Bio
I was the only girl in the entirety of 8th grade who had never been asked out by a boy. It was quite an accomplishment, being that invisible. Even Sam, who perfected making whale and dolphin noises as her primary hobby, and could recite the entirety of Finding Nemo by heart (sound effects included), had been asked out by the nerdiest boy in our grade, Luca.Dark hair, dark eyes, and a stubborn unibrow I inherited from my very hairy father, I couldn’t say I was surprised that no boys ever noticed me. I often had devastating unrequited crushes each lasting approximately three-quarters of a school year. I would only ever feel brave enough to tell my friends about them after my longing had “officially” passed.“Guess who I had a crush on last year?”I was still embarrassed to even admit it out loud, but I longed for the freedom to be one of the girls who could talk openly about boys.“Was it Ben, Jake… CJ?”No, no, definitely not.I don’t think anyone thought the guessing game was as intriguing as I felt it was. What was the fun of a crush that was no longer a crush? Yet, for the duration of my crush, our friend Hilary had been going out with him. That might have been a little risqué to admit. So I told Ana.“It was Gabe.”She rolled her eyes, not one to be easily impressed. Gabe was okay, but he hung around with the most ineligible boys of our grade. His best friend Cameron wore the same exact outfit everyday: a pair of khakis, a gray turtleneck and green fleece vest layered on top. Cameron insisted that he owned multiple pairs of all of his clothes so that we wouldn’t think he was gross. He wanted to be like Steve Jobs. I liked Cameron fine, but for a 13-year-old boy, his views on politics were suspiciously refined. So suspicious in fact, that we all knew he was just parroting his parent’s opinions.I can’t tell you that much about Gabe, because I never stayed around long enough to hear him talk. His presence activated the blood vessels in my face and I couldn’t let anyone see that for fear that they would somehow find out. I felt like he was unique though. It would have been too cliche to crush over one of the popular blonde boys, or one of their curly-haired sidekicks.