Gilbert

This post is one that I found in my drafts section. It's an oldie but goodie.


My First High School Crush

There would be a few of them, but Gilbert was my first. He played the clarinet in the High School Band. I played the clarinet in the High School Band and we hit it off swimmingly. The first week of August was band camp- a hot, long, deathly torture of a week where we marched our positions in our field show over and over again in the hot desert heat. I got heat stroke and almost passed out a few times in the desert of California. It was during that week, that hell week for band-os that I began to know the boy who would be my best friend that year.

He was Philipino- new and different- not like the white Mormon boys I had known before. He was Catholic and we had great gospel conversations in crowded band buses on the way to competitions. Everyone knew I liked him, was head over heels for him and yet, we never talked about it.

Winter came and marching band transformed to Concert season. Gilbert shaved his head and I thrilled to have a chance to touch him and rub my hand over his fuzzy, fuzzy hair. He laughed and joked- I dreamed and dreamed of what it would be like to kiss him.

One day, a month before school was out, he came to me and let me know we could no longer be friends. He was moving. To Chino Hills and wanted to end it right then and there. I was destraught. We still talked and at an end-of-the-year swim party (slightly awkward at the age of 15), he confessed that I was his best friend. not the confession of love that I hoped for, but it was something.

This gave me courage to declare my love to him- in a letter. He moved and I proceeded to confess my love. I loved him, I wrote. I always did. I always would. I waited for his reply as if  waiting for a death sentence. Would he love me back? Would he?

And I got it- the letter. And he did. He said he loved me. That was it and I knew it was in a friendly way, not the same way I had a crush on him. We wrote back and forth and called a few times. I still have his one letter, with the words "I love you" in a pink, puffy fabric covered journal from 1994.

And he will always remain, my first High School Crush.

This is my blog. My name is Megan Abbott.