We were both young when I first saw you
I'm crushing on someone. Meanwhile, my best friend is getting crushed.
My best friend and I grew up in the same city. We went to the same middle school and high school, but didn’t become close until college. Before that point, we operated in parallel worlds but rarely crossed paths.
Today, we don’t live near each other, but we talk on the phone at least once a week. When something happens to me or I need someone to talk to, my friend’s voice is the first thing that comes to mind. We have this running joke that we never remember each other’s birthdays; formalities and expectations have never been a part of our relationship, but I know I could come to him with anything. Last week, I reminded him (emotionally): I just need to say it out loud — I want you to know without a shadow of a doubt that I will always be there for you.
Recently, we had a very long call — I needed his advice and his partner was out of town on assignment, so we had more time to talk. I also wanted to laugh. When we speak, there’s a shared understanding that even the most insane things in our lives can be funny.
We spoke about my friend’s youngest brother, who is beautiful like all of the other brothers, and who also finds himself dating new people with such intensity that hints of long-term commitment whisper their way into his ear long before they would for most people. The latest girlfriend was pretty — no surprise. I said she reminded me of a girl from high school I’d seen at the airport recently. I didn’t know this girl from high school personally, or her family well at all, I said. But in the 8th grade, I had the biggest crush on her brother, who was my year. Jackson. He was the quarterback on the middle school football team, which felt significant at the time for teenage reasons. The first semester of my 8th grade year, we had a class together.
I have vivid memories from this time of my life. I have vivid memories of this particular classroom as well. Full of desktop computers, this was where we practiced typing. This was where I got to steal glances at Jackson. If we managed to interact — usually, facilitated through his friend — the interaction boomeranged back to me for weeks. This friend would whisper to me in the middle of class: Jackson thinks you’re cute.
It’s hard to remember if Jackson ever said a word to me, but I was convinced he wanted to. It was just easier to flirt with me indirectly. After school, I’d plug my iPod Nano into the iHome and lip-sync to Taylor Swift in my bedroom mirror, imagining how a music video about the two of us might look. Jackson was indeed the type of guy to run around with cheerleaders who wore short skirts while I was busy wearing t-shirts and sitting on the bleachers; if you understand the reference, you’ll also understand how much of an underdog I believed myself to be. With a popular boy taking very light interest in me, I believed myself somehow more important than before; I believed myself somehow involved in a love story that could have been written into a hit song. But of course there was nothing, and after the semester ended I don’t believe I ever interacted with Jackson again. I saw him from afar, of course, playing football and dating girls and walking around the halls of our high school like the giant athlete brainless non-entity he came to represent in my peripheral vision.
Where was Jackson now? I had no idea. Over the years, I’d heard of him in passing — he’d actually gone on to play in the NFL. “I’m going to look him up on Instagram real quick,” I told my friend. One minute later: “He’s married and has a baby. He looks totally normal. Huge, but normal. Nice, and happy.”
“I hate that guy,” my friend said. “I actually really hate him.”
My friend and I had never talked about Jackson before. We’d had no reason to — he was one of our 600+ mutual acquaintances.
“What is it about him specifically that you don’t like?”
“We played football together,” my friend said. “It was my first football season, Jackson was one year above me — in your year. My mom dropped me off at, you know Vintage Park?”
“Yes.”
“One day she dropped me off at practice early. It was before the coach arrived. Jackson and Brandon and some of their other friends tackled me and carried me behind a tree. They pinned me to the ground, then Jackson pulled his pants down and T-bagged me.”
“What does T-bag mean.”
“He put his balls on top of my face,” he said. “Jackson rubbed his balls on my face.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“Gross. I’m sorry that happened.”
“It’s okay. But yeah, gross right?”
“Very gross.”
“I hate him.”
“Boys are so weird. Well, boys can be so weird.”
“I know,” my friend laughed. “It’s so gross.”
“I’m not trying to make light of this information. But it’s crazy that I was lusting after this guy in computer class while he was sexually assaulting my future best friend behind a tree.”
“Yeah.”
“Hmm.”
“There was a lot that went on with those football boys.”
“They seemed reckless, so charged up and irresponsible.”
“Yeah, it was weird, and it’s not even worth going into.”
“What’s crazy is: I would have never imagined doing anything like that to anyone, nor would I have ever imagined that something like that could be happening before football practice. But other people would hear this story and think, ‘Boys will be boys.” This is just boy stuff.”
“Pretty much.”
“I wonder if he remembers having done this to you.”
“No idea.”
“I wonder what he’d think today about having done this to you.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter. It was so long ago. But I can still hate him, even if it doesn’t matter.”