, once again, charging at me.
I couldn't help but smile. I let out an air of relief, as I took my stance. Right foot back, bent the knees, upper torso forward, opened arms, preparing myself to take her blow, head-on. She opened her arms and smashed into me with full-force! Her arms wrapped around my lower torso. She looked up at me, with a smile, and said "Hey, Charlie". I F**KING MELTED.
It continued on that way for the next few months. We spoke on FaceBook. We spoke on Gmail. And we spoke through texts. Every day. And although she gave me the same sort of attention she's always given me, she stayed silent about the FaceBook question. Complete silence... And it was killing me.
[b][i]Ultimate Ball: Freshman Year[/b][/i]
There was a game that every P.E. class would only play once per year: Ultimate Ball. Why once per year? Hell if I know. It looked like a fun game. I say "looked" because even though I played... I actually didn't. Let me explain the rules of our variation of Ultimate Ball, so it may be easier to understand what I mean. The game would be played at our gym (not the fire station one, but we had our own basketball gym... thing)
- There are 2 positions in Ultimate Ball. What I'll call the "main-field" players and "end-zone" players.
- Main-field players could run freely around the gym. However, the main-field player holding the ball can only take, at most, 2 steps before shooting the ball to someone. The main-field players, on the other team, had to try and steal the ball while it was being thrown. You are not allowed to knock the ball off of someone's hand.
- End-zone players have to stay at the very end of the gym and couldn't move. Their job was to successfully grab onto a ball that a main-field player, on their team, would throw at them, to score a point. In other words, main-field players couldn't score points, only end-zone players could.
I'm sure we've all had classmates, usually girls, who felt a bit nervous about taking part in sports. Those classmates usually played as end-zone players, so that they wouldn't have to be so active. Practically all end-zone players volunteered to be. All athletes would be main-field players, as it was the role that required the most action. And most athletes on the team were taller than me, despite me being tall as it is. Al was a main-field player on my team. And I made myself a main-field player, as well.
Unfortunately, throughout the game, no one ever gave me the ball. I would be wide-open but the athletes of our team only shot at one another. They believed it would maximize their chances of winning if they shot the ball at the best players. And they were always the ones to steal the ball. At one point, an athlete on my team had the ball and I called out to pass it to me... but they didn't. They never did. The athletes, including Al, would get the ball, but they wouldn't pass it to me or the other non-athletes on our team. The same happened on the other team.
I quickly learned, that if you weren't good enough as a main-field player, you wouldn't ever get the ball. Nonetheless, the game would bring everyone to the front of the gym and then to the back. I would be running up, down, up, down, up, down. But for as long as I wasn't catching a ball, it felt less like Ultimate Ball, and more like suicide runs. And there were a couple classmates that experienced the very same thing. By the end of the game, I didn't get the ball even once. I couldn't steal a ball. And we lost. It was embarrassing. I was happy Cassidy wasn't in my class, then. I only ran around the gym for over an hour like an idiot. I could have just sat on the bleachers and would have impacted the game as much as I did then.
I wouldn't forget that day. This day would come back to memory next year. Only this time, Cassidy would be in my class and she would be on my team.
[center][b][i]To Be Continued...[/b][/i][/center]
[sep]
According to those I've shared this story with, it's the saddest thing they've heard, so... I hope it justifies it's length, haha. This is a story of what brought me to the happiest night of my life, but also, the saddest one. The night of my high school crush's Sweet 16. It's somewhat lengthy, so I divided it into sections and posts for anyone who just doesn't have the time to read it all in one go, haha. And interestingly enough, our absence from school, on the same school day, would act as the catalyst to which our whole friendship and this whole story, came to be.
[sep]
[b][i][u]Freshman Year[/u][/i][/b]
Background Information to remember:
Name: Charlie
Size: 5'11" (180 centimeters)
Build: Really skinny. No muscle whatsoever. Not athletic, in the slightest. "Skin and bones" one might say...
I was mostly a loner, in school. Didn't speak to anyone and they didn't really speak to me much, either. I considered myself to be someone who went to school to simply fill an empty seat.
My school was a small one. There was only one lunch time and everybody in the school ate simultaneously. Some students would neglect lunch to work on anything they missed from their previous absences. We would go to the room of the class we wanted to do make up work for. My crush and I, missed the previous day. We had the same classes, but at different times, so we had never met one another.
During lunch, the tech teacher, Mr. Rosenthal, was leaving the classroom and was about to lock the door to it. I approached him letting him know that I planned to do make up work. "Alright," he said. "Don't let anyone in". I entered the classroom and he closed the door behind me. It locked. It was a large white room with computers galore. There was only one other person there. A girl sitting at a computer: Cassidy.
[b][i]Meeting Cassidy[/i][/b]
I liked her, the moment I saw her. She was really short (maybe around 5'2" or 5'3" [157 - 160 centimeters]), had a slender body, beautiful black straight hair, and brown eyes. She spoke out rather quickly. "Here, you can use this computer!" The 2nd computer to the right of her was already on and ready. And while speaking to people you like is usually very difficult, this was different. If I could describe the environment she's created by her body language and words, it would be... hospitable. "Thanks". I sat down at the computer. I wanted to say something. "Did you miss school yesterday?" I asked. "Yeah, I did. You, too?" "Yup". We hit it off, immediately. I'm still not sure what it was, but her dialogue seemed inviting. I would normally be insecure about speaking to others, as I would wonder if they even cared for the conversation. But I liked the conversation we had so much that I couldn't really pay attention to my insecurities, at the time. We laughed, throughout. And when lunch time was over, neither of us didn't really get much done. She had to leave because her next class wouldn't be Intro to Technology, the class we were in. We said our goodbyes and she left. I would't make contact with her, until a month later.
[b][i]FaceBook[/i][/b]
It was around this point that MySpace just died out to FaceBook. In case anyone here is too young to not know, MySpace was a worse version of FaceBook. The creator of MySpace, a guy named Tom, would be automatically added onto your Friend's list the moment you made an account. So imagine making a FaceBook account, where you automatically become friends with Mark Zuckerberg. I mean, you could still unfriend him, but... still weird.
I had made my account on FaceBook. And even though it's been a month, I wanted to add Cassidy, immediately... But I couldn't because I didn't have any other friends, not even Zuckerberg. I needed to add a couple of friends first, before sending her one. Luckily, for as long as people know who you are, they'll add you. I just started giving some random friend requests to people in my classes. They accepted me, but no one would speak with me and I wouldn't speak with them, haha.
After adding a couple of friends, I got into Cassidy's profile. I was afraid of sending her a friend request. Did she remember me? Would it be weird to add her after meeting her a couple weeks ago? I thought, f**k it... I don't even see her during the day. I just met her by coincidence. May as well give it a try. I friended her and a while later, she accepted! It was a good first step, but... there's not much point in being friends with anyone if there isn't any form of interaction. So I tried to find a moment to reply to one of her statuses.
A few days later, she made a post on FaceBook about a limousine. I can't remember what it was exactly, but I had found an opening in that post. I replied to it... then she replied back... then I replied to hers... and after about 6 or 7 replies, I replied to her in PM and then we kept talking from there, till the end of the day.
[b][i]Friendship in the Making[/i][/b]
We kept in touch with one another every day, online. She even gave me her number. But because I was an insecure kid, I made a rule to adhere to. I will only message Cassidy, if she's messaged me first on the previous day. Oddly enough, I think she followed a similar rule because we would take turns messaging each other first, each day.
This is so embarrassing to share... but I remember going online on FaceBook and seeing her online and just waiting for her to message me on the days she was supposed to message me first. Legit, I wouldn't even scroll around or click anything, I'd just sit there and wait, hahahaha. It never took long for her to message me though :) It took about a minute or so for her to notice me and we'd start chatting, till the end of the day.
On a couple of days, we would speak about her troubles. She told me I always helped her feel better whenever we would speak. By the end of those conversations, she would tell me "I don't deserve such a good friend like you." I had mixed feelings about that comment. On one hand, it's the only compliment I would ever really get at the time from anyone outside my family. But on the other hand, she sounded as if she was bringing herself down. I didn't really know how to deal with that comment. I would brush it off, saying: "Nahhhh, you totally deserve me! :D". We grew closer over the next months.
[b][i]Runner[/i][/b]
After a class ends, you have about 5 minutes to go to your next one. I was making my way towards my 2nd period class, until stopped by the screams of a girl, "CHARLIE!!!!!!!!!" Damn near everyone in the vicinity turned to the source. It was Cassidy. She was running towards me, swiftly, making her way around any student standing between her and I. I wasn't sure what was happening, it was a bizarre scene. I felt happy to see her and confused to see her running so quickly. Mostly confused. This was the first time I'd seen her since we spoke in the lab about 2 months ago. I thought she would slow down as she approached me, but I clearly didn't know Cassidy, at the time. She kept running at full speed.
By reaction, I quickly opened my arms at the last second to catch her. She crashed into me and I damn near lost my balance and almost sent us both falling. She hugged me and said "Hi!". "Hey! Uhhhhmm..." I didn't know what to say. I could barely speak to others, much less to someone who intentionally crashes into online friends. "I'll message you after school!" she said. "Ok!" That was it? Run, smash, hi, bye?
But she followed through in what she said. Apparently, I was much closer to Cassidy than I had originally thought, for her to act as she did in school. It wasn't the only time it occurred, it became a pretty weekly thing. Time to time, if she would take notice of me going by a classroom, she'd scream out, "CHARLIE!!!!!" and make a mad dash towards me. She never slowed down until we would collide. Clearly, our first experience wasn't enough to change her mind. But I was getting better at keeping us both standing. And if I were to be honest, those were the highlight of my days. All I really needed was someone to speak with, but she went above and beyond. I wanted to be acknowledged and she would, unknowingly, give me exactly that with every human collision. "CHARLIE!!!!!!" Because every moment she collided with me, everyone knew, I was Charlie.
[b][i]Al[/i][/b]
Al was a somewhat popular kid in my class. Blonde hair, blue eyes, and a pretty good build. His sense of humor was peculiar, but he still had many friends. He was also good at speaking with the girls of the school. And although we didn't really speak to each other, I thought he was kind of cool. As weird as it may sound, he was a reminder that you could be a bit weird, yet still have friends. He became a bit of a friendly role-model. And although he may not appear important now, he plays quite a role in this story later.
There was a fire department nearby that held a workout gym. Our school partnered with the fire department to allow our P.E. class to work out there. And when we were done with it all, we'd get "somewhat" cleaned up and head back to school. There weren't any showers to use, so we just body sprayed ourselves and walked our sweaty asses back to class. There was one day when Al didn't bring with him his body spray. Luckily, the insecure part of me made sure to triple check that I had one in my bag. As I sprayed myself, Al asked, "Hey, mind lending me that when you're done?" I handed it to him and he began spraying himself.
I shit you not, the 2 prettiest girls of our class immediately converged around him, the moment they took a whiff of the spray. They began complimenting him on how good he smelled, dragging their hands around his chest. I thought I was in a comedy movie. I thought God was looking down at me, laughing, saying "Hahaha, you made that happen! And the funny thing is that it won't happen to you!"
"Thanks, man". Al threw me the bottle. After catching it, I waited for just a very small moment, to see if some girl would approach me. I didn't speak with anyone in my class, so I'm not sure what I expected. I put the spray back inside my bag and started heading out. I know it's stupid, but that was my low self-esteem at work. At that moment, I felt like a tool to hand body spray. During those days, my lack of interaction defined my worth.
[b][i]The Toughest Test[/i][/b]
FaceBook had a couple of fun activities back then. They had this game where you can answer randomly generated questions about your friends in a yes or no format. For example: "Do you think Marcus brushes his teeth every morning? Yes, no, or skip?" If you answered a question, those very same friends in the questions would get a notification stating that someone answered a question about them, as well as the question itself, and the answer. It would not, however, say who answered the question.
Answering these questions would give you some FaceBook tokens. These tokens could be used to find out who answered a question of your choosing. It was a pretty fun way to pass the time. Most were goofy, none too serious. And if "User 1" would use their tokens to find out what "User 2" answered about them, then "User 2" would get a notification saying that "User 1" figured out he/she said it. And as I was answering stupid questions about my friends, I was faced with a rather surprising question.
[quote]Do you have a crush on Cassidy?[/quote]
[b]Well, f**k me sideways.[/b] I did not sign up (on FaceBook) for this shit. What were the chances of this question landing on her?
Should I say "Yes"? It's the truth.
Or "No"? She'd get the wrong idea.
"Skip"? Probably won't get another chance to tell her like this.
I shit you not, I stayed seated, staring at that question for an entire hour long. It was a goddamn 1 question test. I believe I knew the answer all along, but just couldn't bring myself to answer it. Nonetheless, I finally did. [b]YES.[/b] I remember immediately walking over to my bed and thinking about what I've done. How would she react? Would she stop talking with me? Would she tell me she felt the same? Would she even find out? I mean, she still had to pay her tokens to unlock who answered the question. What if she didn't pay? What if she didn't care? What if I'm just killing myself over nothing? A few hours passed and I heard a *ding* on my computer.
[quote]*Cassidy unlocked your identity from the question: Do you have a crush on Cassidy?: Yes*[/quote]
We were both on FaceBook's online chat. So I waited. I waited for her to send me a message. And I kept waiting... But she didn't write to me that day.
[b][i]Silence[/i][/b]
I was at school the next day, thinking about the question. Did I make the right or wrong choice? Was I right to find this out so soon? Does this mean I could move on to someone else, instead? To who? I didn't talk to anyone. I didn't even know where to begin! Would it have been better had I not answered that question with a "yes"? A skip or a no, maybe? Did I just lose my crush? Did I just lose my only friend? "CHARLIE!!!" Everyone turned. And so did I. My worries evaporated into thin air. Cassidy was, once again, charging at me.
I couldn't help but smile. I let out an air of relief, as I took my stance. Right foot back, bent the knees, upper torso forward, opened arms, preparing myself to take her blow, head-on. She opened her arms and smashed into me with full-force! Her arms wrapped around my lower torso. She looked up at me, with a smile, and said "Hey, Charlie". I F**KING MELTED.
It continued on that way for the next few months. We spoke on FaceBook. We spoke on Gmail. And we spoke through texts. Every day. And although she gave me the same sort of attention she's always given me, she stayed silent about the FaceBook question. Complete silence... And it was killing me.
[b][i]Ultimate Ball: Freshman Year[/b][/i]
There was a game that every P.E. class would only play once per year: Ultimate Ball. Why once per year? Hell if I know. It looked like a fun game. I say "looked" because even though I played... I actually didn't. Let me explain the rules of our variation of Ultimate Ball, so it may be easier to understand what I mean. The game would be played at our gym (not the fire station one, but we had our own basketball gym... thing)
- There are 2 positions in Ultimate Ball. What I'll call the "main-field" players and "end-zone" players.
- Main-field players could run freely around the gym. However, the main-field player holding the ball can only take, at most, 2 steps before shooting the ball to someone. The main-field players, on the other team, had to try and steal the ball while it was being thrown. You are not allowed to knock the ball off of someone's hand.
- End-zone players have to stay at the very end of the gym and couldn't move. Their job was to successfully grab onto a ball that a main-field player, on their team, would throw at them, to score a point. In other words, main-field players couldn't score points, only end-zone players could.
I'm sure we've all had classmates, usually girls, who felt a bit nervous about taking part in sports. Those classmates usually played as end-zone players, so that they wouldn't have to be so active. Practically all end-zone players volunteered to be. All athletes would be main-field players, as it was the role that required the most action. And most athletes on the team were taller than me, despite me being tall as it is. Al was a main-field player on my team. And I made myself a main-field player, as well.
Unfortunately, throughout the game, no one ever gave me the ball. I would be wide-open but the athletes of our team only shot at one another. They believed it would maximize their chances of winning if they shot the ball at the best players. And they were always the ones to steal the ball. At one point, an athlete on my team had the ball and I called out to pass it to me... but they didn't. They never did. The athletes, including Al, would get the ball, but they wouldn't pass it to me or the other non-athletes on our team. The same happened on the other team.
I quickly learned, that if you weren't good enough as a main-field player, you wouldn't ever get the ball. Nonetheless, the game would bring everyone to the front of the gym and then to the back. I would be running up, down, up, down, up, down. But for as long as I wasn't catching a ball, it felt less like Ultimate Ball, and more like suicide runs. And there were a couple classmates that experienced the very same thing. By the end of the game, I didn't get the ball even once. I couldn't steal a ball. And we lost. It was embarrassing. I was happy Cassidy wasn't in my class, then. I only ran around the gym for over an hour like an idiot. I could have just sat on the bleachers and would have impacted the game as much as I did then.
I wouldn't forget that day. This day would come back to memory next year. Only this time, Cassidy would be in my class and she would be on my team.
[center][b][i]To Be Continued...[/b][/i][/center]
