I haven’t told this one in awhile, just because it happened in the fifth grade and people usually just ask about high school. I stand by my testament to fifth grade being the most drama-filled year of my schooling life (but I’ve got a few more years of college ahead of me so I mean, we’ll see). *edited*
There comes that magical time in every girl’s life when puberty finally hits her and life either gets exponentially better or exponentially worse, and for me, that time was the summer of ’07. Over the course of two months, I turned from a speck of dust on people’s radar to a larger more attractive speck of dust of their radar. Momentous achievement (round of applause)!
Really though. I was criminally fat as a child (I believe the glass-half-full people called it ‘cute’) so when I lost some of that weight, all my batchmates took notice (and how could they not, there were only a total of 40 of us, maybe less). For the first time in my life, guys were actually paying attention to me! (‘The moment finally arrived – I never thought it would happen’, fat me announced from the past, a bag of Lays in one hand and a chocolate milkshake in the other.)
It was also the year I got hooked on Totally Spies and Winx Club – no one is allowed to make fun of me, we were all there at one point, so hush – so that was how I worded my diary entries, like a social climbing cheerleader. Reading it now, I don’t understand a word. In any case, you can imagine what the inside of my head was like: it was really blond.
That was also the year we got a new student from Australia. He was Filipino but he had lived there for a couple of years with his mom. I decided then on, right when we started talking, that yes, I definitely liked him. He wasn’t the most handsome of boys, but I think it still stands that of the many friends I’ve made over the years, he’s one of the most interesting. He was a character then and still is now, and believe me, for a fifth grader, he was ahead of most of us in terms of maturity (so attractive, ooh). Let’s call him Vinny.
That was also the point in my life when I started writing fiction in the form of scripts for a non-existent series that a couple of my friends and I started (for purposes of keeping some dignity intact, I’m not going to go into the details of it; however I will say that we had fairy powers and were rulers of our respective planets – we were swag before swag was swag). I showed him some of these scripts sometimes and he was so supportive, it was sweet. I know now that they were awful, but I was so properly proud of them back then and having him like them was kind of a huge thing.
It wasn’t shocking though because I knew he liked me. Yes, that’s right: he liked me (back). I forget how that came to be exactly, if it was my fault or something that happened of his own volition. In any case, I didn’t like admitting to anyone that I liked him back. I understood from an early age that it was important to hold the upper hand. They knew he liked me and that was all they were sure of. (evil laugh)
It was December and we were spending most of our days rehearsing for the Christmas program, meaning the subject lectures were done and we were getting loads and loads of free periods. It was during one particular free period that extended into our lunch break when eight or nine of us gathered in a corner of the room to tell each other ghost stories.
I remember this with such clarity that everything else was pretty much a blur. I had my back to the pile of bags that were stacked up by the wall. Vinny sat right next to me and we both sort of sat in the same position: leaning back with our arms propping us up. We listened intently to all our friends’ horror stories, personally I was completely rapt in them, up until he held my hand (imagine a gaggle of white girls flailing and screaming and jumping about, now multiply that by six hundred –that’s how I felt).
Mind you, this was not a six second thing that was sort of, maybe his hand just sort of fell on yours and he wasn’t really trying to hold your hand. It was real. I’m sure because I was there. We didn’t talk about it, but that was probably because we both knew we didn’t have to. There was so much confirmation in what just happened – for all my relentless denial, he knew then that I liked him back, and I knew that my secret was out but I didn’t really mind anymore. Having the upper hand was irrelevant when I had his.
After the rehearsals, we had English where we were due to watch a Christmas movie. I don’t remember what it was because honestly, I wasn’t paying any attention. We resumed holding hands, still hiding it. We were sat on the floor at the front of the class, close to the board so we could see clearer. The teacher was behind me and so was one of our female classmates who I will call Jayquanda (I will call her this because I hate her).
We were just minding our own sweet innocent business when she suddenly blurted out, practically shouted, “OMG, are you guys like, holding hands!” And I kid you not, Vinny and I turned back at the same time and shouted a loud defensive, “NO,” with these completely disgusted looks on our faces like we had no idea what she was talking about, like she was being so ridiculous we couldn’t even conceive of it.
If I had the power to change into a giant electric human being, I would’ve ripped the roof off my school, grabbed her, and then dipped her in a vat of boiling acid. I would’ve then strapped her remains to ten horses and sent them across a vast endless desert. And then I’d stand over her grave and laugh. She asked if we were holding hands out loud in front our teacher, so as far as I was concerned, she deserved it. Luckily for her, I was not an all-powerful electric being (I wasn’t Dr. Manhattan), but oh if I was... (vengeful laughter).
Safe to say that after that we stopped. Stupid Jayquanda.
Still, it was the sweetest thing I’d ever done, the most in-the-moment I’ve ever been. In my retellings back then, I always told them that he was the one that held by hand and I just let him. This was a monumental thing for us in our batch, what with our wildly conservative upbringing (we were so deprived, you don’t understand), so I thought it better to just let him have this one. He was much braver than I was and he didn’t mind that I told people it was all him. He was happy it even happened. He was better than me. He was gracious and understanding and I was lucky it was him. I really was. I wish I was brave enough to have owned up to being part of a romantic comedy, however momentarily, however fleeting.
Vinny. There was a kindness in him, and understanding I couldn’t touch. I didn’t want him as much as he wanted me or if I did, I was very bad at showing it (because I didn’t want to); and he allowed me that. He let me be immature and selfish and horrible – what a gentleman I screwed over. I am so grateful too, because I never lost him (really, we still keep in touch).
Oh and case you’re wondering about Jayquanda, I didn’t forgive her for a year. (She inspired the creation of a super villain that lived as dry gum under your shoe except every time your character tried to hold someone’s hand or do something affectionate, she would detach and turn into a half-gum half-person type creature and point it out to everyone within a thirty mile radius; needless to say, her character was beat up so often and recklessly in my horribly-written fifth grade fiction that I plan on writing a sequel where she appears in a correctional facility for the brain damaged and mentally handicapped). We’re okay now, but ‘okay’ is the premiere height of our friendship.
Stupid Jayquanda.
