Happy Heartbreak Anniversary To Me

March 20......sigh....

I'll have the full 2nd round schedules up as Sunday's games are made official. And if you're wondering where I've been over the past couple of days, I've been live blogging the NCAA Tourney with 49er16 and the rest of the gang at Keith's Sports Journal. You should join us there.

The High School Years: Part 11 - The Final Trial

Forget or missed a part? Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10

It was the morning after the Prosecution side of our team, consisting of both Anna and Alura, dominated their opponent to give us a chance to advance to the next round. All my side, the defense side, had to do, was win and we would finally achieve my dream of making it to the next round. The one thing that I wanted so bad but so long alluded Team 2 for the past 4 years was within our grasp. Even if we lost, if our score was high enough, we might still get in because our score from the first day was so high.

All that we needed to secure such a wonderful opportunity was for all of us to show up to school and get on the bus to go to the courthouse. It truly is amazing how much easier said than done that last statement is.

The day before I go on the witness stand and testify that I, Jaden Sinclair, did not kidnap Kiran Taufique, I have to present and test the wonderful trebuchet that Kait and Kelly made while I was forced to watch Super Bowl XLII against my will.

Just how were we testing these things? Easy, by firing golf balls in the gym, of course!. The trebuchet that launches the golf ball the farthest will get the best grade. Now normally, such a dangerous activity would be held outdoors, but because the weather was not cooperating that day, we needed to do it inside because for goodness sakes, we could not actually wait for a nice day in March or something to do it. We were going to launch golf balls with trebuchets in a 2-story gymnasium. Yeah. I know what you are thinking at this point. My teacher Mr. Johnson really was this crazy.

So we were testing this monstrosity in our gym and Kait realizes that she forgot to bring her glasses. Apparently she needed them to see the ball better or something, I don’t know, maybe there was a criteria that we were graded on that I totally forget and that’s why she needed the glasses, but for whatever reason she needed glasses and did not have hers. So I gave Kait mine.

Apparently my rather strong prescription worked for Kait and all was well in that department. As an aside, if anyone is wondering why I have worn glasses since I was in upper elementary school and have never gotten contacts is because I could never put them in my eyes. My eyes are too sensitive for me to force them open and carefully place a contact in them. I’d shut my eyes every time and it would not work. When the technology advances somewhat and I have the money, I have thought about the real possibility of laser eye surgery, but until then, I’ll be wearing glasses for an indefinite amount of time.

Where was I now?....Ah, yes, Kait needed my glasses to help her see the ball. Apparently glasses fitted for me on my eyes are not good enough for Kait and she needs to see it for herself with someone else’s glasses. Things work better that way. This is Kait we’re talking about. Please don’t ask.

So I was left glassesless and basically clueless as to where the ball was going. How this benefitted the team I don’t know but Kait was not going to take no for an answer. We would constantly adjust it so as to get maximum distance but sometimes we would adjust it too much and instead it would just pop straight up in the air. Of course, I was without glasses so it would frequently take me awhile to recognize it. So one time I failed to spot a pop up at all and the next thing I know….

POW!

Plummeting golf ball, meet the underneath of my right eye.

I crumpled to the ground in a heap clutching my right eye. For a second I thought that I might never see again. The impact of the golf ball had forced it shut for the time being with my hand grasping it.

Mr. Johnson and The Only Gym Teacher In The World With A Beer Belly came over to assist me. After a couple minutes I was able to get my hand off my eye and open it up. Of course, upon the removing of my hand, I saw the hand and saw the blood on it. Eep. This one was going to require the nurse and a trip to the emergency room.

I leave the trebuchet to Kait and Kelly while taking back my glasses. It took a golf ball to the underneath of my eye, but I finally got my glasses back from Kait. HOORAH!

It’s on the ride to the emergency room that I really begin to ponder whether or not I will be able to make it to the trial the very next day. If the cut is too bad or if my eye is too swollen or if I got a concussion out of it, I probably would not be able to go. They gave me some sort of invisible pasty bandage that serves the same purpose as stitches on top of the cut. Supposedly these provide the nicest looking scar, plus it was invisible. I’d look bad enough with a black eye, the last thing I needed was to have a black eye with bothersome stitches. You can’t pick it up in any pictures or videos of me, but if you look under my right eye, you can see the scar. And yes, it is a pretty scar.

After coming home from the emergency room, I emailed everyone in mock trials to tell them the situation. Luckily Mike, who went the day before knew my role, could fill-in shall I not be able to go. But I wanted to be there. This was going to be my last chance and I did not want to be denied it because of a freak accident.

Even if my right eye did balloon to the side of a golf ball the next morning, all I needed to do for the competition was to show up and spurt out facts and information and answer questions on the witness stand. Why would I need a second eye to do any of that?

I woke up the next morning feeling like P. Diddy….only with a black eye. Shockingly, and much to my pleasure, it was not that bad or that awful. Sure it was a black eye, but at least it was only half swelled shut, and now swelled shut all the day. All things considered I made a very easy decision that day: I was going to school and I was going to the mock trial competition. I was not going to let my mock trials memories go unfinished like that.

By the time the trial came, nothing much had changed. My eye was still half-swelled shut, and I was ready. A little bit nervous, yes, but I was ready. I knew my statement inside and out, I knew what I needed to say, and I had several cross-examination counters in my mind.

At the end of the day, we meet in the classroom to change into our dress clothes and finish up preparations for the trial. Hearing what people from the prosecution side that went Monday would be making the trip to watch us, I am somewhat disheartened that neither Anna nor Alura could make it. This could be one of the last times that I see them in person. Was I disheartened by Alura’s cowardly way of dumping me? Yeah, but I still sort of wanted her to be there.

The trial begins. The trial starts with each lawyer making an opening statement. Afterward, begins the testimonies of the 4 witnesses. This year, I am witness 4 of 4. Something, which is not the best of things considering that the longer I wait, the more nervous I get. I was feeling relaxed all day, but now, I was beginning to feel very nervous and anxious for this whole thing.

Now throughout the trial people discreetly walk in and out the door. Or as discreetly as possible. After all we are in a real court room at Montgomery County Courthouse and the acoustics in the room make it so that the slightest noise can be heard anywhere in the courtroom. I feel bad for the poor schmuck who farts on the wooden bench in the back and the judge stares at him for the next 5 minutes.

During the 2nd witness of the trial, the door creaks open for the 500th or some of the trial. Out of habit, I turn around to see the person walking in.

It’s Alura. Walking through the door. At my trial.

A wind of calmness and relief swept through my body. Really that’s the best way I could describe it. I just felt more relaxed and more comfortable and more confident. She did not gesture to me or anything, but despite all that I went through with her, seeing her still eased me.

It’s my turn to be called up to the witness stand, now fully relaxed with Alura watching from the back. I walk up to the stand and raise my right hand….

***

“You were a rock star”, Mr. Zu told me after the trial.
I knew I had knocked it out of the park. I nailed down the direct exam just like it was practiced over and over beforehand and I had an answer to everything they asked me on cross-examination. Those that dare think about cross examining Jaden Sinclair shall suffer pain I tell you. Pure, unadulterated, pain! I did not kidnap Kiran Taufique. Now believe me, bitches.

Okay, so I did not really say that on trial, but darn, it would have been totally awesome if I did, no?

In mock trials, the jury “deliberates” for 10-15 minutes to come up with a preliminary winner. The official scores and winners are then posted later that night on the website. With that being said, the jury came back with the initial verdict:

“We, the jury, find the defendant not guilty.”

YES! That was us!!! We got the verdict!

Now if only the scores held, we would be advancing to the 2nd round! For me and all of the seniors, the last time would be the charm. We would finally get to the second round that has so long eluded us for the past 3 years.

At around 8:30 at night, the scores are posted.

Hartline High School: 53.3 points.
Windy Hill High School: 56.3 points.

YES! We had finally done it! The 2 wins meant we were guaranteed a spot in the next round. But wait….

Hartline High School: 2 jurors.
Windy Hill High School 1 juror.

The averaged scores favored us, but because Hartline had more 1 more juror than us, that nullified our lead in the scores. Just like that it was over. Hartline won. Our average score from the 2 competitions was not high enough to put us in the next round as a 1-1 team. It was over for us.

Just like my high school personal life, high school mock trials ended in the exact same place for me: Heartbreak City. Sometimes in life, you just can’t get your way. Sometimes, you think things are going to turn out differently then they end up turning out. That was always the case for me in high school. I thought for sure Alura would be the girl of my dreams that I would end up marrying, and now, I could utterly careless about her.

Coming up next: The Epic High School Years Epilogue!

The High School Years: Part 10 - The Breakup

Missed or forget a part? Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9

Now in the last post I took you all the way to the Super Bowl of my senior year at Windy Hill High School. But in order to understand, this part, I am going to have to backtrack a bit to the start of my senior year and the start of mock trials 2007-08.

In my junior year, I was a lawyer. That year, I felt that from a lawyer perspective I was a weak link, especially seeing as the rest of the side that I was on that year were two of the best that we had. Personally, I felt that I would be better served to be a witness for my last year and allow Anna to be a lawyer, as I could tell that it is something she would be good at. She just had the personality needed to succeed and be a good lawyer, something that I do not have.

I did decided to step down from my lawyer position to be a witness and with 0 people graduating from last year to this year, it left us with an opening and my hope of hopes was that Mr. Zu would give Anna the spot that she deserved. But then something that I was not banking on happened. Remember May from the earlier parts? Well she decided that after being a lawyer as a freshman and a sophomore and then a witness as a junior that for her senior year she wanted to be a lawyer. Oh great.

May was not very good at being a lawyer, in my opinion. Granted, she was only a freshman and a sophomore but she was involved in so many other clubs and activities that I felt that she did not put 150% into mock trials and that bugged me. Mock trials was my only club and I did put 150% into it and it was insulting to think that someone who could careless (May) would be given a spot as a lawyer over someone who would give it her all (Anna) just for the basis of seniority. May was a senior and knew everyone on the club and Anna was just a sophomore whose only friend in the club coming into it was Alura.

Mr. Zu made it as fair as he possibly could by having us all email him who we think should be the final lawyer, and despite the fact that my submission was a really passionate argument that Anna should get the job over May, May won. It was not close. Just then, I had a sinking feeling in my gut that we would not climbing the hurdle into the second round. In my mind at the time, I was confident that had May been a witness and Anna been a lawyer, that would be the necessary recipe to get us to the next round. That elusive next round that we could never get to. This year was going to be our last chance to get in and I wanted it more than anything.

But there was a little hurdle that we needed to get over: The awkwardness of Alura and me. Now time had gone by and I had gotten over the physical crush of it, but I still liked emailing her and as you can imagine, being around her in person was very awkward. I could not pull myself together to say anything personal to her that was not mock trials related and Anna and I basically did nothing but endlessly throw verbal jabs at each other.

Now I know what you are thinking. Why on earth would I advocate her as a lawyer if all we did was make fun of each other? The answer is simple: We were easy targets for each other. She liked to call me ugly with different unique and various descriptions of my face, and she just had the personality that was easy to tease. I mean, for goodness sakes, Anna was the person who could not stop talking about how “hawt” Tom Riddle was in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Thus was the nature of our relationship. We would joke about each other constantly and yet when things turned serious, I was there for her and she was there for me, when she could not tell things to Alura.

Now Anna and Alura were best friends, but when she has a crush on someone that Alura cannot stand, there is a bit of a problem.. During the peak of our verbal jabs in December (according to Anna, my nose was less like a nose and more like a ball with a stick attached to it), I somewhat jokingly asked her if she had any boyfriends outside of her hot celebrity ones.

She admitted to liking someone who in turn only considers a friend (as it turns out this person, named Greg, would later be infatuated with wanting to get inside Anna’s pants). But at the time, Anna liked him, Greg just wanted to be friends, and there was an instance back from middle school where Alura developed a distaste of Greg that she had not yet let go of.

Anna told me she liked Greg in a private email and she wanted more than anything that I not tell anyone, including Alura. Now Alura had been dragged along in this conversation up to the point of her big reveal to me when I (privately) guessed right (she talked about Greg before to me). We needed to drag Alura along and we did just that. She acted like she was mad at me and I kept up the act of “aw, Anna has a crush, how cute” just for the sake of Alura not knowing.

Anna and I may constantly take verbal jabs at each other and make fun of each other, but when it came down to it, even if she was sometimes irritating, nothing would make me want to tell Alura or anyone else the things that Anna told me in private. Nothing. Or at least that’s what I thought.

***

Then the day came. Somehow we got on a random email conversation where we typed up skits role-playing everyone and what not. Yeah, it was as random and odd as it sounds. It was actually a good time though. I’m pretty sure we were all laughing with it and it was nice and fun. Sometimes our conversations got tense so this was a nice little relaxer.

But then that same day out of nowhere, an email from Anna’s account with the title “ALURA AND I HAVE A MESSAGE”.

Me and Alura pretty much don't like you. We've tried telling you nicely, but you don't seem to comprehend the fact that we hate you. Please don't make any attempt to contact us in the future, because we are not interested in associating with you. After today, Alura and I are permanently taking you off our contacts list, and this time, it will be final. We're sorry that it had to come to this, however, we have decided that there can be no other alternative. You leave us with no choice.
"We'll be loathing for forever, loathing, truly, deeply, loathing you our whole lives long"
-Anna and Alura

They had left me with a quote from Wicked, how thoughtful of them. I hate Wicked and that song is ear-piercingly dreadful.

But more to the point. I was not upset. I was not even angry. I just felt empty. There was something about this that was just different than everything else. Sure Anna had threatened this before with the whole debacle with Kait and Kelly, but it was never quite like that. Seemingly so carefully penned and so final. This wasn’t just a “moment of anger”.

I had been over my initial crush of Alura. And the more I thought about it, the more I wondered what was this about? Why? Why now? What the heck just happened? What did I miss? Things were going good, weren’t they? Look, if they wanted to go their separate ways with me, that’s fine, but could they at least elaborate on what the problem was. After thinking about it for a couple of hours, I replied to both Anna and Alura:

Why all of a sudden do you loathe me so much? Now granted, you never liked me, but this seems kind of odd and out of place, especially after we had a lot of fun yesterday with that conversation. If it's about Alura and my ex-liking of her, I'm over that. If you're still angry over the whole misunderstanding with Kait and Kelly, we're lab partners now and we're working on the trebuchet project together. And they asked me to join their group; I didn't barge in on them. If I said something that hurt your feelings that doesn't have anything to do with the above events, then I am deeply, truly, sorry from the bottom of my heart for anything I may have said or done that offended you. I was only trying to have some fun. I understand I can be annoying at times and I realize that. I'm sorry that you hate me and I wish it weren't true, but it is and I won't do anything to change your minds.

And if they didn’t reply to this, then maybe, just maybe, I would tell people about Anna liking Greg. Yeah, it would have been juicy enough to get a rise out of Anna and it would get Alura pissed at Anna their other friends pissed at Anna.

All I wanted was an answer. Just someone to say something. Minutes go by. Nothing. More minutes go by, still nothing. Finally after the longest hour and 13 minutes of my life, an email from Anna comes in.

Alura would not appreciate me answering, but all of a sudden i have a *gasp* conscience and I think I should have been a bit nicer to you.

Ann and Alura were over and decided to write a pretty nasty email to you. I'm sorry, really. Be prepared for an hour long email. So, I'll be honest, last year, I definitely didn't consider you my friend. It sounds mean and all, but you were just some kid from mock trials and I really didn't pay attention to you. When you liked Alura, she was more than a little creeped out and didn't really want to ever talk to you again but since she’s so nice, she couldn't say anything, and I being one of her best friends, didn't like you either by a sort of transitive property. We sorta stopped emailing as frequently, because she hoped you would get the picture and cool down, but we started emailing even more frequently, so she was frustrated. I was frustrated for her, because she was my friend, and obviously I was going through it too. So then this year, I don't know, but after summer, she came back with a worse impression of you than before. We sorta had time to dwell on stuff and she decided she hated you. Since I was still better friends with her than you, I went along with her. We definitely started being meaner, and kept sending you little hints, because we really didn't want to hurt your feelings and just come out and say that we didn't want to talk to you anymore. I personally would feel awful if I made you feel bad, no matter how much i go on about being evil and such, I have a small tiny part of my soul that's a bit nice to people at times and we figured that you'd get pissed off at us and just leave, but apparently you never took offense, or if you did, you hid it really well. Then today, we wrote this email, and then it got sent by some random chain of events and I don't know, but as soon as I sent it, I was like, oh crap what the hell did I just do? But it was a bit late to take it back, and I couldn't act like it was a lie. I don't hate you, and I think I can truly say I never did.

Yes, I think you're a bit annoying, but that's no real reason to hate someone. I don't think we should email anymore, not because I'm mad at you or I hate you, but just because of everything that's happened, I feel it would be unwise. I did enjoy the last few convos we had, and I hate to say goodbye like this, but I don’t really see a better choice. Don't tell Alura I sent this, she told me not to reply to you and don't tell people about Greg, please? And I will stop insulting you at every opportunity at mock trials, and we can start afresh, like acquaintances instead of enemies or best friends or anything. It was fun, I'm not planning on forgetting the first guy to ever like Alura anytime soon...

- Anna

For me, that was the most important email that Anna ever sent to me. It meant everything. Anna really did care. It put me at ease a bit.

Now a little background info, Ann was the bitchy and devious friend of Anna and Alura. She had never met me, but if there is one thing I know it’s this, hell hath no fury like a druggie Christian, Ann Coulter-look-a-like protecting her friends. I had a feeling Ann was the one behind this. It was just so out of character and so random that in my hour long reply, I just had to address it.

You don't know how much that means to me. :-)

Prepare for my hour long email:

This may sound weird, but I was suspicious of the email at first, because although the email came from you, it wasn't your sort of style of email as far as punctuation goes and all. Yes, it was obviously from your account and all, but unless it's in some sort of exclamation or something, you never use capital letters to start a sentence. If both emails are underneath, compare them. Your normal email (which is what you just sent) vs. the one you, Ann, and Alura sent earlier. So I knew something like that was up (I may not be as cultured in literature as you are but I'm fairly smart in others) and you weren't necessarily the one at the keyboard typing it. Also, I am guessing, that now that you mention a 3rd party (Ann) that she did most of the typing because Alura does what appears to look like single spaces after a period. This appears to have 2 spaces after a period.

I did sort of take offense to some of the things like I think the ugliniess carried on a bit much for my sense of humor, but I can laugh at myself and shrug it off. And besides, it wasn't like you sent that out of spite after a big argument like we had with Kait and Kelly, it was just random. Simply random and out of nowhere.

And I will do my part to try not to make fun of you as much (even if it is joking around). There's just something about you (maybe it's the fact you take it well) that's easy to joke around with. Sometimes jokes are warranted, but I'll try not to carry on and/or purposely say something that I know will aggravate you. That doesn't mean I'll stop completely though, I'll just try to lay off a little. And even though you never really considered me a friend (I already knew that part) I don't hate you and I always knew that you never really hated me. And yes, at times, you got on my nerves too and annoyed me a bit, but it's just you being you and if I take offense to that than I'm a no good jerk.

This isn't our goodbye. You're still going to mock trials, right? I'll see you then. I do agree though that maybe we should stop emailing for the time being so that way things don't seem uncomfortable for you like you're backstabbing Laura or something. Now if something mock trials related comes up (like that press release today) then yes I will send it out (to everyone on the team, including you and Laura) but other than that, I think we shouldn't email each other for the time being. You and Laura are best friends. I know that. I get that. I'm not out to change that. However, and I want you to know this. If you ever need something from me (like if it's Greg related or something) you can still come to me and I will be there for you to help you, to listen to whatever rant you may have, or whatever. And I guess I might as well be honest, the thought did come to me of telling about you and Greg. That did cross my mind. But now I will keep my mouth shut definitely. Whether I would or wouldn't have said something had you not emailed me back, I do not know. But now I most definitely won't tell anyone. I think a long break from emailing may be good for all of us, just to collect our thoughts and all. I will see you at our next meeting (the Tuesday after midterms). Thank you again for replying, seeing as I feared that you weren't going to reply as Alura planned. Whether you want me on or off your contacts list, it's up to you but you're still on my address list (you because you were honest with me and both of you because of mock trials).

Don't worry, Anna. Regardless of our future, I will never forget you, the best friend of my first crush. Well, seeing as I most likely won't talk to you again until after mid-terms: good luck on your midterms.

Sorry for the overbearing length of that email, I hope it wasn't too painful to read. Thanks again, Anna. And yes, I do forgive you and I'm not mad at you and I don't hate you at all.

Justin Feinberg

Anna replied:

We're staying in mock trials, if we leave now, it won’t make sense and plus, next year, we'll get to be lawyers, so of course we're gonna stay. I don't ever delete people from my contacts, I have my worst enemies on there, I just sorta trash their description in my contact info box, but i think it would be a good idea to not email as much anymore, except mock-trials related stuff. See you after midterms. Good luck on those. Better go and study!

I would go on to tell her about campaigning really hard for her to be a lawyer this year. She thanked me and was really receptive of the gesture (I had not told her that before). I was at peace with Anna.

But I wanted answers from Alura. I wanted her to talk to me as well. As you can imagine from Anna’s initial reply, Alura did not want anyone to reply and she made sure that she did not. I emailed her several times about it but she never sent anything back. I just wanted her to talk to me. I wanted her to talk to me and tell me why she hated me.

Seeing as she was ignoring emails, I only had one choice in the matter. I was going to have to confront her face-to-face. Mock trials practices were still going on and I was going to see her next Tuesday.

As the days ticked by, I got more and more nervous. It would be early Monday morning and my heart was pounding over the thought of it. I had needed to talk to her personally for the longest time, only I had always avoided it out of awkwardness, but now there was a necessity. I needed to hear from me. For my sanity’s sake, and frankly, because the way she hid behind Anna’s email account and Ann like that was cowardly. Talk to me face-to-face.

Yes, it’s a bit hypocritical on my part, but at least I could say my true feelings in an email without the help of others.

Tuesday comes. My heart is pounding harder than it’s ever been in my life. I arrive in the classroom before Alura did. I wait. My heart has not died down. I needed to talk to her and hear things from her mouth. You want to ignore the emails? Then you are going to have to face the truth right in front of you.

Alura walks in. She is wearing a sky blue sweater with blue jeans on, smiling, as always. I casually go up to her, pull her aside in private, and asked her what I needed to know:

“Alura, can we talk for five minutes?”

“No, I really can’t right now.”

“Come on. Just for 5 minutes.”

“No, I have to leave for help in chemistry.”

“Real quick.”

“No, I don’t have the time.”

“Why do you hate me, Alura?”

“I really can’t talk right now, I have to go see my teacher for chemistry help”, Alura replied. And just like that she took her chem notebook and walked out of the room. She was practically gone before I could get another word in edgewise.

Wow…..like you did not have that one planned out in advance. In defense of her, she did show up at mock trials for a minute just to set her stuff down and go get help in a class, but come on. Can’t it wait? 5 minutes? Please? For me?

It can’t. She does leave her bag there so I know she will be back and maybe, just maybe, I can finally have the conversation with her.

As we are practicing, Alura shows back up. At least she did not leave completely and maybe after the meeting, I can still get a chance to talk to her in private.

As the meeting goes along, I see her handwriting something on a piece of paper, showing it to Anna for some reason. And the instant I saw it I picked up what was going on. She’s going to take the coward’s way out AGAIN.

At the conclusion of the meeting, I get my bags ready to talk to Alura. Before I get a chance to go up to her, she comes up to me and hands me a folded up and crumpled up piece of paper with a handwritten note on it.

“I don’t hate you; I just never want to talk to you again”

Sometimes people are not who you initially thought they were. For me, Alura is one of those people.

The High School Years: Part 9 - The Trebuchet And The Super Bowl

Forget or missed a part? Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8

I know that a lot of this thus far has been about my relationship with Alura and that has essentially been the spinal cord in the body that was my last 2 years of high school, but for the next few parts, I am going to branch out from that a little bit more. During this time period of the next month or so, while things with Anna steadily improved overtime in the aftermath of Part 8, Alura pretty much chose to ignore everything and anything that I sent to her. For the first time, my chats with her and Anna were not at the forefront of my personal life of interest, therefore, they will not be on the forefront of this story. Just know that they are still where they are as I talk a little more about Kait and Kelly.

My relationship with Kait and Kelly took an interesting turn. We pretty much ignored each other for a while afterwards. No communication, no nothing. We were three separate people living 3 separate lives (well Kait and Kelly were always friends, but you get my point that there was not contact between me and them). Then all of a sudden I received an email from Kait claiming that I was “spreading false rumors again”. This was a preposterous accusation that had no merit and was completely untrue. And really, it was. Last time I was a bumbling idiot trying to lie my way out of any trouble, this time, though, I was completely innocent. Truly, I was.

I wondered where Kait was getting this information from. I thought about finding out. Where would Kait come up with such a thing? Was she making it up or did she legitimately hear this bullshit from someone? I thought sending Anna an email about this. Alura was completely ignoring me, but even though it seemed like things were going better for me and Anna, maybe I was just blind. I thought about emailing her and asking her about it……but then I thought better of it. Whether it was a result of a lie on her part, false information from someone else, or a straight-out delusion, it was not worth sending Anna another email about Kait. I was not going to potentially further put my friendship with her in jeopardy. I had been there once and it made me completely miserable. Kait just was not worth that.

However, I was still curious about it, so instead of emailing Anna and finding out what she knew, I emailed Kait and told her that wherever she got it from, it was bullshit. While there was some hesitation on their part, they did believe me and we got to talk about other things, such as our mile-run time and physics class. It wasn’t an argument either. It was a civilized conversation. A first for myself and Kait.

From there, our relationship grew and grew.

Sometimes in physics class, I would talk with Kait and Kelly sometimes before class about general things and other times we wouldn’t even acknowledge each other’s existence. There was kind of a hesitancy on both of our parts but there wasn’t any malice between us. I think they had over time forgiven me for what I did even though they’ve never explicitly said anything about it to me since the whole thing went down. Then one day, my physics lab group and their lab group (Kait and Kelly are their own group) worked together on a lab because their lab station was not yet set up and in order to get done they needed to join a group and they happened to choose my group. While working on this

This completely took me by surprise. After causing them so much headache at the beginning of the year, they actually asked me to join their group because they had been struggling on some of the labs and needed my help. Seeing as I did not feel like I fit in well with my group, I said yes to them and thus joined their group.

Our first big assignment together came in January of 2008. What was it, you ask? To build a trebuchet! No, seriously. Somehow we needed to use physics we had not learned yet to build a medieval weapon that we would later launch golf balls from for a grade. Yes, I have contemplated the totally legitimate thought that Mr. Johnson may be crazy. Biting sarcasm aside, Mr. Johnson is actually an excellent type of person to hang out at a bar with, have a few drinks, and watch a football game. Which as you can imagine, does not translate to being a brilliant physics teacher. But I digress….

So, what on earth would we do? 3 people, not planning on being physics majors anytime soon, were about to embark on an entertaining journey of building a medieval weapon. Mr. Johnson gave us time to work on the project in class, kind of necessary when you have clueless people building trebuchets. While not a physics major, Kait did not math like none other and she was a sophomore. I’m not even joking when I say that as a sophomore she was probably the second smartest math student in the school (she only does not get the consideration because Albert Einstein In Flip Flops went to Windy Hill at the same time). So naturally, she researched trebuchets online and discovered a really small one that required precise angle measurements. And by precise, I mean the thing would have been thrown off if we set 2 pieces of wood (yes we did use real pieces of wood, this was not a joke or anything) at an angle of 57.7 degrees as opposed to 57.6 degrees.

As you can imagine, our precision was not exactly precise and we that idea failed miserably. It took us a few days, but angles be damned, when your trebuchet is hardly 2 feet high and you are looking at others that are 5 and 6 feet, it does not matter how good your angles are, the damn thing is going to suck monkey ass in comparison. And before you say we should get an A for effort, part of the grading had to do with its performance in comparison to the other trebuchets. Part of me was petrified that not only could it not hurl a golf ball, but the weight of the golf ball in the pocket would be enough to knock it over. Disturbing on every front.

We did abandon that idea and after doing some more research found a more basic, taller, and not relying as much on angle precision trebuchet that would be buildable and if done right, at least competitive against the other trebs.

But class time was running low. There was no way we could complete this thing on time in class. People who knew a bit more about what they were doing barely got done and they did not scrap their idea midway through it. We had no choice but to meet on the weekend. Kait, Kelly, and I came to the conclusion that the best day for us would be Sunday. Super Bowl Sunday. In case you can’t compute what year we are in relation to football, I’m talking about Giants-Pats Super Bowl Sunday.

So while Fox was airing Super Bowl pregame shit, Kait and Kelly were coming to my house to work on a trebuchet. But seeing as it really is an impossible task to carry tons of wood out of Mr. Johnson’s room, we needed to go to The Home Depot to buy wood.

You know that whole stereotype about girls taking forever shopping? Well, guess what? It holds true for shopping for wood. Oh. My. Gosh. I swear we must have been there for at least a couple of hours just picking out the right wood to use. It was incredible.

So we finally get back to my house and it’s time to finish building this baby. Progress was slow, but we had a plan and we had the necessary materials. The one thing we did not have though, from the perspective of me, a football fan, was time. There was no way we were finishing before the start of the Super Bowl. And guess what? We didn’t.

Now I had mentioned in passing a few times that I wanted to watch the game (and invited them to stay as well) but, I was dedicated to the project. Only they were not dedicated to me.

“No, no, you need to be watching the game”, Kait would inform me.

“I am dedicated to this project, Kait, I don’t care about the game, I want to help”, I replied back.

We went back and forth on this for quite a bit. Until eventually she starts pushing me out the garage door and into the house. In other words, Kait was forcing me to watch the Super Bowl.

Naturally, my parents were wondering why I was watching the Super Bowl and not working on the trebuchet? I told them, and not even they could convince Kait to let me help. Disturbing, I know, especially seeing if nothing else, this was vintage Kait. The whole time Kait was forcing me in my house, Kelly was with the trebuchet laughing at the whole thing. She’s a quiet person so she would never do the forcing herself, but suffice to say, she found this amusing.

I check on Kait and Kelly every now and then just so that I prove to my parents that I actually care about the project, which I do, although they obviously thought that I was the most incompetent of our incompetent group. Come to think of it, if that was what they thought, they were absolutely right.

Eventually we, er, they, finish it! MIRAC LE!

Not football fans, I say goodbye to Kait and Kelly for the day and go back to watching the Super Bowl without worrying about two girls playing with wood in my garage. The 2nd half was about to start and with it, the end of a Patriots dynasty.

But this is not about sports, and even though we had finished building the trebuchet, this nightmare of a project was far from over.

The High School Years: Part 8 - Anger, Threats, And Lies

Forget or missed a part? Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7

Things actually did get better before they got worse. Anna had a problem that I helped her out with (she told me in confidence and to this day I have not told anybody what she told me and I will take her secret to my grave). The problem itself was completely unrelated to anything with Kait and Kelly, but she came to me and I tried to help her get through it. That meant a lot to me.

Then a few days later in physics, my problems started up again. Kait and Kelly came up to me in physics class and told me that Anna got finished telling them how that the only reason I apologized was to be the bigger “person”. They asked if this was true and you can guess what I said:

“No”, in another awkward fashion (not quite as awkward as the first one in the last part, though).

Through this whole thing I had always done my best to remain cool, and with it. But at this point I had lost it. After all I did to help Anna the past week with her problem, she thanked me by tattling on me to Kelly and Kait. I was so angry. I emailed her and asked her, “...is it that you must always tell Kait and Kelly what I say about them? Can't you keep anything secret? At all?”

“What now?” replied Anna. “I didn’t tell them anything, as far as I know...” This caught me off guard, but instead of believing her, my friend, I completely blew my top on her.

They said that you (Anna) said that I was cursing them out (like I did the other day). How would they know about it unless one of you told them? Unless of course by Anna, they meant Alura, but I don't know why they would be afraid to say Alura. Remember when I said that I was going to be the "bigger person" by apologizing? How is it that they found out about it? Only two people knew what I wanted to do and if you're reading this email, then you're one of the people. I'm not threatening or anything, I'm just sick of being betrayed when I have kept my word to you. Not even your closest friends know what you told me last week. I tell you these things in hopes that I can trust you not to say anything. But I guess that's just asking too much isn't it. Just deny knowing anything. Is it that hard just to say ‘no’? What good are friends if you can't trust them? Imagine how I feel right now. Every goddamn thing I said to you about them in secrecy you told them. You told them that it was me who overheard them talking about Anna and of my plans and that I ‘cursed them out’ and it made me look like an idiot. Now you're in my position. They ratted you out Anna. Fess up that you told them that because they knew, they said you told them. I can understand that you have more loyalty to them than to me, but when somebody asks you not to say anything, can you at least honor that one request? After all I did for you. Maybe if I wasn't so good to you, then maybe I would understand, but after all I did for you the past 2 weeks. You told me things that you didn't even tell your best friends. And this is what I get? Not only do I not get a thank you, but I get stabbed in the back. Yeah, I'm hurt right now. I mean after all I did for you, Anna. Some friend you are...

And that’s how I ended that email. I was clearly mad. Granted I probably came down a little too hard (actually I came down harder then I intended). Sometimes when you’re mad you say things that you don’t mean. All day I kept waiting and waiting for a reply. As it turned out, I had to wait the next day to get that reply. Coincidentally, that next day was the same day I got accepted into Bloomsburg University.

Anna responded:

Holy crap! What the hell did I do? I most honestly did not tell them anything! They told me that you came up to them and such, and I was like ok whatever and then they started going, ‘was that planned? Did he do that on purpose to make us feel bad or something?’ I’m like, ‘I don’t know, why don’t you ask him?’ Apparently it was the wrong thing to say, but whatever. I am not even involved in this. It’s between you, Kait and Kelly. So stop cursing at me! Seriosuly, calm down. Oh and Alura would like to say that you can’t yell at me like that especially when I’m innocent because when you yell at me, it’s like you’re yelling at her, and we're not going to stand for this sort of thing any longer, so if we get one more nasty email from you, we're taking you off our contacts list and never talking to you again

For some reason beyond this world’s greatest minds, I had CCed my nasty email to Alura as well. Obviously I felt like a complete dunce. Again. I had just been accepted into Bloomsburg but I felt as if I couldn’t even make it into Kindergarten. I was very sorry for what I said and proceeded to apologize my ass off to Anna and Alura. And I do mean apologize. I apologized for everything I said to them; I didn’t realize they were innocent. I felt awful. I felt ashamed. I felt embarrassed, humiliated, and angry. And I was determined to get back at Kait and Kelly for putting me through this miserable day. I was determined to go up to them the next day and right in their face call them out on what they did.

The next day (in physics class, once again), I approached them and demanded, “Exactly what did Anna tell you I said?”

“Why don’t you ask Anna. She knows everything. She is God.” was the response I got from Kait. That response told me everything I needed to know. It was obvious that they were covering up their own behinds. It was clear they were hiding the fact that they made it up and I had them right where I wanted them. I proceeded to question them further and they tried to sugarcoat everything. They even went as far as to say that, “Anna lies all the time”. To me, this was just another obvious attempt by them in order to put the blame on Anna.

In order to try to further persuade Anna and Alura that I was in the wrong and that Kait and Kelly set me up I emailed them and told them all about what happened and that Kait lied. I even made the mistake of telling Anna that Kait had said what she said about Anna lying. In retrospect, I should have kept fingers under control.

“I’ve found out that they did not say I was lying. They were pissed off at you so they tried to get you to leave them alone. You are trying to ruin our friendship”, was the message I received in my inbox when I got home that day. I couldn’t believe that. Kait and Kelly had said that and they had said it blatantly. Whether it was true or made up on the fly to get rid of me I don’t know, but there I was, once again a victim of their deception. There was no convincing Anna of my side of the story. Anna had known Kait and Kelly for x amount of years and I had only known them for one year. Anna was enraged at me and I could feel it. Before I even had the chance to reply, Anna sends me another email claiming

“You lied to me and told me that Kait and Kelly called me a liar, you’re purposely trying to break up me and Kait, you attacked Kait and Kelly when they were in the middle of a physics lab that they were about to fail, and you annoyed the two out of their minds, therefore annoying me. Therefore, I’m probably severing ties at this point. P.S. With you, not with them”

I couldn’t believe it. Although some of the propaganda they were feeding her was true, a lot of it was either made up of blown out of proportion and because Anna is so tight with them there was no way I could possibly convince her of otherwise. However, her most frivolous accusation was that I was trying to break their friendship. I was not trying to do that.

I responded,

I am not trying to break up your friendship. You've known each other x amount of years, and I'm not going to try and penetrate that wall, if you will. I'm concerned about our friendship. The way I've been thinking the past couple days is that they are trying to break up our friendship. And I think they may be succeeding in doing so, as much as I don't want it to happen. I have no problem never talking to them again. In fact, I won't talk to them unless they approach me. Is that what you're so upset about? That I'm trying to break up your friendship? Is that is what is irking you? Because if it is, it's not true, and I'm sorry if I led you to believe that but I was just trying to prove to you that they were lying to me about you telling them that I shook their hands only to be the "bigger person". I was trying to help our friendship, not damage yours with Kait and Kelly.”

“What friendship?” she replied. “I don’t consider you my friend. Kait and Kelly weren't trying to destroy any friendships. They were trying to make you go away”.

I had always considered her my friend, but she obviously didn’t have the same feelings for me. That part though wasn’t actually news to me; I knew that I always considered her more of a friend than she considered me. She also added, “I don’t want you coming in between me and Alura and me and Kait anymore”.

I spent the rest of the night trying to convince her to reconcile but she wouldn’t budge. Not one bit. I was willing to do anything I possibly could to get her back. I had felt so bad for what I had started and what I did to everyone that I ended up sending an apology email to everyone, Kait, Kelly, Alura, and Anna, where I went on a long rant about how sorry I was (and believe me, I was sorry) and how I should have kept my big mouth shut from the very beginning. Kait, Kelly, and Alura never replied back to me. But Anna did.

“Dear god, why drag them into your horribly long and twisted emails that ramble with no point? Besides, didn’t I already make it clear to you that I value Kait, Alura, and Kelly’s friendships more and I don’t want you trying to come between us anymore so all this stuff really wasn’t necessary.”

Still trying to convince her to forgive me, I replied.

I'm trying to mend the wall, not tear it down completely “I'm not trying to come between you and Alura and Kelly and Kait, I'm trying to have this whole thing forgotten about. Your comment about my horribly long and twisted emails that ramble with no point was pretty funny, actually. I do ramble on and on and on. Which is funny because when I speak, I just speak to the point, but when I email, I do tend to ramble. Though I felt this had a point. It may have been the world's longest ramble but it had a point.

Come on Anna, I know what's done is done. I know I can't hop in a time machine and change the past (although I wish I could). I know you and Kait and Kelly and Alura are ‘bffs’ and nothing will change that. Not me, that's for damn sure. But we can move on and forget about it. I'm done fighting. I made mistakes. I admit it. I screwed up. Big time. I have no problem with you being ‘bffs’ with Alura and Kelly and Kait. Go ahead. I just don't want our friendship/relationship/whatever-you-call-it to end because of this. So can you find it in your heart to forgive me and start anew?”

I couldn’t believe this was happening to me. I was on the brink of losing one of the people of whom I confide in the most. This couldn’t be happening to me.

“Do you honestly have absolutely no emotions at all?” she answered me. “Why don’t you ever get pissed off at the things you’re supposed to get pissed off at? You get pissed when you think I’m lying, but when I outright tell you, in a moment of anger, that I’m not friends with you and I want you out of my life, you don’t even take offense, you just keep apologizing? If it were me, I would have slapped myself by now. Actually, bitch-slapped would be the more appropriate term here”.

In that email, I saw a very keyword: “moment of anger”. That meant a lot to me. It meant that maybe she had said something that she hadn’t meant. I felt myself gaining more and more control over a once helpless situation.

“No emotions? NO EMOTIONS? NO EMOTIONS???” I replied in a joking manner. I could feel this thing turning around.

I continued,

Pretty much everything I've said today has been emotional, just not the emotion of anger. The only person I was really angry at today was myself.

I was pissed off because I thought you betrayed me. When you said you wanted me out of my life, I was just upset and wanted to get you back in my life. I really enjoy emailing with you and Alura. It gives me something to look forward to on a day-to-day basis. Believe me, I've been bitch-slapping myself in my mind ever since this whole thing started”.

And even though that was Anna’s terminology I had borrowed, it was true. I was regretting ever starting this whole thing. I wished I had never listened to Kait and Kelly’s conversation that I thought had been mocking Anna’s project.

“No emotions meaning anger. That’s cool”, was her reply. That’s cool. I had finally gotten to her and saved my “friendship” with Anna. Even though it wasn’t a straight-up message saying, “I forgive you”, that was her way of saying, “it’s all good”, and that was good enough for me. For the first time in a long time, I was at peace with myself.

The High School Years: Part 7 - A Simple Misunderstanding

Forget or missed a part? Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6


(Editor's Note: While I originally meant to post this morning but just forgot, upon my realizing my forgetfulness, I realized I would be better off posting it today. As you may have guessed or figured out, Anna and Alura are currently seniors and assuming the weather holds up, today is their last mock trials trial, unless they advance to the 2nd round. So in honor of them and in wishing them the best of luck, here is Part 7 of The High School Years, even though this particular part does not have much to do with mock trials competition)

The summer came by and the summer went. Did Anna, Alura, and myself still email? Yes. Were we emailing less now than we did our last blowout? That would depend on who you ask, probably. Was my crush on Alura a constant thought? No. I had pretty much come to terms with the fact that I would never be able to score a date with her, but I still wanted her. It’s a contradiction in a way, yes, but at the same time, reality does not always click with my desires. However, we did like to talk about one crush: Yes, Anna’s crush on Tom Riddle of the Harry Potter series and other celebrity crushes was a frequent butt of my jokes. Hey, she made fun of my crush on Jodie Sweetin before, I can rib her for liking Tom Riddle, Robert Pattinson, Tobey Maguire, and Orlando Bloom, among others. In other words, things were par for the course.

A week after my 18th birthday, Anna sent me (and several others) an email about a project she was doing. She was looking for people to help her out, seeing as it was a big project (not a school project, but kind of like a community service type deal). I emailed her back and said yes. I really didn’t think much about it, other than what was actually there. I just thought that I would be helping her with her little project. I did not realize that this would be one of the catalysts of a huge argument between us.

So I arrive at school the next day, with her project one of the last things on my mind. Anyway, I arrive in physics class, and two of Anna’s friends that received that email about her project, Kait and Kelly, are in that class. And as I am walking in, I hear them talking and I hear them mention Anna’s name. I stop dead in my tracks. It was kind of like one of those things where you couldn’t help but listen but yet you didn’t want them to know you were listening. I was trying to pick up what they were saying, not getting much, but I heard Anna’s name along with some giggles and other things that I thought sounded negative. I am trying to act as natural as possible, going to my seat yet keeping an ear on their conversations, while trying to fend off the sweat. Whenever I’m in an uncomfortable situation like this, the temperature always seems to ratchet up to 150 degrees. I couldn’t pick up much more, just enough that I had a pretty good idea that what they were saying about Anna was negative, the key word being idea.

I went through the rest of the day debating whether or not I should tell Anna that I was pretty sure I heard Kait and Kelly mocking her and her project. I arrive home that day, still unsure about what I should do. I decided to ask Alura, of all people. Just like I turned to Anna for my problems with Alura, I went to Alura with my worries about Anna. I tell her my story and ask her, “how tight is Anna with Kelly and Kait?”

“Um, just tell her, I guess, and see how she reacts. But just be, you know, light about it. Like it's not a really big deal”, she replied.

I take Alura’s advice and decide to tell her. And surprisingly, there isn’t much of a problem. I tell Anna the whole story, truthfully and honestly, like I told it above and her response kind of caught me off guard.

“Kait actually really likes the idea, she’s said so to my face. What you probably heard was them talking about me telling a friend of mine who told Kait that another friend of mine called him gay and that I spent an hour with him on the phone last night. You could be right though. Thanks. Keep listening to their conversations, please?” I wasn’t quite sure what I was expecting but this certainly was not it.

A few days go by with no mention to this problem whatsoever. Naturally, I think that it’s all water under the bridge that Anna was just keeping a closer eye out on them. I didn’t really anticipate her asking them about, which of course is exactly what she did. So a few days later, something really strange happens.

Our physics teacher had a Jenga game in the corner of the room that we can play for extra credit before class starts. I was going over there to play Jenga (and in the process I have to pass the desk of Kait and Kelly) and Kelly came up to me and asked, “if I knew Anna?” I was startled. I had no idea if they were just asking around (Anna had told them about the physics class part) or had they known it was me. Once again, the temperature in the room ratcheted up to 150 degrees. I fumbled around in my mind thinking of an answer. Since I didn’t really have much of a lie planned out I just answered yes. Big mistake on my part. They then proceeded to cross-examine me as if I were a witness on the witness stand.

“Did you talk to Anna recently?”

“Yes”

“How often do you talk to her?”

“Pretty much everyday”.

They then ask me the question that I was hoping they would never ask. “Did you tell Anna that we were saying bad things about her?”

The answer that came out of my mouth was the most awkward “no” I have ever spoken in my life. I was about as startled as an old lady after she wins the lottery.

A few days later, Anna helped clear things up for me. She spoke to Kelly and Kait and her hunch about what they were talking about was right, thus making me look even more of an idiot. But she wasn't mean spirited about it at all. Or at least I thought it wasn't.

As I’m thinking this thing is all over, Kait and Kelly approach me (in physics again) and they got in my face and told me that they knew it was me. More trouble. Alura had told on me. I just ignored them at first but when I realized they weren’t going away I was short with them and replied, “Anna is my friend. I am loyal to her. I have no loyalty to you”. It wasn’t by any stretch of the imagination the nicest reply or maybe the best thing I could have said in that situation, but I just wanted the thing to be over seeing as I had already been embarrassed enough. And really. Anna was someone who helped me get through one of the biggest hurdles in my life. Kait and Kelly were just two random girls who I had never even knew existed before this incident.

Throughout this whole entire thing Anna did remain supportive of me and never got mad at me. As I walked into the door for mock trials, our first meeting of the year, I am startled to find Anna with Kait in the room. She was not in mock trials last year at all. What the heck was she doing there now? They came up to me and in a very snooty way Kait told me

“See, we’re best friends”.

“Okaaaaaaay,” I thought to myself, especially considering the stuck-up way in which she said it. However, there was not really much doubting it as both Kait and Kelly both knew the story about me and Alura, and guess what folks, I was not the one to tell them!

Anyways, Anna was nice enough to apologize for that and admitted that Kait did that so that she could be right. And Kait was not actually joining mock trials either. She just wanted to shove that in my face. Congrats, Kait, job well done!

That gave me an idea, though. I was willing to let this whole thing go, but Kait’s snooty comment and the way she walked into Mr. Zu’s and our mock trials meeting just to shove something in my face really pissed me off. Even though Anna apologized on her behalf, I was still mad at Kait so I hatched a plan to apologize to them just to make me seem better. Now yes, I was sorry for the incident, but because of the way they approached me all the time, I really didn’t feel like I had to apologize. Anna was still my friend and that was all I had cared about up to that point. Now it was time for me to show them off. I told Anna and Alura what I was planning to do, which in hindsight was probably one of the bigger mistakes I’ve made since knowing Anna and Alura.

I arrive in physics class that day and I waste no time and going up to them and saying,

“I am really sorry about this whole thing. It was a simple misunderstanding. I thought I had heard something that I clearly didn’t and I think we can start over”. I then proceed to offer my hand in friendship. First to Kelly and then she called over Kait.

“Wait, what?”, Kait asked.

“He said he’s sorry”, Kelly stated.

“I’m really sorry for everything that happened”, I reiterated to Kait.

“Wow, I really did not expect this”, Kait replied in her typical slightly stuck-up and her sarcastic manner as she shook my hand.

I thought to myself, finally this nightmare of a simple misunderstanding gone totally awry was finally over.

Boy was I wrong.

The High School Years: Part 6 - Wake Up Call

Missed a part? Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

We got to finals week. And after going quite a long time without a mention of it, Anna all of a sudden out of nowhere sent an email asking, “Hey, for some reason i just thought of this: Justin, do you still like Alura?”

It hit me right across the face and I started thinking about it. My emotions started taking control of me. I thought about Alura and how wonderful she was and how sweet and pretty and awesome she was. These feelings, these feelings that I had done such a good job at suppressing for the past month were coming back into me.

I like her now more than I have ever liked her before, but I'm controlling myself. Have I been doing better, do you think? Actually, it's funny that you mentioned that because just earlier today I was wondering to myself if I did the right thing by flat-out telling her that I liked her a lot 2 months ago and later the exact same day here I am telling out right that I like her more now than I ever liked her before. Let me tell you what, I am braver than I ever thought I would be when it comes to dealing with her girl. I'm actually very proud of myself. Seeing as how I we are putting these questions out there, I have a question for Alura. Alura, have you changed your mind at all? You can be honest, I won't be hurt/offended/angry/upset/mad/depressed if you say "no".

What I said was true. At the time I was feeling brave. Braver than I had ever felt in my life, despite the constant rejections and the lack of a date. Just the fact that I was regularly communicating with a girl that I liked was doing wonders for my self-esteem.

Alura did reply to my question with a simple, “Well, actually, no, I haven't. Sorry.”

I was doing so good controlling my inner obsession and now, all of a sudden, this rush of emotion was coming to me. But I had had enough of this. I wanted to break the habit.

Anna, please help me. I was doing so good, but today I'm having one of those days where I literally can't stop thinking about Alura. I know that I will always like her, but when you were absolutely obsessed over Mark, what did you do to cool down the obsession? I was doing so good until you asked me if I still liked her and then all of a sudden I started loving all over again, like I was a month or so ago. I just wished she would go out with me, but that could either a). help me feel better, or b). I could become so crazy over her that I start planning a marriage already. Any advice at all would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

3 months is a little bit too long for a crush and I was beginning to realize it at this point, and I legitimately wanted to break it. Something about that surge of emotion Anna gave me with that question also compelled me to seek her advice on how to break the habit. And from the response I got from the 1-on-1 private email that I sent to her, Anna legitimately wanted to help me.

Well, first of all, ask yourself why you like her so much. Any reasons? Tell me them when you reply. Then think about all her faults. She has many, I assure you. Then say to yourself "what am I gaining in this? Absolutely nothing. I'll just keep liking her for all eternity to no avail and she'll never like me back, what's the point". It also helps to switch your attention from her. Think about Jodie Sweetin every time you find yourself concentrating on Alura.

Yes, I had told her about Jodie Sweetin. I replied by basically telling her what I have told you in previous chapters about how I thought she was beautiful and I had never really liked a girl before. I clued her in into the inner-workings of my mind, just like I have done with you here. However, I was stumped on the faults. Luckily for me, Anna was right on top of it.

1. She doesn't like soda.
2. She doesn't like dogs.
3. She already likes someone else.
4. She talks back to her parents more than even I do.
5. She's really impatient.
6. She pretends to be friends with people and then backstabs them.
7. She's a bully to the losers in our grades.
8. She has really bad handwriting.
9. She has told me several times that she can't wait to get back to work because the guy she likes works with her.
10. This is all being told to you strictly in confidence and you are not telling Alura I told you this personal stuff.

We'll work on those for now. Let me know if you need more faults. I personally don't know why you think she's all that beautiful. I mean, she's not ugly or plain or anything, but she's no raving beauty either, and even my other male friends don't think so either. And she's not all that understanding. She is quite embarrassed by the fact that you like her (again- not a word to her on what I'm telling you). But she is sweet, I can't argue with you on that one if other girls didn't like you, what made you think Alura would? (this has a negative connotation to it, but that's not how it’s meant to sound. it’s a sincere question)

I replied:

Au contraire to your thoughts, I think she is a raving beauty, just she doesn't act like one. Then again, I guess this is all a matter of opinion. Why is she embarrassed that I like her? Again, you know her better, but is she embarrassed because I like her or is she embarrassed because she feels bad and doesn't like me back. Granted, I'm not the most popular kid in school, but I'm not a geek or a nerd or anything like that. What I mean is is that I am smart and I do well in school, I'm just not a geek/nerd person, if that makes sense (okay, maybe a little).

It's not that I thought she would like me, it's just that I never liked a girl more than I like her and my hope was that if I told her how much I really like her she would notice me, like me, and go out with me. Well, I think I got one of three down (I definitley thinks she notices me)

I'm not sure how to mention this without having a really awkward conversation (or by bringing up this conversation) but no one is asking her to email me or anything. If she feels uncomfortable/embarrassed emailing me and she is only doing it because she feels like she has to and doesn't want to hurt my feelings, then tell her (somehow) that she doesn't have to.

Anna sent another email back:

How can you not like dogs? You're practically not human. And she is embarrassed about the fact that you like her. I think she was wishing it would be Mike (shh!). If given the choice, to be absolutely honest, she'd rather have finished mock trials and then never speak to you again, but she's too polite to let you know that she's only emailing because she feels she has to. I'm sorry for my bluntness, but you really have to get over her. Plus, the reason your little ruse to see her in the halls didn't work is because every time she sees you coming, she seriously runs, uses a different route, or hides behind a tall person. No joke.

Ouch. Mike was another member of mock trials and that bit about the hallways got me devastated. Sometimes I would see her and find ways to see her in the hallway to say hi or what not, but the fact that she intentionally runs away from me? No, that, that can’t be. Is she really that hurt? That embarrassed? That scared? To literally run away and go in a different direction?

Basically I was left speechless. I did not know what to say. I sent her an email asking how she knew about Alura’s hiding in the hallways and how bad I felt that in I was torturing her and making her life miserable. I even asked Anna if Alura was going to do mock trials again next year, to which she replied, “She's going to go through with it, because of mike, but she's confessed that she really doesn't want you to start liking her even more”. I told Anna that she did not have to email me anymore and her only reply to that was “her conscience would feel bad”. And to top it all off, Anna added that “You've scarred Alura for life and she's probably never going to be comfortable with you again”.

Anna had explicitly stated that not a word of this would come from my mouth to Alura. But a part of me felt so bad that I just felt like crawling up on my carpet and crying myself to sleep over the ordeal. How else can you get the pain to go away? I’m not a bad person, I knew I was not a bad person, and yet, here I was, scarring this innocent girl for life with my creepy stalkerishness. What was wrong with me? It’s bad enough that I have problems harming flies, now I had to cope with the fact that I have negatively affected someone I cared about in the most ostentatious manner possible.

That urge to say something was too overwhelming. If Anna could break her implicit promise to me that no one would know about my crush on Alura, then I could break my promise that I would not tell Alura that Anna just told me things that Alura did not want me know because it is the only way I could start feeling better about the whole ordeal.

I needed to send her something. I could not keep quiet about this. It’s the only way I could stop hating myself.

Alura,

Wow, this is hard for me. Um, I have been talking to Anna privately on how to conquer my obsession with you, seeing as how she conquered her obsession with Mark and she told me how much I was bothering you. I kind of understand why you felt that way because I really liked you and you don't really like me. But why did you have to keep all of it a secret from me? If all I am doing is bothering you and making your life hell, then why do you keep emailing me? You don't have to run from me, my intentions are only those of good ones. Now that I know how much I have bothered you I feel so awful because I obviously never meant to do that to you. I'm sorry for causing you any pain or suffering. I understand that you will probably never look at me in a positive light again, but I hope you understand what I am saying. I still want to be friends with you (hopefully you want the same, but if you don't I understand) and hopefully we can still email (in childish tone: I like emails. End childish tone), but if you don't want to I understand. I just want you to forgive me for bothering you and I want to set you free and make you feel better, not like you have to do things just to keep me happy. So what do you say? Can you forgive me and can we start all over? Thanks for your time.

Justin Feinberg

P.S. Please don't be mad at Anna. I wanted advice and she told me all of that stuff that you (with perhaps a reasonable reason) hid from me. The only way I could ever forgive myself is to apologize to you and ask for forgiveness from you (as weird as it sounds it makes perfect sense in my mind), whether I get it or not is irrelevant.

P.P.S. Yes, I think I am finally over my obsession of you. Thanks for trying to keep me happy, but if I ever bother you again, please let me know so I can look at myself and my actions like Anna made me do today.

That felt better. And so she was not left entirely out of the dark, I told Anna what I had sent to Alura. My punishment was to forward the above email to her so she could see what I said. I learned my lesson well.

After a long night of sleeping on everything, Alura got back to me the next day.

It's fun when you and me and Anna are just e-chatting with each other, but yeah, sometimes it gets a little weird. I know you like me, rather obviously, and I know that I probably will never feel the same way because actually, I like someone else. (don't ask me who; he doesn't go to Windy Hill.) I do feel kind of bad that I don't like you in that way and it doesn't really help if you mention it or whatever, even if it is only in fun. It's good that you're getting over me, and I think we can keep e-mailing, probably, but maybe it should be less frequent.

While it did not take away all the pain of harming an innocent person, her response definitely put me to ease.

Alura had deemed that we could keep emailing, just a little less frequently. Alura’s wish would become a reality, at least in the very near future. I may have been in the process of getting over the crush, but the fun of the whole ordeal was just about to begin….

The High School Years: Part 5 - Persistence

Missed a part? Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

Another month went by and things were generally par for the course with Anna, Alura, and me. Everyday after school we would send emails about different subjects and what not and we would have all sorts of random conversations about nothing in particular, and let me tell you what, it was a good time. As much as they may not have been excited about the whole thing, I think they will tell you that the random email conversations we had were fun.

However, once things turned to the subject of my “love” for Alura, that’s when things turned sour. Basically, if our “relationship” was brought up only bad things followed.

In fact, at one point during this time, I had picked randomly chosen a U.S. patent for a math project based on the letters in Alura’s name. As you can imagine, that did not go over real well with them. To put it best, I think they were slightly disturbed. And looking back on it, I guess I could say the same thing if someone chose a project based on the numbers in my name and then bragged about how they got a 59 out of 60 on it and did so well on it.

I’d be disturbed. They were disturbed.

But that’s not really the most awkward moment during this time period. That would come when someone not named Anna whispered to Alura about the junior boy who asked her out.

Now I was under the impression that this little thing was a secret. Just like I had kept Anna’s crush on Mark a secret, I was hoping that the favor would be reversed. Now I did not know this girl named Melissa that asked Alura about me, thus I had obviously not told her. Besides I wanted this a secret. Why would I tell someone? And better yet, how was it possible for me to tell someone I did not know?

Of course it would not have been Alura because Melissa asked her about me without prompt and besides, why would she then ask as genuinely surprised about it as she did?

That left one person, and if you do not know who it is, then may I suggest you read Parts 1-4 of this.

Anna.

How could she have just randomly betrayed my secret when I had gone as far as to not tell anyone about her liking Mark. Even if she was over him by this point, I still did not tell.

Natrually, I felt betrayed. Anna was the one person that I could confide all of this in because I could not tell my parents as they would just bombard me with 50 million questions per day about what was going on, and that’s not what I wanted. It was bad enough when I told them about the prom, the last thing was for them to know what was really going on. No one else that I knew knew Alura so they could not have been of much help nor did they really know what was going on, thus the only person I had was Anna. And when that betrayal hits you, it hurts.

I refrained from going on an angry rant at Anna, as I knew that I needed her. Even if she did betray me, at least she still had a set of ears that was willing to listen to my problems.

The emails then transitioned into how I was not cute. Yeah, even looking back at them I still can’t figure out how that happened, but it did.

“What is it about me that is not cute?” I seriously asked, wanting to know so I can make some improvements, if cuteness is something to be improved, that is, “And please give real answers and not some valley girl answer like this: ‘like no you’re not cute so whatever stop asking me like omg’. Real answers please.”

Wrong thing to say and boy did it ever rub Anna the wrong way. She replied:

THIS IS THE SECOND TIME TODAY THAT I HAVE BEEN CALLED A VALLEY GIRL. I WILL NOT TOLERATE IT ANYMORE! SERIOUSLY. JUST IN CASE YOU DIDN’T KNOW, VALLEY GIRL IS A POLITE FORM OF SAYING SLUT AND I REFUSE TO BE CALLED A SLUT SO EITHER RETRACT THAT OR FACE MY WRATH, YOU AND YOUR NONEXISTENT CUTENESS CAN GO TAKE A HIKE OR THROW YOURSELVES DOWN A CLIFF OR WHATEVER YOU FEEL LIKE DOING. JUST STOP TRYING TO BE SOMETHING YOU’RE NOT! MAYBE THEN PEOPLE WILL GO OUT WITH YOU. PEOPLE LIKE HONEST AND REAL PEOPLE BETTER THAN THEY LIKE PEOPLE WHO TRY TO BE POPULAR OR LOOK GOOD OR TRY TO BE “CUTE” SO JUST QUIT WITH THIS. I DON’T FEEL LIKE EXPLAINING TO YOU EXACTLY WHAT MAKES YOU NOT CUTE. YOU CAN ASK DEAR ALURA (no offense to you Alura) SO GET OVER IT AND STOP BUGGING ME ABOUT IT! HARRUMPH!

That certainly shook me up. I knew I was really trying to ham it up to try to get her to like me, but I did not see myself in that light. In denial that such a thing about me, could be true, I implored Anna, “I want you to read over what you wrote. Is that how you really feel (not about the valley girl things) or is that just you letting off some steam?”

“I’m not sure anymore. I think it might have been me yelling at the world. But you can’t blame me because I’m PMSing. Yeah, you didn’t need to know that.”

“So do I. I don’t think that was really you yelling and I don’t think you really meant what you said. Thanks to your rant, I nearly cried myself to sleep. I’ve been miserable all day. I really didn’t need to know the part about the PMSing.”

“I’m sorry. I’m better now”, was her final reply on the matter. I don’t know if she was sorry about the rant or that she just told me about her current stage in her menstrual cycle, but regardless, she was sorry.

That was not the end of all the drama, though. Just a few days later when the subject of my relationship with Alura got brought up again, Anna once again got on me.

“For the last time” Anna said, “just forget about it. It won’t work. Chill out.”

“I’ll only believe that once Alura says it herself”, was my reply in denial.

“I have to agree with Anna”, Alura chimed in. “I really don’t think it will work.”

“Not even one movie?”, I came back with. If nothing else, I was certainly winning points in the persistence category.

“Is the answer still not obvious?”, Anna replied in defense of Alura, “NO! Stop pushing this or she’ll start hating you. Just stay friends and be happy with that.”

Well, the answer was certainly obvious to anyone not on Cloud 9 head over heels infatuated with someone. Regardless, I was beginning to get a bad vibe.

“I actually am beginning to get a vibe that Alura isn't liking me as much as when I first told her back in March.”, I told Anna in a private email not seen by Alura.

Well, duh you have completely scared her off with all your messages about “Oh I love you! Oh you mean everything to me!" yadda yadda. I told you to relax, but you wouldn't listen to me. She never actually liked you. She always considered you a friend. She told you that, and I told you that, but yet you kept pushing it.

When you are in the denial that I was, you push things sometimes without even meaning to.

A couple months did go by and the subject did change to other things. And we chatted about random happenings such as finals, music, you know, anything people can find themselves talking about. Maybe things had finally settled down. My feelings toward Alura had been calming down and everything would turn out all right. Or maybe this would just be taking things one step closer to the wake-up call of my life.

The High School Years: Part 4 - Prom

Missed a part? Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

As March turned into April, a little thought popped into my head. Prom was coming up in May! Now the question came, should I ask out Alura? After all, with all of the planning and shopping that comes from a prom date, you need to ask these things well ahead of time.

There really are multiple schools of thought here, even though she explicitly said that she wanted to be friends. People go to the prom as “just friends” all the time and nothing ever comes with it. Even though she was just a freshman and prom is for juniors and seniors, freshmen are allowed to go to prom if they are with someone who is a junior or senior at Windy Hill High School. Lucky for me, I was a junior.

At the same time, we were just friends and maybe she would interpret an invitation to the prom as something a little more, especially after I had already poured my heart out to her a few weeks ago.

After much back and forth between myself and myself about it, I decided to pull the trigger. I was going to ask Alura to the prom and hope for the best. Was I prepared for a possible rejection? Not really, my head was still in the clouds at this point. Remember, she did not hate me and she thought my liking her was “totally sweet”. Maybe I really was onto something with this whole prom thing.

What I really wanted to do was ask her out in person, figuring it would be much more personable and maybe she would say yes. But seeing as mock trials were over, we did not have the same lunch that year, and we did not have any class together, I was not able to get 3 minutes alone with her. Therefore, I had no other choice but to resort to the old email again.

“Alura, you will not hurt my feelings if you say no”, I started, “but I was wondering, since I rarely ever see you in person anymore, if you were willing to accompany me to the prom on May 18. I would be honored if you would come with me. And if you do say no, I will still be friends with you”

Then I played the waiting game. And with butterflies in my stomach I was impatient as any normal person would be having just asked someone they liked out and were waiting for an answer. Only for most normal people it lasts for a few seconds. For me, the wait was hours.

I told Anna that I had asked her out to prom, even after I told her previously that I had chickened out. What? Did you think I was lying when I said that I was going back and forth and back and forth about it?

“Good job”, was Anna’s reply, “I have no idea what she will say, I forgot to ask her. Might say yes….”

Well that certainly had me giddy! She concluded the email by saying how she feels quite free that she does not like Mark anymore. Good for her, only now, I could not concentrate on her moment of triumph.

“Why is she forcing me to wait so long? When will you see/talk to her again? I need to know. If you only knew how I was feeling right now. I can’t concentrate on my homework, I just keep thinking about her. Why is she forcing me to wait?” was my reply to Anna.

And yes, I realized these were email conversations and that I was dealing with people who had normal lives that did not include spending every waking moment in front of a computer, but really, the hours were torturous.

A new email! Was this the one?

No. It was Anna again.

“Okay….I haven’t talked to her at all today so far. I could call her if you’d like….”

Well, as much as I was dumping things on Anna and as much as I was involving her in the mix, I did not want her to ask her to prom for me. I would wait my time. I was just impatient.

“So much false hope…..So many emails…..none from Alura (yet)…..When will I know?...”

The wait continued.

Another new email! Who is it from?....Damn. It’s Anna again.

“Just be patient”, she stated, “She got online a couple minutes ago, she sent me and our other friends a couple emails.”

Finally! She’s going to come on any minute now and let me know, right?

Sure enough, not even 1 minute later, Alura responded to my prom invitation.

“My parents have told me that they don’t want me going to an event with all upperclassmen. Also, I don’t really know anyone else who would be going and I wouldn’t know what to do with myself. So I really can’t. Sorry.”

Rejected!

I know I said that I wouldn’t be depressed, but the more I thought about it, the more it did sort of depress me. Rejection is never a good thing if you’re someone like me and you struggle with things like this.

Looking back, I can see that the parents and the lack of socialization was just a cop out on her part for not wanting to be with me and I understand that. As someone who has lied a few times in his life, I can attest to the fact that when we don’t want to do something, we pile on as many bogus excuses as we possibly can to make it seem like we really can’t go when in reality we just don’t want to go. That was absolutely the predicament that she was in and I should have seen something like that coming a mile away. After all, she is too sweet to deliberately hurt my feelings.

The High School Years: Part 3 - The Not So Secretive Courting

Missed a part? Part 1, Part 2

As you may or may not have noticed by the way things developed in the last part, we sent out emails frequently as a group. My favorite part was that none of us were smart enough to realize that emails that once started out as a group notification from Mr. Zu had turned into a group wide chat about nonsense with each of us hitting the “reply all” button and Mr. Zu, the lawyer, and every other unwilling person in the club seeing our meaningless emails.

I can just imagine a bunch of anxious students waiting to get an email from an important college admissions person about an important college question they had and their ticker would keep going off.

Darn, it’s Justin. Wait, he hates Mr. Wall? Why is he telling me this?

Ooh, another one! Please let it be it? No, it’s Anna replying to Justin. Oh great, she just said that last email was crap.

Now that that garbage is out of the way, I can open up this email which surely is from the Dean of Admissions of Penn State…..no, it’s Justin again. Can’t this stupid argument end?

Oh yay, now there’s an email from May (another person in mock trials). STUPID FUCKING MOCK TRIALS IS CLUTTERING MY INBOX!!!!! MOMMY!!!!!!!!

Well that’s how a lot of other people saw it. Me, I was having a blast. I’ve never had so much fun online contact with people in my life. I was not on Facebook at the time, I hardly read blogs at the time, and I don’t even think that Twitter existed 3 years ago. Wait, did it? Well, if it did, I had no idea what the fuck it was, that’s for sure.

The point I am dancing around is that while not many others enjoyed these chats, I was having the time of my life. Okay, so maybe that’s overstating it, but the point is there. In fact, I enjoyed it so much, that once the year’s competition was over, I proceeded on trying to start up more conversations and email chains, going so far as sending the results of the end of the competition to everyone.

And it worked. The conversations kept on going.

Eventually we got to talking about relationships. Anna get telling us stories about this kid that I went to elementary school with, so that was kind of bizarre and odd.

May then randomly decided to mention that after a few years of having boyfriends, she has been single for a couple months and I chime in the fact that up until that point, I had been single all 17.5 years of my life and not once had I gone out with a girl.

Then I let it slip.

“I haven't even really found people who I'm mutually attracted too. Okay, there's one right now, but I really haven't had the guts to talk to her and/or ask her out, so obviously I would not call that a mutual attraction (unless of course she is just as shy as I am and I'm in the dust). I am in 11th grade, yet when it comes to this kind of stuff, I feel like I'm in 7th or 8th grade. I feel like I'm that stupid idiot with a stupid crush, but won't tell anyone, not even her”

Frankly I’m not quite sure what I was thinking when I said that and frankly I’m not sure if I was thinking about anything. Sure I was talking about Alura. And yes, I was well aware that I was sending that directly to her (and several others), but it never crossed my mind that anything would ever come of it.

“I can sort of relate. Except obviously with the genders reversed”, Alura replied.

We had something in common. That was a start.

Well luck be a cruel bastard, guess who’s crush people start inquiring about? You guessed it. Mine. Ugh. It’s Monday March 19 and I cannot shake these people for the life of me. I consistently state that I will not tell them who it was that it was my secret and that’s the way I wanted it (of course, just sending the answer to everyone but Alura and Anna would have been much too obvious to think of). I did not want to ruin a semi-budding friendship and more importantly create awkwardness in the team.

But I went to bed, having managed to keep my secret in tact.

Morning came. Tuesday. March 20, 2007. I’m pretty sure at some point during March Madness last year, I mentioned how the second day of the first round occurred on a significant anniversary of my life. Obviously, that was March 20. You want that whole story? Well here ya go.

I pondered during the school day whether or not I would say anything and reveal Alura’s true identity to Alura. And the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. Yes. I should. Unlike Jodie Sweetin, here was my chance to tell a girl that I liked her and to maybe get in a relationship. Here it was. My first shot at a possible love. This one will not go unheard of. This one will play itself out. I will quit being a coward and for once I will tell a girl how I really feel about her. This will work. This will play out.

But……I was not going to make it easy. No. Not at all.

Let’s turn it into a guessing game!

Frankly I’m not sure what I was thinking, but in an odd sort of way, it made my job easier in that I may not be the one that necessarily breaks the news.

After a nervous day of school where I contemplated everything in regards to this matter, I decide to continue along. Yes, she was going to find out today. Yes, they would find out through their posing of questions to me.

One notable question that Anna asked was, “Is is Alura?”. I didn’t lie to her and say, “no”. I just did not answer it.

Here are some of the questions that I got asked:

Alura: “Is it someone Anna and I have ever talked about?”

Answer: Yes.

Anna then sent me an email with a barrage of questions that resembled questions you would get for a job application.

“Is she tall, short, or average?”

“Blonde? Brunette? Black? Red? Interesting variations of about five different colors?

“White, Asian, brown, black, a mixture?”

“Does her first name start with A-G, H-M, N-S, T-Z?”

And after all that, she had this little friendly message for me at the bottom, “You must answer or else I’ll never talk to you again. Seriously. I need to know…I have to know everything about everybody, always.”

There really is no filter on Anna’s emails. She must have learned to send emails at the same place where DeSean Jackson learned to tweet. But I digress.....

For the sake of identity protection I won’t give you what the answers are (although some of them I have indirectly already revealed) but do know that I answered all of the questions honestly, even adding my little note at the end that “there was one that I did not answer”.

Of course, you know which one I was referring too.

And so did Anna.

“Oh my God Alura it’s you!!!!!! I know it is. You totally qualify and I asked him if it was her and he didn’t answer OMFG!!!”

I guess my secret’s not a secret anymore then! Sent not only to me and Alura, but to May and Mike as well. Well played, Anna. Well played. Did I mention something about a lack of filter on her emails?

“Listen, I'm really sorry for blurting that out”, Anna quickly replied back, “but Alura said she already found out about 3 seconds before I kind of exploded. I hope you're not mad at me, but I have issues where my hand does not coordinate with my brain.”

She finished off by writing the word “sorry” 38 times. Seriously. That’s not an exaggeration.

And to top it all off, she added a 39th in a separate email, only this sorry one had an “oh fuck, I’m” in front of it.

I went down to watch Deal or No Deal from Monday night before, wondering what on earth was going to happen to me. I hardly paid attention to the show as I just contemplated how my life was about to change. This is what I had wanted, wasn’t it?

I hop back on and during the show Alura had sent me her first email since Anna’s revelation (though I had never confirmed it).

“Way to not think twice and write once . . . I had pretty much guessed anyway”, was Alura’s reply. She was more pre-occupied with Anna’s quick fingers then the fact that she had a desparate boy willing to cater to her every whim.

Anna then felt the need to do more damage control by replying to Alura’s email with an “aaaaaaaah!!!!! Please don’t hate me….” message.

Once again, my feelings on this fiasco are ignored. Lovely. Just lovely.

In the spirit of forgiveness, Anna then decided to reveal who her crush was. Turns out it was the same kid who I had known in elementary school who she was telling us about the day before. And it was not that she just mentioned him she liked him and moved on with it, she took it deep into her core of love for him. It was actually quite moving and I’m not saying that sarcastically.

For all the talk of a lack of a filter, I could really tell that she was legitimately sorry. We can’t control our own filters in this world.

I decided that I finally needed to say something to Alura. Although there was one thing that I was scared of right now, her hating me.

Alura, I seriously hope that Anna did not stun you there if that sudden announcement. My way was to have it come on gradually, and then when I felt that you had figured it out, I was going to reply to Anna's message of "Is it Alura?", and I was going to simply reply, "yes, it is Alura". I was not going to scream it out like Anna did. Alura, I seriously hope you don't hate me. Please don't hate me. Please don't hate me. At this point, the only thing I am worried about is you not hating me. Please reply and say something. Please, I just need to know. Even if you think I am evil, and you don't want anything to do with me. Please just answer me. Say something, even if it is negative and you curse me to hell, I will understand, and I won't hate you. Even if you hate me, nothing you say right now, could ever make me hate you. Absolutely nothing.

“I don’t hate you”, Alura replied. Takes things quite literally, this one.

I replied:

Alura,

Thank you for not hating me. I am really sorry about this if I embarrassed you or humiliated you. I did not mean to. I am glad you don't hate me, yes, but I still feel really bad about how this ended up. Although you did say you figured it out before Anna proclaimed it, I just all of a sudden feel bad about this. The goal was not in any way to make you feel bad, degraded, humiliated, and/or embarrassed.

The truth is ever since I first saw you, I thought you were one of the prettiest, most beautiful girls I have ever seen. And then, as time went on I got to know you and I realized that not only were you pretty, but you are also one of the sweetest and nicest girls I have ever met. Whenever I sent you emails, I always tried to make them sound really nice, to try and get you to like me. I was absolutely honored when you told me I sent your 1000th email, that really meant a lot to me. Anyway, whether you like me or not, that is your call, but I will /always/ think highly of you, and I will always regard you as my first real crush. The point is, just like you will always remember me for sending your 1000th email, I will always remember you for being my 1st real crush. Hopefully, we can go out one day, but if not I guess I am okay with that. At least you know how I really feel, and I know you know how I really feel so I won't have any regrets. I am nearly crying now, but that is ok, I guess, although I do not cry much. The only thing I ask of you is to please don't label me as strange, weird, obsessive, or any of that and don't call the police and label me a stalker; please don't do that. You are a wonderful person and nothing will ever change my mind about how I feel about you (unless of course you call the police). Thank you very much, and I honestly can't say enough about how great of a person I think you are.

Justin

I am letting Anna see this just because she poured her heart out about Mark and I feel like I owe her justice. Don’t worry Anna, I will not tell him you like him, even though we are in the same homeroom. Do not worry, I will only tell if you specifically want me to tell.

“Oh my god, that's totally sweet”, Alura replied “I don't think you're weird or strange or anything for liking me. I'm actually kind of honored. I'm sorry I don't feel the same way about you that you do about me, but I hope we can still be friends?”

"You should be honored, you are a great person. It is ok if you don't feel the same way about me, I totally understand that. I almost don't expect you to feel the same way, we all have different interests. Of course, we can still be friends. Just because I don't have my first date now, doesn't mean that we can still be friends and send out occasional emails. I will always think of you not only as my first real, non-Hollywood crush, but I will always think of you as a really good friend. And maybe someday when and if you do feel the same way about me as I do about you, we can go out, but until then we will always be friends. And if you see me in the hallways or whatnot, there is no need to be embarrassed. I'll be the embarrasssed one :-). You have not hurt my feelings at all. Not that I'm unfeeling, but in a way I needed to know how you felt about me. Now that I know, we will always be friends. You have not changed my feelings about you and once again, we can and will still be friends.

Alura’s reply was a simple: “:-)”

After what had been a mentally and emotionally draining day and night, I immediately got up and did the dance that would eventually be known as The Chris Wheeler.