By Bo Johnson
Fall 2012 Kaplan Award Winner
With patience and hard work dreams do come true. This mantra still rang with truth and optimism when I was in eighth grade, thirteen, and in love. I had woken up from a marvelous dream, one of those dreams where waking stings like a pistol whip. In my dream I had asked Kimi Smith to be my girlfriend. “Yes! Yes!” she squealed. “I’ve been waiting so long for you to ask!” I read the content of my dream as a surefire sign I’d developed psychic tendencies. The dream will manifest into reality, I told myself. The only difference being that after excitedly accepting my proposition I would dip down and kiss her. I didn’t really know how to kiss yet, but I was sure to be a natural, and anyway, I‘d looked up tips on the internet.
I had been infatuated with Kimi ever since second grade. Each moment in her presence was a divine gift. Every year at Christmas there was secretly only one gift I truly coveted, a girlfriend. Specifically Kimi. How wonderful it would be to slink down the stairs Christmas morning and see a large wrapped packing crate punched with air holes. “Fragile contents, this way up!” the box would caution. Through the red and green gift wrap I would hear slight breathing. “Yes! Thank you Santa!” I would scream. Unfortunately Santa Claus’s realm of crime extends only to breaking and entering. No human trafficking.
One time in elementary school during gym class, Kimi had comforted my friend, Joe, whose cat just died. Lucky bastard. I had wished my cat was dead. Some people have all the luck.
Romantic tendencies have defined my actions since before I was old enough to realize wearing heart covered pink footy pajamas with a sewn on mouse tail wouldn’t help the girlfriend cause. I had been wearing my heart on my sleeve, literally. Those pajamas had been my pride and joy and I would parade around in them as if wearing a fine tailored suit. I had no comprehension that I hardly looked dashing. In fact, it looked more like Valentines day had thrown up all over me. It wasn’t long before the forward and extreme degrees by which I dressed extended into other aspects of my life.
In first grade, my parents placed me in an alternative public school program, Room Nine. One week into the school year and I’d known I would do just fine at Room Nine. More precisely, I liked Kari, one of the girls from my class. I liked her the way the leading manufacturer of almond butter celebrates a salmonella outbreak in all peanut based products. Kari would be my first unfortunate target. She was so cute and I was smitten. I knew I wanted to hold hands and pet kittens with her. My intense focus and ambition to win Kari’s attention made even the most shocking sections of the romance classifieds appear subtle. I would sit next to her whenever I could, and demand her as my partner if at all possible. My most pathetic attempt involved calling her home before twin day and asking if she’d like to be my twin. The one crucial issue at hand being the oversight that Kari already had a biological twin, and had no need for another.
To her credit, Kari aways dealt with my advances with the kindest and most sincere methods of disinterest. It was only through the harsh teasing of other classmates that I developed a new form of expressing romantic interest, which entailed for all intents and purposes pretending to be just about as asexual as a cactus. A cactus with hidden desires and passions. Unfortunately, much like the typical household plant, I was forgotten and remained unwatered for many years. Fortunately the cactus is a patient and determined plant. After a year of pursuit, one of Kari’s closest companions, Emily, confronted me for the last time with teasing words about my crush. “I used to like Kari, but not anymore,” I told Emily. “And I hate you… So much.” I then turned my back on the stunned girl, discontinued all feelings for Kari and retreated into my newfound shell. However, it was not long before this cactus set his eye on a new raincloud.
If I had been smitten by Kari, I was all that and more with Kimi. She was a petite half Japanese girl with a heart stealing smile and the ability to rock a pair of corduroy overalls. It’s difficult to correctly express the pull Kimi held over me at the time without incorrectly hinting that I still find myself deeply attracted and infatuated by fantasies about a specific second grade girl. She was the sun and I was a piece of space trash stuck in orbit, ever being drawn closer and closer to her magnificent heat. I knew we were meant for each other, but by now I’d learned that the biggest mistake one could make while pursuing a romantic target was to express any form of interest.
All of seven years old and I had already learned how to play hard to get. However, I was completely unaware that such a strategy requires some degree of interest and pursuit from the other individual. In essence, my struggle in the friend zone began without the slightest degree of friendship.
I played the long con with Kimi. It was fine that she didn’t know exactly who I was. After all, once she realized how much she loved me we would have the rest of our lives to spend together. Solid and sound logic, right?
Third grade. Kimi and I had the same scene together as extras in the school play. I am a fantastic tree and will surely impress her.
Fifth grade. We had several small conversations. Clearly we have fantastic and undeniable chemistry.
Sixth grade. Kimi votes for me as funniest guy in the school yearbook, a great success. All of my hard work and patience is paying off. Kimi is in my camping group for our sixth grade overnight rafting trip. Fate smiles upon my patience.
Just as a sliver of hope was emerging, disaster struck. The school year was coming to a close when I heard those terrible words. “Did you hear Kimi is leaving for Kellogg next year?” I hadn’t known sixth graders where susceptible to heart attacks. How could she leave me? Kellogg middle school was the worst place Kimi could go. I’d preferred her parents sent her to an all-girl boarding school in Afghanistan. If I couldn’t have her, no one should. I’d spent the last five years waiting for Kimi to realize I was as great as my Mom had promised I was. If I let her escape, that would be five years down the drain! By my calculations it would be another eight years until “Mission Accomplished” if I failed to act. My own personal Iraq. There was only one viable option, I needed to follow Kimi’s footsteps and leave for Kellogg.
This presented a second obstacle. My parents loved the Room Nine program and feared I would get lost in a normal public middle school. I needed to find a less desperate and pathetic means to assuage their concerns and convince them to let me make the switch. Being a brilliant genius manipulator, I worked two angles.
The Room Nine program practiced a number of unorthodox formative methods. These ranged from addressing teachers by their first names to holding classroom reflection circles for any personal conflicts that occurred between students. While unusual, it was not these practices, but rather a recent unfortunate hiring decision by the school which was raising concern.
Neither I nor my parents were particularly fond of Gary, the new sixth grade math teacher and former circus performer. He was a perfectly fine individual to instruct a math class; if instructing mathematics consisted entirely of enthusiastically teaching children how to juggle scarves. To his credit, Gary was very good at juggling scarves, as well as several other objects less prone to floating. He had raised my parents ire when absentmindedly informing them at a teachers conference of how he personally abhorred mathematics.
Sometimes “normal” kids’ parents came into our school to observe classes, a means to judge whether or not Room Nine would make a suitable home for their children. On one occasion a group of observers had wandered into my math class just as Gary began an address. “I want everyone to close their eyes… Good. Now with your eyes closed open your minds to the wonderful world of math…” As Gary continued I could feel those parents picturing every single one of us grown up and wearing fast food uniforms. “Could I get fries with that?” “Just a moment please, allow me to close my eyes and enter the wonderful world of fast food service.”
Much to my Mother’s disappointment my interest in math dwindled. However, I was a burgeoning clarinet stud and our band consisted of only twenty students. I needed a larger musical environment to truly bloom into a full pledged protege, or so I argued. Driven by the clarinet argument I found myself enrolling in classes at Kellogg.
Not seeing Kimi once, the summer leading up to 7th grade dragged on like a Creed song. I couldn’t wait for the school year to begin. We would probably have every single class and our lunches together, I thought. Hardly knowing anyone, I would be an exotic specimen, all of the boys would want to be me and all of the girls would yearn to be with me.
The first day of school didn’t go so well. Turns out being socially awkward and friendless hardly proved a catalyst for popularity. Exacerbating my misery I didn’t share a single class with Kimi and we had opposite lunch periods. I walked into the cafeteria, long lined tables with clustered groups of laughing middle schoolers. It seemed as though everyone had an assigned seat, yet somehow my place had been forgotten. I sat down at the one empty table thinking, at least Kimi can’t see me now. As if I was a magnet for social misfits two others separately found their way to seats by me. The first, he had some promise. He looked nice and normal, a suitable sidekick. I introduced myself with a friendly smile. “I’m Tanner” he replied. It turns out those two words constituted a great deal of Tanner’s English vocabulary. He had just arrived in the states from Thailand; we wouldn’t be sharing any classes. All of his courses were for ESL students. The table’s third arrival introduced himself as Dan. Definitely not cool, I judged as Dan slurped down his cup of noodles like a vacuum attacking a vat of chicken flavored broth. I didn’t mean to judge, but I wanted to be popular. “Want some?” Dan offered, pointing to his cup of noodles. “No thanks” I replied, a subtler response to his extension of friendship. I was slightly ashamed.
That day, after the last bell rang I walked home solemnly. I needed a new plan, one that didn’t involve my cat dying. I hadn’t come so far to give up already. All of the charm and courage I lacked was more than made up for by persistence. Fate was testing me, nothing great comes easy.
I would stalk the halls searching for my prey. I meandered the building, adopting a purposeless posture to disguise my concentration. Eyes darting back and forth like a shoplifter, every encounter a great success. If we ran into each other three times a week I had done well.
Then one day, a gift from above. On my walk home I saw Kimi up ahead following the concrete stretch towards the nearby high school, Shorecrest. The path wasn’t exactly on my way home, but it lead to an alternate route. Like setting an inner treadmill my pace quickened dramatically. Careful, I thought. You can’t let yourself speed up too much, don’t be creepy. Don’t be creepy, however, was a much ignored inner mantra. I was gaining on her; soon she would be mine. I struggled to hide a massive grin as I finally caught up with her. Hearing me beside her, Kimi smiled. “Hi Bo, I didn’t know you walked this way?” Her smile was dazzling, she must have brushed her teeth at least fifteen times a day. Oh my gosh, she’s so beautiful! I thought to myself. She definitely could have modeled for one of those back to school catalogues stuffed in-between the pages of the daily paper. Finally remembering she had gifted me with words, I forced out a reply just in time to avoid a totally awkward block of silence. “Oh, ya. Sometimes I walk home this way.” My answer is cool. I’ve stressed that I’ll walk home however and wherever I want. While I was still struggling not to break out into a huge creepy smile, Kimi proceeded to tell me that most days of the week she walked to Shorecrest. It was where her mom worked as a Japanese teacher, and where they met up to drive home together. We talked a little more, and just like that the walk was over. The happiest 200 meters of my life.
Everyday after school I skulked down that stretch. Walking quickly if I thought Kimi was ahead of me, plodding slowly if I’d left school too early. A safari predator, a massive regal lion. Only my prey far surpassed my hunting prowess. I was really a wounded dying lion, no pride of my own. One day a girl from my street saw me dragging my feet slowly along the pavement and asked if I was depressed. Being in love is like being depressed. Being in love can be worse than being depressed. Sometimes I ran into Kimi and everything was wonderful, other weeks she was nowhere to be seen, a ghost, a beautiful perfect ghost. Classes couldn’t be short enough. Each day I would eagerly and optimistically await the chance to walk with her. When we encountered each other those minutes were the best part of my day.
I had woken up from a marvelous dream. Today would be the day, I thought. Today I will make Kimi my girlfriend. School got out and I left the building at a perfectly normal pace. Like clockwork I ran into Kimi. Everything was going according to plan. We’d been walking and talking for a minute or so and had finally separated from all the other kids. I’m truly blessed. I wondered if I should kiss her with a left or right head tilt. Kimi looked at me, eyes shining, a mischievous look on her face. I’m going to do it. My stomach was fluttering, I felt sick, but that’s just what being near your soulmate feels like.
“So I like someone” Kimi stated slyly. Her words batted my heart around like a kitten playing with a ball of sting. Things were going even better than I had possibly imagined. Fate rewards those who wait, Kimi loves me! I paraphrased the word “like” into “love.”
“So you’re friends with Keith right?” She asked. My throat clenched, the butterflies in my stomach transformed into dying moths. Keith was in band with me, he played trumpet. I hoped he would choke on his trumpet and die. The trumpet would probably make hilarious sounds. “Yes, we’re friends.” Had been friends, sort of. With a shy downward look, “Would you mind telling him I like him?” she asked me. How could someone so beautiful be so stupid. It wasn’t fair, I’d liked Kimi for so long, and she picks Keith! Stupid Keith.“I’ll see what I can do,” I replied. Such a coward. “You’re such a good friend!” Her grateful smile meant nothing to me.
I couldn’t sleep that night. I cried a little, and then a lot. An ugly cry. I was glad Kimi couldn’t see me.
Later that week I told Keith that Kimi liked him. He told me he felt the same way. Of course he does. Except for her taste in men, Kimi is perfect.
They started dating. I suddenly seemed to run into Kimi a lot more in the school hallways. Always holding hands or mid hug with Keith. I was better at hugging than Keith was, if anyone had bothered to give me a chance. I wasn’t a lion, I was mouse scuttling through the school. We didn’t walk home together as often anymore. But I was patient, they wouldn’t stay together too long would they? I would be there waiting at their wedding if I had too, just to remind her that there was still time to make the right choice.
They broke up, but I was still back to square one. It was almost summer and we didn’t talk much anymore. Over break I called her home a few times. But I always got her Mom, “Is there anyone there?” She would ask, while I silently breathed into the other end of the phone. Don’t be creepy, I had to remind myself.
The second year of middle school was a lot better. I’d made real friends, I actually quite liked Kellogg. I would still stalk down that concrete stretch. Hoping. Then one day I ran into her, she was more gorgeous than I had remembered. She was constantly photoshopped.
We started to walk together more and more often. Sometimes she would suggest we walk through Hamlin park. The trees surrounding us and providing privacy, I was happy to oblige. Everything was going so well I could never bring myself to tell her how I felt. It was too real, too scary. Sometimes I would start, but then divert the conversation haphazardly. I was like an indecisive driver trying to change lanes.
It was the last day of middle school and I was tired of being a coward. The sun was out and shining. I walked out of school hunting for Kimi. There she is. “Want to walk through the park today?” I asked nervously and hopefully. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I’m getting a ride from a friend’s Mom.”
Walking home was almost worse than the day she had broken the news about Keith. I had done this to myself. It was just shameful.
That summer the feelings began to ebb. It was strange, ending a seven year imaginary relationship. A relationship I’d been too afraid to ever truly pursue, or even admit to anyone but myself. Something so life consuming, just gone. For seven years I expected a climax, some massive conclusion, but nothing.