When I was in the...4th grade I think, this boy Ian was in my class. I was friends with his best friend Janine, she was fun and had a three-legged dog, but I wasn't a huge fan of Ian. He was smart, I liked his mom and his little brother, but Ian himself  often had a runny nose and breathed noisily through his mouth. I wasn't majorly against him, but I wasn't really FOR him either. 

One night, I'm home, enjoying my normal life, watching Who's the Boss with my family and the phone rings. I answer. It's Ian. He comes right out and says it. "I've been in love with you since the 2nd grade." 

I was horrified. Horrified. Ian's runny nose aside, lets remeber I have grown into a lesbian. I didn't know I liked girls at the time, but I definetely knew I didn't like be liked...let alone LOVED...by Ian.

I said something horribly bitchy. I think I said "Good for you." and hung up on him. I immediately walked into the bathroom, away from the curious eyes of my family. But there was no escaping it.

"Who was on the phone?" my mom called after me.

"Um. Ian. from school."

"Oh, what did he want?"

"Uh. Homework thing."

I hung out in the bathroom, pressing my head against the cold towel rack. I heard the phone ring again a few minutes later. I heard my mom answer, talk for a few minutes, and then come knock on the bathroom door.

"Rose...come out here."

Oh. My. God.

Ian's mom had called back. He was CRYING. CRYING. When I heard that I felt bad, but also relieved that I had escaped being romantically associated with this crybaby. 

I lost track of Ian. We went to a bigger school the next year, and then I moved away, but for years, YEARS AND YEARS, I continued to feel both bad about my behavior and terrified that I would run into this kid again. I never got anywhere with anyone romantically until I was in college, and I was convinced it was because this incident had karmically ruined me. One day when I was like, 20, I found myself in an elevator with someone who could have been Ian, but as his nose wasn't running, I couldn't be sure. Heart pounding, I whispered "Sorry." so softly it was hardly a sigh. 

After that, my romantic luck did turn around, but that could have been because I started trying girls. 

Tags: hpwriting2, what do you have to say?, writer's block, youth moment