She

When I was Secondary 4, I fell hard for an angel. As it unfolded, I wrote at the same time, documenting the happiness she made me feel and at the same time the torn feeling I felt liking her. I called it “Of Floortiles and Her” because everytime she passed me, I was so overwhelmed I couldn’t look at her at all and would start at the grey-pink tiles that lined the floor of my old school.

My memory fails me when it comes to quite pinpointing when it first started, or what triggered it off per se. The main factor was that somehow even though we were in different classes, I saw her almost everyday (or perhaps it was everyday). We had the same social studies and history class, plus I had literature with her.

There was just something about her. The way she smiled, a little shy sort of smile, like she was unsure of something, just melted my heart – and her small eyes crinkling into oblivion did nothing to aid the calming of my heart either. I wouldn’t describe what I felt for her as love in the conventional sense either. It was certainly a crush, but it seemed somehow very motherly in nature. I had absolutely neither sexual nor possessive romantic notions of her, the way one might feel in a conventional crush. Instead what I felt was an urge to protect her from the terrors of the world outside, to hold her and to take care of her and protect the good heart I saw within her from becoming hardened.

I suppose a large part of it was due to the fact that she possessed many of the things I did not and hence respected. She was a well-liked figure in school, intelligent and a top scorer, a relatively high ranking prefect and one of the top athletes in school. I was scraping the barrel academically, thin as a reed and feeling isolated from my classmates. The disparity could not have been greater. I suppose everything just clicked nicely during that time and I started to notice my heart beating faster everytime she approached and the surge of happiness I felt when I saw her.

I used to run into her in the bathroom a lot for some inexplicable reason. I think she used it a lot because she drank a lot of water whereas I just liked going for a walk in the middle of class. I did the same thing in ACSI, so I can’t be called some random bathroom stalker. I’d walk in, see her, and she’d smile at me then leave. And then I’d be floating from a massive pseudo-sugar high for the next few hours.

It created a massive conflict in me because of my religion. I was and still am a Christian, and though I personally believe that homosexuality is one of the lesser sins, it is still a sin nonetheless. To others, I didn’t mind, I even respected them for having the daring to do so – but years and years of drilling had affected my consciousness and I felt guilty nonetheless. She brought such joy to my heart, yet it made me feel so guilty inside. The effect on my psyche was overwhelming and I felt so terrible inside everyday.

The last time I saw her was in July 2007 when we call convened back in school for our graduation ceremony. I was just about to leave, sweating about in my nude stockings and blouse in 30 degree humid weather (oh I can’t remember feeling that way anymore after being back in England for more than a month), I saw her leave. As she walked off, she turned around and smiled that beautiful smile at me for one last time before heading off for the rest of her life. I smiled in return.