The Men and the Boys: Christopher

Chris and I clicked over a library book. Barely a month into high school and I was struck dumb by the only ninth grader who was a bigger nerd than me.

A book. It wasn't that we were psycho brainiacs, it was that this was the only book available for our first ever high school project. All four freshman history classes that year were required to present & debate a social issue and, even though I was in the first form and he was in second, we'd both managed to pick the same topic. The Senate: Keep or Abolish?

Go figure not everyone was completely dying to read about stuffy, overpaid men in wigs and so our suburbian school library stocked just the one book. I rounded the left corner of the shelf, tracked the book down and reached out to take it. Chris had come from around the right, and found it at the same time. We'd been too engrossed in ISBN codes to notice each other, but looked up in surprise when our hands simultaneously touched the spine.

It was love at first sight. We threw the book aside and made out passionately, right there in the Government & Politics section. Not quite. Realizing that I was about to lose the one source I needed for that stinking project brought out the fire in me, so to speak, and I turned into a grumpy hag. He, the awkward 14-year old, gentleman all over, acquiesced. This unbelievable boy photocopied most of the book so that I could have the actual one, just to make me happy. I'll assume I looked pretty scary then because before that, I'd never bent any male to my will.

That wasn't what did it, though. After I'd gotten what I came for and was on the way out, I noticed Chris sitting by himself, quietly doodling. He was in his own world and didn't notice me peeking over his shoulder to look at the cartoon he'd drawn of a girl in a telephone booth. He was very talented. And, past the glasses and Dippity Do hair that is the tragedy of most niner boys, he was very cute.

Flat on my face. That's how I went down.

Unfortunately, I was shy. More unfortunately, he was shyer. We moved at a snail's pace, months and months of nothing but hallway pass-bys and hopeful glances. I was happy, though. I was madly in love and had the patience of Methuselah that someday, somehow, we would be together and live happily ever after.

Ain't youth grand?

I spent the majority of ninth grade mooning over Chris and avoiding him whenever possible. So imagine my horror when Georgia, one of my best friends and, as luck would have it, acquaintance of Chris' got sick of my nagging questions and cow eyes, and randomly blurted out to him in the hallway one day, "Guess who likes you!"

Like all teenagers, I totally died. Like all teenagers, I got over it. And then I discovered for the umpteenth time that every cloud has a silver lining when he and I started to talk.

He stopped me one day to ask something about a class. Small. Insignificant. The world. Initial ice broken, the next question got easier, as did the next. Questions became conversations, which over time became longer, which over more time extended to the phone.

Chris was very nice. He kept mostly to himself, but was a joker once you got to know him. He was an artist, aced all his drafting classes, and was very patient that I wasn't allowed to have a boyfriend, date, or even go out all that much.

I snuck out whenever I could though, and once, we came pretty close.

Georgia had a cat. The cat had kittens, and Chris and I went over together one day to play with the four little balls of fluff. There's nothing like adorable animal babies to bring people together and before I knew it, I was up against a wall, Chris' hand was on my shoulder and he was leaning in to kiss me. My first.

My heart was going a million miles an hour, my cheeks were flushed, and his lips were a few inches away from mine when Georgia ran loudly downstairs. His face bypassed mine and we snapped back to ourselves, like nothing had happened.

That was our moment. It didn't come again. Maybe we had gotten much further over all that time and gotten to know each other better, but we were still both so shy. We kept talking, had some friendly fights and made up, but never with a kiss. It's hard for two people to make things happen when both are trying to get over the boundaries in their heads.

I changed schools in the eleventh grade. From Catholic to Private, which meant that I couldn't be around my friends but still had to wear a uniform. I didn't want to go to a new school and put up one hell of a fight, but my parents were adamant. They were also the law.

The Tuesday after Labour Day, September 1991, I sat in the backseat of my dad's Seville, arms crossed and tears streaming down my cheeks, feeling very angry and very misunderstood. My new school wasn't too far away from the old one and we took the same main roads to get there, passing right by the bus stop I'd headed to every morning for two years. Here, I'd waited for the bus that used to take me to school.

Chris had waited here, too. The car stopped at the red light right beside that bus stop, and Chris was waiting there now.

The injustice. He didn't see me, and I didn't want him to. I was too upset, and didn't need to add to that with him realizing I was headed in the wrong direction, wearing a gray kilt instead of a green one. I didn't call him that night, either. I knew he'd found out when I didn't show up that morning.

Chris and I still talked every now and then, but the conversations became less and less. I had been determined to hate my new school but actually found it a great fit. I did well there. He and I were young, and situations when you're in high school are different from when you're all grown up. I suppose it's more forgivable that way.

Every now and then, I still think about him. Especially if I see a boy drawing, or notice a gaggle of teenage girls in plaid kilts. I think about the quiet boy in the glasses, handing over that library book.

If only just for a moment, I feel like a girl again.