Love. It's a funny thing isn't it? I mean, everyone wants it and it has the power to bring happiness into the life of even the most downtrodden among us. The flip side of the same coin is that loss of love has the power to plunge the happiest, most influential person deeply into despair.
I am an example of neither. I am an ordinary teenager and I've never been in love. At least not yet.
My name is Jeremy. I am 18 years old and live in Calgary with my mom. My dad died before I was born so it has always been just my mom and I. I am generally a happy teenager, which my mother is thankful for. I guess it is hard enough being the single mom of a teenager and I'm glad I don't cause her any excess grief.
I know she does worry about me sometimes. I have great grades, great friends, but I am a little shy around girls I don't know well. I have friends that are girls but that is different, most of them I have known for years. There is one exception though, one girl I met just this year. We have become great friends over the past few months but secretly I also have been developing serious crush on her. Her name is Fiona.
Anyway, it is early January and I am roughly halfway through grade 12. After pounding the snooze button on my alarm repeatedly for a half hour or so I finally dragged myself out of bed. I stood up and stretched, rubbing my eyes absently as I stumbled towards the bathroom, just down the hall from my bedroom.
I blinked rapidly as I looked into the mirror at my sleepy face and tousled hair. I rapidly went through my morning routine and then wandered back into my room to throw on my clothes. I wore baggy jeans and my usual nerdy shirt. This one in particular was my U.S.S. Kelvin T-shirt from the newest Star Trek movie. Oh yes, I am a geek and proud of it.
I threw on my jacket, gloves, toque, scarf and boots before pulling my backpack on. Have I mentioned that I live in Calgary? Yeah. For the uninitiated that is a city in western Canada. And its winter. Not during one of our famous Chinooks either, this was a deep chill. -33 Celsius this morning. Wonderful.
I stepped out of the house and into the northern wind and felt the deep cold chill me immediately even through my layers. Nothing I could really do about it so I trudged on through the snow to the bus stop. I take the city transit bus to school every day. I live just far enough from my high school that it is too damn far to walk, especially in the winter.
After shivering in the cold for five minutes or so my bus pulled up and I eagerly jumped on, depositing my bus ticket in the box and getting a seat nearest the heater. As my hands thawed over the heater my thoughts turned to Fiona, further warming me. Today was a great day because I would spend the first 4 hours of it with her!
Soon, too soon if you ask me, it was time for me to get off the bus. I had been blissfully warm for a short time. Now I was frozen again, walking the final few blocks to school.
As I stepped into the school, just inside the door, my friend Curtis was waiting for me. I greeted him with a nod and a fist bump, our traditional greeting, I grinned and we headed to class in silence.
Curtis and I had Biology 30 first thing this morning. Curtis and I were two of the top three students in Mr. Anderson's Bio 30 class.
The other member of the top three was the previously mentioned Fiona Grant. Fiona is gorgeous. Well, I find her gorgeous. She is pretty short, about 5'1" and has wavy black hair to her shoulder blades and blue eyes and... well, I don't want to bore you with the rest of the details.
Anyway, when Curtis and I arrived in class Fiona was already there sitting at our table. The three of us are good friends and being the top members of the class we liked to stick together.
I had a curious situation on my hands. Fiona has a thing for Curtis and he is completely oblivious. I have a thing for Fiona and she is completely oblivious, as far as I can tell. It was frustrating but I had said nothing about it to this point.
Even more awkward? Fiona and I have our spare together and all she talks about is Curtis; all I do is nod along and stare at her.
Back to the matter at hand. Today, predictably, we were talking about human reproduction in Bio. Mr. Anderson is an amazing teacher, one of the few teachers I have ever had who I truly enjoyed learning from. His success with his students was due to the fact that he wanted us to succeed, was hilarious, and was genuinely a nice guy.
Remember the hilarious part? Yeah well, Mr. Anderson pops in a video on the subject of the day. After the introduction, the TV screen shows a live-action camera of deep inside a woman's vagina as a man thrusts his penis inside. Mr. Anderson's eyes open about as wide as the front cover of our textbook. He sputters a bit before muttering, "I knew I should have watched this beforehand."
The whole class watched in hushed silence for a few minutes until the thrusting penis began spurting semen into the depths of vagina. Mr. Anderson just about passed out.
Nervous chuckles and giggles spread through the classroom but soon the class settled down and watch the rest of the film, the remainder being completely benign.
I glanced over at Fiona several times during the video and to my chagrin she was glancing at Curtis who was, as always, completely oblivious.
My next class was... nothing. I had a double spare, with Fiona. Two hours of hanging out with a gorgeous girl, not a bad day in my books. Plus after our spare we had lunch, more time with Fiona although this time with other people around.
Fiona and I usually parted ways for a few minutes to go to our lockers and rid ourselves of heavy textbooks before meeting in a corner of the library.
After dumping most of my books into my locker, all except Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows which I was currently reading, I headed upstairs. When I arrived in the remote corner of the library, Fiona was nowhere to be seen. I just shrugged it off and opened my book.
Just as Ron was storming off, I heard a girl crying. I looked up and saw Fiona with a tear-stained face and as my eyes met hers she broke down into another series of sobs. I jumped from my chair and wrapped her up in a friendly hug.
I drew back after her crying abated slightly, looked her in the eyes again and asked, "Fiona, what's wrong hun?"
"Curtis! Curtis... he turned me down!