The One That Got Away

This tale of hardship is the usual one.

The stakes were normal, but it was tough to get it done.

You may be wondering where it all begun?

Let me tell ya, this isn’t interesting as much as it was fun.

It was a normal day, a mediocre one.

College is boring, movies exaggerate.

I slogged to attend lectures.

I dozed in a few.

I wasn’t attentive.

I was absent being present.

Only if I lifted up my head before, looked around.

I would’ve seen her earlier.

Oh how I wish I could’ve seen her earlier.

I was to blame, it was my concern.

I was in love. Maybe the infatuation one?

She was the prettiest in class for all I knew.

I knew I didn’t see anyone else, But I’m glad I saw her.

Pretty little eyes, peering into the sky.

She was peering onto the board, I just wanna romanticize the moment a little more.

She was the kind I hadn’t seen.

One in a million, a billion if my eyes were too keen.

She was surrounded by her friends.

Maybe she was ms. Popular?

“Out of your league” my mind said.

I glanced over her again.

“She doesn’t believe in leagues” I said.

It was my mission to ask her out.

She was the reason I took showers before college.

She was the reason I got my hair done.

She was the reason I wore that awful cologne.

She was the destination, to the journey that had just begun.

Failure loomed over my dreaded head.

What would I do? How would I handle being a reject?

Often times, the fear faded.

Even if I got rejected.

Even when I felt dejected.

Even when I knew she isn’t mine to have.

Care and consideration for her would always last.

So I gathered the guts,

I gathered the pretty shirts.

Carefully, I chose on what to wear.

How to behave.

I underwent a drastic change, just to ask her out.

I skipped a lecture.

Practiced the lines in the restroom.

“Hey, are you free this Friday?

We could go for the new star wars movie that noon?”

She wore a red top.

Jeans with a different kind of blue.

She sat in the corner of the room.

Digging into a book, lost in that pretty head of hers.

A drop of sweat ran down my forehead.

My heart started to thump.

It’s funny how asking a simple question, would’ve had me stumped.

I walked up to her.

Commented on the John green book.

She smiled at me.

Her lips had an off-shade of red,

Freckles were overshadowed with dimples instead.

The stiffness dissolved.

In a minute, we were arguing at about a spat that had already been resolved.

Years of separation didn’t change a thing.

I stumbled just like I did before, I fell in love again.

You see she wasn’t a new, college friend.

She was my middle-school crush,

I was blessed to see her again.

We were friends in school but never more.

By the time I realized that she is the one I adore,

she was in a different high-school as a sophomore.

Over star-wars and salty fries,

Over shared smiles and belligerent goodbyes,

Over the fights and ‘staying by your sides’

We were together.

Together for real this time.