First Crush

First Crush

The playground was alive with buzzing in the springtime sun, children ran around playing tag, kickball, basketball, and other assorted games. My friends were all around me, and we all looked around wondering what game to partake in. That was when she started walking toward me.
She, specifically being, the single most wondrous creature in all the world: Allison Swift. She approached me as my stomach worked its knots all throughout my body. I nervously glanced over at my friends to see if they noticed my reaction, it would never do for the other boys in fifth grade to know the intensity of the crush I held for this girl. I could hear the jeers now, “You have coodies…” or “Allison and Seth sitting in a tree…” No I could never live with that kind of humiliation.
I walked towards Allison, as calm as I could, smiled my most practiced smile, and blurted out with as much elegance as I could muster, “Hi”.
“Hello” she said to me, and my memories tell me that the earth moved at that moment. “Want to play with us?” She asked as she pointed to a small group of other girls crowded around the monkey bars.
“Whatcha’ want to play?” I asked.
“How about Alligator?” She batted her eyes at me when she asked, making my heart jump and my throat tighten up.
I quickly did a mental calculation. Alligator was an acceptable game for boys to play with girls, so long as the man was the alligator. So, I would not lose any face with my friends. Even more so, if I was a successful alligator and captured Allison, I might even escalate my status with her.
“Sure” I said, trying to sound as non-committal as possible.
“Let’s go”
We walked towards the monkey bars, my hands sweating in my nervous state, which was complicated by the smell of soap and strawberry shampoo that drifted from Allison. As we approached the monkey bars the girls started lining up to take turns at trying to cross. I smiled weakly at them; some sense of impending doom had started to snake its way into my consciousness.
The sand crunched below the soles of my shoes as I lowered myself to my knees centered beneath the monkey bars overhead. Allison took her place at the end of the line of girls waiting to cross and the game was on.
The first girl started swinging across the bars swaying towards me from above. As her shadow crossed over me, I made some half-hearted attempt to reach up as the “alligator” and clamp on to her legs and pull her down. I paid special attention that my knees did not come off the ground, trying to keep to the rules of the game. Several other girls passed over, each one I made some small attempt to pull down, but I had only one real “catch” that I wanted.
Allison started to across. My hands tingled in anticipation, my whole body seemed to focus for one purpose: to pull her down from those bars. I flexed my legs, preparing to bounce myself from the ground as she swung closer and closer to where I waited. She glanced down at me and giggled. I suddenly knew with a certainty that this moment was for me.
“I’m going to get you!” I yelled up at her.
“No you’re not!” She screamed back.
At that moment, the entire playground fell silent. There were no other children; there were no screams and laughter, there was nothing. Nothing except me, Allison, the ground below me, and the monkey bars from which I needed to pull her. I squinted my eyes, gritted my teeth, and leapt upwards with all my strength. My hands grabbed a hold of her blue sweatpants and my arms cupped each side of her legs. I pulled downwards with every bit of force that I could bring to bear. She came down with me.
I opened my eyes as she fell on top of me only to realize the most horrible thing. In my excitement to pull her from the bars, I had failed to realize the lack of a significant waistband or belt on her sweatpants. So she tumbled down on top of me with her sweatpants around her calves and a look of anguish upon her face.
As she hit the ground, she nearly bounced to her feet and in one motion pulled her pants up. Amidst all this furious action, she managed to start kicking me as well. I immediately curled into a ball absorbing kick after enraged kick. She was already weeping by kick number three. I tried to tell her how sorry I was, but she would not have heard a steam train at that moment. Finally, the teachers rushed over and stopped her before the kick count reached double digits.
As the teachers walked me briskly to the principal’s office, I realized that everything had gone horribly wrong. All my plans, all my good intentions, everything I had wanted became everything that I did not want. Needless to say, Allison never talked to me again. As a matter of fact, her parents moved her to a different school in a matter of days. For a few agonizing months I became the equivalent of a social leper. Everyone laughed at my misfortune, and made jokes about me wanting to be an alligator, but becoming a kickball. Ha…ha...ha…
So, my first crush went horribly. In retrospect, it probably could not have been worse. This was really only the beginning of my woman trouble, and I eventually ran into Allison years and years later, but both of those are other stories altogether.

S.R.