A fictional interpretation of a song by Taylor Swift.
Unrequited love.
It’s the fairytale of choice for nearly every hopeless romantic, isn’t it? The girl wants the boy who is already smitten with someone else, but by the end, the boy has a wake-up call and he lives happily ever after with his true love, the girl who loved him when he didn’t even know she existed.
This isn’t one of those stories.
Unfortunately, reality is much harsher than the fairy tales.
***
His name is Jed, though it might as well be Ken because he’s as perfect as Ken doll, hopelessly in love with his perfect, plastic Barbie, Jen.
Both of them are all big, bright eyes with unbelievably fluttery lashes, pouty lips, sun-tanned skin, and bodies to kill for. They are each other’s equal, partners in high-school crime. While me? I’m just average. Glasses, dark hair, translucent skin because the sun burns me much too easily, and a body shaped like a ruler (i.e. no shape at all).
I could be worse, of course. I could be Martha, Jen’s favorite victim of her psychological torture. But instead I’m just invisible. To Jen and her fake-Barbie sidekicks. And especially to Jed.
He doesn’t know me, but oh, how I know him. We’ve been grouped together in every class since Pre-K. Thank heaven’s for alphabetical order. Our last names are just one letter apart, making us partners and seatmates for all our educational eternity.
And yet, he can’t even remember my name.
***
“What color is this?” he asked.
These were his first words to me. He had a freshly-picked booger dangling from the edge of his thumb, and was squinting at it, holding it up just close enough for me to see.
“Green,” I answered, scrunching up my nose in disgust.
He grinned, and then turned around to wipe the booger on the back of Jen’s head. She didn’t even notice, and had booger hair for the rest of the day. We were only in Kindergarten then, but that was the first time I felt something like love toward him. How wonderful that the prettiest girl in class be cursed with booger-hair for an entire day? And all because Jed was kind and brave enough to pick his nose in class.
Yes, I realize now my standards may have been a tad dangerously low.
Forgive me. I was five.
***
Of course, the problems with crushes that begin in Kindergarten, is that they tend to last through the years.
Or perhaps that’s just what happened with me. As we grew older, my crush grew stronger. But it was never returned.
I loved a boy who couldn’t even see me.
***
Graduation was my moment of truth.
I’d harbored a crush for twelve years, but this was the breaking point. We would be heading to separate colleges and therefore separate ways, indefinitely. Unfortunately, not every class required a group project, and I couldn’t carry Jed’s grades to Harvard with me.
In the fairy tales, perhaps graduation would have been our turning point. As the Principal called my name, perhaps he would have seen me for the first time, realized how much he loved me, and rushed to the stage to kiss me in front of the entire school.
But in reality, I lifted my hand to wave, and he looked right through me, past me.
Invisible to the bitter end.
***
Invisibility is a curse I had placed on myself.
I was the girl who loved a boy who would never see her.
But I’m not that girl anymore.
