As a kid, I had a crush on the same girl for over a year, and never talked to her....

Her name was Laurie. It started when she was in 4th grade (in the combined 3rd/4th grade classroom) and I was in 5th grade (in the combined 5th/6th grade room). I would only see her at lunch and at all-school events, but I was totally locked in on her. I spent the better part of that school year anticipating the next year when we’d be in the SAME classroom. The thing that I remember the most is how badly I wanted to touch her hair. But there was no way that was gonna happen in separate rooms, so I waited that year, and all summer, for my chance.

I thought when my 6th grade year started, that we would naturally get together, but I was too shy to even talk to her. I probably never would have done anything until one day when I saw her sitting with another boy, getting a little too close. The boy had Laurie on one side of him, and one of the two Paulas on the other, and he was serenading them with “Torn Between Two Lovers”. I saw him do that 2 days in a row! I couldn’t believe he had the nerve to actually sing to my Laurie.

I decided that I had to do something daring. I wrote a note confessing all of my feelings for her. I carried it around in my pocket for a week. The day that I finally decided to give it to her, I casually pulled it out of my pocket and put it on my desk. I remember thinking that if I acted too slyly, I would draw attention to myself. So I casually set it on my desk like it was just a regular old folded up piece of paper that just happened to have a heart drawn on it, and not the most important thing that I had ever written.

My anti-sly routine backfired. Within seconds, Frank grabbed the note off my desk, opened it, and began to read it in front of the whole class. I wish I could say that it sparked one of those moments you see on TV where the girl is so overwhelmed by the note that she runs into my arms. In fact, it might have, except that I ran out of the room before Frank even got to the line about how much I wanted to touch Laurie’s hair.

I went and hid in the boy’s locker room behind a rack of chairs. I knew class was starting, but I waited in there trying to figure out how I was going to reenter the classroom with any sort of dignity. 10 minutes later, Kenny and Andy walked in, tried to tell me it was no big deal, and that Mrs. Wolfe wanted me to get back to class. That is where my memory ends. I have no recollection of ever leaving the locker room, or reentering the classroom, and especially no memory of seeing Laurie’s face. I found out later that Mrs. Wolfe had told the whole class to act like nothing had happened. They did, because no one ever spoke of it again. And I made it through the remainder of my torturous 6th grade without ever saying a word to Laurie.