The second crush (where crush = being temporarily smitten by someone)

This isn’t any fairy tale, but still…

Once upon a time, I was fifteen and a nerd. I was highly introverted and totally uncool. (Even present me would not have hung around with the fifteen year old me.) But my classmates were a good bunch of people who never ignored or bullied me, just treated me like the baby of the class. Maybe all that baby fat and pull-able cheeks were heart-melting or maybe because I listened and listened and always agreed.

Then came a guy who we will call ASS (because that are his actual initials, I swear!). He had been transferred from Pune, had stayed at the boarding school, talked with an accent and watched ‘Navy Seals’. Here we were in this average middle-class school in U.P. and this guy was a ‘dude’. He didn’t fit in but didn’t seem to mind that.

My chem. lab teacher made him my partner for the weekly lab sessions. Her logic – this is what “dudes” need…Geeky, beefy gals. Perfect antidote to any after class mischief-making.

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First week, he shook hands with me and said, “Nice to meet you.” I was too dumbfounded to reply. (Nobody said that aloud back then…we just met and went around our business).

Second week, he asked me, “What are the popular hangouts around here?” I didn’t know what ‘hangouts’ meant.

Third week he was absent because he was “indisposed” and borrowed my notes to copy the experiment. (I remember this very clearly because that is how I learnt the word ‘indisposed’. I went and looked it up in my little oxford dictionary. Then after a day when I went to collect my notebook from him, I asked out of courtesy, “What had happened?” and he said, “What? What happened where?”)

Fourth week, he asked, “Your hair look soft. What shampoo you use?” and before I could respond, he came closer and lifted his hand and almost ran his fingers through my hair. I say almost because he had momentarily forgotten that there was a lit Bunsen burner between us. His school tie caught fire and so did a part of my notebook. Water was handy so no major disaster happened but he was reprimanded and sent outside. I was exonerated because cue (1) my chubby baby face, teacher’s pet, can’t do any harm (2) It really wasn’t my fault.

Fifth week, my chem. teacher changed my partner.

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He thought I tattled but I didn’t and didn’t care to clear the air. We weren’t friends or anything.

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I get a friend request from him yesterday on facebook. Of course, I accept. He was online so we chat for some time. He is back in Pune, working, married to a beautiful girl, has a dog. I asked if he still was a fan of ‘Navy Seals’ and he said, “Ha! Ha! You remember.”

He asked me if I recalled that lab accident and I said I do but my hair isn’t that soft or nice anymore.

He said, “Oh! That! I guess I had a little crush on you…”

I said, “Me too. But afterwards…”

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I wasn’t lying. After that incident, we never interacted much. He was sort of a bad boy (didn’t follow rules, argued with teachers, etc.) but he also played football and owned a bike. Doesn’t that make teenage girls weak in the knees? When my bunch of girls talked about him and sighed, I sighed with them too. But it was much later and he was rumored to have a girlfriend or two. And then he went away anyways.

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This was way back then in high school where even though geeky, beefy girls are expected to have a few boy crushes (and I had two), they may not necessarily have boys crush after them.

To get to know years later that someone did, even if briefly and inconsequentially, feels really, really good.

Thanks ASS. You made the little high-school part of my heart smile wide yesterday.