A Story About Love

Written by Lysander Wise

A boy once loved a girl very much. The girl also loved a boy very much. The trouble was that the girl that the boy loved was in love with a different boy than the boy that was in love with her, and the boy that she was in love with was not in love with her. So the boy (the original boy) would sit on the side of the playground during recess, watching her play on the swing. Watching the way her pigtails tosseled about her shoulders. Watching the way she smiled, imaging that she was smiling at him. The boy would sit there, watching her, and wondering what she was laughing about. Wondering if perhaps one day she would be laughing with him.

The girl would spend her recess having fun. She would skip rope, making up funny rhymes. She would swing on the swing. She would go down the slide. She would try to catch the boy she was in love with's eye. When he walked by, she would show him how well she could jump rope, or how high she could swing, or how fast she could go down the slide. She would smile extra wide, and laugh extra loud, so that he would notice her. But every time, the boy would ignore her. So the next day, should would jump rope twice as well, and swing twice as high, and slide down the slide twice as fast. But he never noticed. But the boy who was in love with her always did, and it made him love her that much more.

One day, the girl slid down the slide so fast that she couldn't stop when she hit the ground. The landed on the pavement, and scraped her knee. The boy she loved stopped. He turned and looked at her. He looked at his friends. They were laughing at her. He went to help her, but his friends yelled at him. Stop! Don't touch her! She's got cooties! The boy she loved stopped walking toward her, and turned back to his friends. I wasn't gonna help her. I don't like girls. The friends looked at him, and told him to prove it. So he turned around, reached down into the ground, and pulled up a pile of dirt. He walked toward the girl, and threw the dirt onto her. The boy's friends hooted and hollered, and they, too, threw dirt at the girl. She just sat on the concrete crying, her knees bleeding, and her new sundress becoming dirty. Her new sundress that she had worn that day especially to impress the boy she loved.

The boy that loved her sat against the wall on the far side of the playground watching this happen. He said to himself that if he were over there, he wouldn't throw dirt at her. In fact, he would throw dirt back at the boys. Because he loved her, and would risk humiliation to help her. But he wasn't over there, and besides, there were more boys than just one, and they were bigger than he was. They were fourth graders, and he was only in third. So he sat, and watched. The boy saw the girl's tears, and he shed his own, because if he could not stop her suffering, he could at least try to take some of the load. Once the recess bell ended and the boys ran off, the boy that loved the girl approached her. He offered to help her up, but she just started crying again, and saying that all boys are yucky. She stood up, and ran away from the boy that loved her. The boy just stood there, watching her run. He watched her run until the playground teacher told him he would get a detention if he didn't go back to class.

A young man once loved a young woman very much. The young woman also loved a young man very much. The trouble was that the young man the young woman loved was not the young man that loved her. So the young man would sit against the far wall during 4th period, watching her take notes. Watching the way her long, beautiful hair hung around her shoulders as her eyes studied the work at hand. Watching how she would smile as she dotted her i's with hearts, and wrote her name and the name of the young man she loved in a big red heart. The young man would watch her, and wonder what beauty there was in her love, the love that had been out of his grasp since they had both been just a boy and a girl who shared the same playground. He wondered if perhaps one day it would be his name next to hers inside that heart.

The young woman would spend her days trying to catch the eye of the young man she was in love with. When he walked by, she would show him how cool she was, how funny she thought his jokes were, and how sexy she was. She would stick out her chest extra far, and make her lips extra pouty, trying to make him notice her. But the young man always ignored her. So the next day, she would act twice as cool, laugh twice as loud at his jokes, pull her skirt up a little bit further, and wear a shirt with the neckline a little bit lower. But the young man always never did. The young man who loved her noticed, though, and every day he loved her that much more.

It was the End of the Year Dance the year that the young man the young woman was in love with would graduate to high school. The young woman had to make this one night count. She wore her most sexy skirt, the most expensive make-up and perfume she could afford, and had her hair styled at a real hair salon. Her mother said she looked beautiful, but she didn't care. All that mattered was that the young man she was in love with though it was true. She walked into the dance fashionably late, like Cinderella entering the ball. She stood against the punch table, trying to pick the young man she loved out of the crowd. The young man that loved her stood against the opposite side of the punch table, so close he could almost smell her perfume. He gathered up his strength, and decided that the next slow song the DJ played, he would ask her to dance. The young woman made the same vow about the young man she loved. For the next forty-five minutes (it was a middle school dance: they didn't play many slow songs), the young woman followed the young man around the dance floor. Every song the DJ played, she would maneuver through the crowd, dancing, trying to keep up with the young man she loved. The young man that loved her stayed by the punch, watching her dance after the young man she loved. Eventually the young woman grew tired of dancing, and went outside. The young man who loved her went outside, too. The two of them stood outside alone, both catching their breath, the young woman keeping an eye on the dance, the young man keeping an eye on her. The young man that the young woman loved walked outside a while after they did. The young woman stared at the young man she loved, and the young man that loved her stared at the young woman. At that moment, the DJ announced the last slow dance of the night. For all of them, this was their last chance.

The young woman approached the young man that she loved, and asked him if he wanted to dance. The young man looked at her. He didn't say anything, he just stared. The young woman repeated the question. The young man look up, and he said no, he had already promised that dance to the young woman that he loved. The young woman just said, oh, okay, and walked back outside. She leaned up against the wall, not sure if she should go back into the dance, or just go home now. The young man who loved her saw this, and he slowly approached her. He stood behind her, not sure how we was going to do this. He tapped her on the shoulder, and she turned around partway. She looked at the young man. Yeah? The young man gathered his strength, and somehow got some words out. Would you care to dance? The young woman looked at the young man, as if she didn't understand what he meant. What? The young man responded, attempting to sound brave. Would you care to dance. The young woman said that she would, and the young man escorted her out to the dance floor. The young man held the girl, keeping about a foot in between them. He could not think of a time when he had been happier in his whole life. Then, the young woman pulled him closer, so their bodies were touching. She rested her head on his shoulder. The two held each other for the rest of the song, gently swaying back and forth. The young man could not even hear the music, the sound of his heart was so loud. As the song ended, the young man let began to let go, but the young woman's arms remained around him. She looked at him, and the love he saw in her eyes was even more beautiful than he could have ever dreamt it, even in a million years. She leaned up against him, and whispered thank you in his ear, and hugged him one last time.

The young woman left the dance with a smile on her face. When her parents came to pick her up, she turned back one last time, and waved good-bye to the young man that she now loved, and the young man that had always loved her waved back. The young man stood at the edge of the parking lot, thinking about that dance. He stood there until his parents said that if he didn't get into the car right now, they'd leave without him.