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I have a crush on the most popular girl at school.
There she is, over there. Samantha Hathaway, although everyone calls her Sam. She’s the six-foot-tall Amazon who’s currently deadlifting one of the cheerleaders as everyone cheers her on. Captain of the field hockey team. Captain of the basketball team. Full-ride offers to three different colleges. Six feet of wonder, with brilliant blue eyes, wavy dark brown hair that just passes her shoulders, and a quirky smile. Not to mention legs that Cyd Charisse would be jealous of, and an ass that’s just utter perfection.
And I’m just this scrawny geek. Why am I drooling over someone so far out of my league?
It all started in Ms. Anderson’s art class. I needed one semester of art to graduate, and that was the class that fit my schedule. Apparently it was the one that fit Sam’s schedule, too, because she was there.
Ms. Anderson was an uptight little woman who deeply, deeply cared about art. And, as it turns out, deeply, deeply hated jocks. Especially female jocks.
Sam could do absolutely nothing right in that class. If she tried to answer a question, she was ignored. If she tried to ask a question, she was belittled. And the first time she wore her field hockey kilt to class because she had a game later that day, Ms. Anderson told her to go change, because she was distracting the other students. (Which, granted. Sam’s six feet tall and has amazing legs, and those kilts aren’t much longer than the cheerleaders’ skirts.) Sam pointed out that school policy was that sports teams wear their uniforms to class on game days, and that this was just like when the cheerleaders wore their uniforms to class, or when the football players wore their jerseys.
Ms. Anderson sent Sam to the principal’s office for talking back. She returned five minutes later with the vice principal, who took Ms. Anderson aside for a quiet talk.
If Ms. Anderson had disliked her before, it was absolute hatred afterwards.
After a few more weeks of watching Sam get bullied by the teacher, I’d had enough. I think we all had, honestly - everybody liked Sam. I was just the one that snapped first.
Sam asked a pertinent question about types of paint, and Ms. Anderson just…ignored it. Pretended Sam hadn’t said a thing. So I repeated the question, and Ms. Anderson cheerfully answered me.
“So why won’t you answer the same question when she asks it?” I said, pointing toward Sam.
Ms. Anderson glared at me, and icily said, “That’s none of your concern, Kevin.”
After class, I was swapping books in my locker when a shadow loomed over me. I looked up, and Sam was leaning over me, one hand on the locker next to mine, that quirky smile on her face. I was so startled I almost dropped my backpack.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you,” she said. “Why did you talk back to Ms. Anderson like that?”
I grabbed my calculus and physics books for my next two classes. “Because it’s not fair. She treats you like crap and as far as I can tell, none of it is your fault.”
The smile faded, and the world seemed to dim with it. “I knew going in. She doesn’t like jocks. She really doesn’t like female jocks. But it’s the only class that fit my schedule unless I took AP English, and really, I’m not the AP English type.”
I nodded in understanding. I’m not the AP English type either, being more the AP Calculus type. The AP English teacher was widely known as a cast-iron pain in the ass.
“Still. You deserve better than that. Whatever her issues are.”
“Thanks, Kevin. But…I’ll be okay. The vice-principal is making sure she doesn’t spike my grades. You don’t have to piss her off to protect me.”
And she was gone. And somehow the day felt grayer without her shadow over me than it had with it.
It was getting late in the field hockey season, and a cold wind kept the stands sparsely populated. I grabbed a spot in the bleachers, huddled in my jacket, and pulled out my sketch pad and pencil. The art assignment this week was to sketch people in motion, and I had no desire to go to a football game. And, well, I’d grown to like looking at Sam, so a whole team like her was probably going to be a sight to see.
Indeed it was, but she still stood out above the rest by a good two inches. Seeing her jogging along in her sleeveless top, ponytail brushing back and forth across her shoulders, the hem of her kilt dancing around her thighs, the knee-length socks holding her shin guards…I was hooked. I knew it was hopeless, but I had a crush on Sam.
Which was fine. I’d had a lot of crushes on popular girls, ever since I’d realized I was heterosexual. None of them had ever gone anywhere, and I never expected them to.
I sketched out the general form of her running, then kept glancing up to get details. The little wave of hair that escaped the ponytail on the right side of her face. The way her nose wrinkled as she got ready to start the game. The stretch of her arms as she reached for a shot.
I looked up again and the game had paused for half-time. The sketch was looking okay, I thought. Good enough for a passing grade, certainly. It didn’t really have her spirit in it, though - it looked flat and lifeless, while she was anything but.
A shadow appeared over the sketch. “Hey, that’s really nice,” Sam said from above me. “Is that me?”
I looked up at her, at that quirky smile. “I needed to sketch someone in motion,” I quickly said. “Do you mind?”
“No, it’s great.”
I tried to exhale without making it obvious I had been holding my breath. “Thanks. It helps to have a good subject,” I said before my brain could stop itself. I went back to subtly holding my breath, praying she didn’t kill me.
She grinned, chuckling. “Well, I try. I’ll see if I can get you something good to work off in the second half.”
I hadn’t actually been planning to stay for the second half, but there was no way I’d be willing to leave now.
It was about five minutes into the second half when the second sketch gelled. Sam ducked through the defenders and snuck the ball past the goalie. I quickly sketched her jumping up with her fist extended in celebration. It wasn’t as good as the first sketch, really - I was trying too hard and I knew it. I wanted to impress her, somehow.
I spent a few minutes polishing it, then put it aside. I knew that working on it more wasn’t going to improve it. Instead, I just sat back and watched the game.
Sam’s good, our school team is good, but really, we were overmatched. We lost 5-3. Sam huddled with the team briefly before they all headed in to the locker room. She wandered over to me instead of going directly in.
I had the second sketch ready for her, and she picked it up. “Wow. That’s incredible,” she said.
“I think the other one was better. I was trying too hard on this one,” I babbled.
“Artistically, maybe. But this one just feels better to me.” She looked down at me with another grin as she handed it back. “I’d love a copy of it, if you don’t mind.”
“Keep it,” I blurted out. “I’ll hand in the other one for class.”
“Really?” she asked, her eyes bright with surprise. “Thank you so much!” She knelt down and gave me a kiss on the cheek before running off toward the locker room.
I touched my cheek where she’d kissed it, not quite sure what I was getting myself into.
Art class was only one semester, so after Christmas break, I resigned myself to not seeing Sam as much any more. It was fine. I’d find somebody else to crush on.
Second semester, I wandered into the study hall that I had that period and grabbed a seat toward the back. I pulled out my calculus book, flipping through the material we’d probably be covering next period.
A shadow briefly covered the book, then went away as Sam sat down next to me. “Hey, Kevin,” she said. “How was your break?”
“Pretty good. My sister came back from her first year at college, which was nice. How about yours?”
“Not bad. A couple colleges are talking full-ride athletic scholarship. I need to see how things go.”
“What did you end up getting for an art grade?”
Sam gave me that quirky smile that melted me. “A C. Apparently the vice-principal told her that anything less than that would look like she wasn’t grading me fairly. How about you?”
“A B, which was what I expected.”
“That didn’t hurt your GPA too much, did it?”
“No, it’s not like I was getting accepted at MIT anyway. My mom went to WPI, so I’m basically guaranteed to get in there as a legacy.”
“WPI? Worcester?”
“Yeah.”
“Huh. One of the colleges I’m talking to is Holy Cross, just across town.”
I had no idea where she was going with that, so I made vaguely pleased noises, and then the study hall monitor told us to be quiet.
Sitting next to Sam in study hall, I got to watch jealously as half the jocks in the school asked her to the first dance of the semester. She turned them all down gracefully, saying she really just couldn’t right now between basketball practice, homework, and college tours. Each time, after they left, she rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Maybe eventually they’ll take the hint.”
I sympathized with her quietly, making sure the guys asking her out never heard. Any one of them could tie me in a knot and drop-kick me to the next county. I was terrified of them, as any geek with a healthy sense of self-preservation should be.
Instead, when she wasn’t looking, I quietly sketched her as she studied. She was even more stunning as I got to know her - yes, every part of her was beautiful, but she was fun to talk to and I liked just spending time with her. If all I ever got to be was her friend, that was okay.
After the first dance, the date requests trailed off without ever completely going away, and the semester stretched into February. The Leap Day dance was girls-choice, so for a change of pace, a couple girls from the field hockey team stopped by to invite her to the dance. She declined regretfully, saying she appreciated the thought but didn’t swing that way.
She looked increasingly nervous, though, and I couldn’t figure out why. Finally, about a week before the dance, I asked what was wrong.
“What? Why would you think something’s wrong?” she stammered, uncharacteristically for someone who was usually completely collected.
“You just seem really nervous for some reason. I worry about you.”
I thought I saw a tear sparkle in her eye, but she blinked and it was gone. “You do?”
“Yeah. I’ve really gotten to like being your friend.”
She sagged in her chair. “Oh.”
“What? What did I say wrong?”
“Nothing. Really. It’s nothing.” She stared down at her desk.
I thought back over what I’d said, and realized what the problem was. “Is…the problem being friends?”
“I just…never mind.”
“I can be friends with you because I know you’d never see me as anything more than that,” I blurted out. “None of the girls here do.”
Her head snapped up. “None?”
“Nope. I figure getting a date will have to wait until I go to college, really.”
She looked at me for a long second, took a deep breath, and said. “No. It won’t. Will you go to the dance with me?”
I have a crush on the most popular girl at school.
There she is, over there. Samantha Hathaway, although everyone calls her Sam. She’s the six-foot-tall Amazon who’s currently deadlifting one of the cheerleaders as everyone cheers her on. Captain of the field hockey team. Captain of the basketball team. Full-ride offers to three different colleges. Six feet of wonder, with brilliant blue eyes, wavy dark brown hair that just passes her shoulders, and a quirky smile. Not to mention legs that Cyd Charisse would be jealous of, and an ass that’s just utter perfection.
And I’m just this scrawny geek. Why am I drooling over someone so far out of my league?
And then she looks up and sees me. She sets down the cheerleader and rushes over, lifting me off my feet in a hug. She presses me up against the wall and kisses me, and I kiss her back.
And that’s why. Because it’s not just a crush. Because I’m a scrawny geek who won the heart of an Amazon goddess, by being her friend. And that’s why we’re going to colleges near each other in the fall. Something like this doesn’t happen every day.