My girl Felicia

She wasn't perfect, I mean really no one is, but she was the one for me. You don't tend to meet a lot of fantastic girls in a computer science class, but in this case it wouldn't have worked out any other way. I wasn't much to the girls back then. I was a tiny little thing with bad hair, worse skin and I was acutely aware of both my intelligence and my flaws. I was doing good in those days to make it through the day without drawing the ire of one of the popular kids. I would have never dreamed of approaching a girl like her. Even now I'm not really sure how it all started. I remember I met her in that class and before long we were good friends and working together all the time. We started getting in trouble for being too boisterous with our in class discussions when were supposed to be working and that just seemed to spark us further. I had a huge crush on her from the beginning, but I wasn't sure how she felt about me. I knew she had a boyfriend, though, so I was content to worship her greatness as a friend and bide my time.

When class ended for the summer before our senior year, I was still just friends with her. I was madly in love by now. She was glorious. Tall and slender with wonderful blond hair, an infectious laugh and the ability to push me out of my normal shell into the man I wanted to be. I was a different person when I was around her and I liked that person. I had spent so much time loathing who I was, where I was and what life was that it was a rush anytime I escaped that darkness. I didn't know what to do with myself that summer. That was back before the internet, Felicia still had a boyfriend and we really didn't hang out outside of class so I had no way to see her. At the time those 3 months seemed like forever, as time can seem to a teenager in love, but they passed as they always do and we were soon seniors, on our high school farewell tour.

I was alarmed to find that we had no classes together our senior year. Computer Science had proven to be my thing and so my schedule included 2 classes in the discipline and when Felicia decided that wasn't for her, the odds of being paired in the same class as one of 900 other students took hold and cruel fate won the day. It was at this point that I had a rare moment of clarity from my usual haze of depression. I had to do something or the one chance I had at becoming permanently what I so loved being would slip away. I had no experience what so ever in these types of matters, but I had the fearlessness of desperation on my side. My only question was how to find an opportunity. I waited and waited as the new school year got underway, attending all the social events I could, getting to school early, staying late, trying to subtly integrate into her usual social circle, but nothing worked. I could not generate the right situation to have such an important conversation with the Goddess.

Weeks turned to months and I was no closer to my goal. I wondered if it even mattered. She still had a boyfriend and I was still less than a thrilling option for a girl of that caliber. As the senior prom began to close in, I even had thoughts of pursuing another girl or two, perhaps someone more on my level, but no I could not settle. I could not settle at the age of 17, I could not allow that to become the standard for my life. Now, in the Hollywood version of my life I would make some grand gesture and we would go to prom and live happily ever after or she would turn me down and her boyfriend would do something stupid at prom and she would run into my arms, but this is just my life and nothing like that was in the cards. As it turned out, I had a wrestling tournament the day of prom and while I could have made the schedule work if I had tired, without the inspiration of an evening with Felicia, I didn't see the point. I opted out of my senior prom and spent the day heroically battling other grapplers, which is to say I made a valiant yet ultimately unsuccessful effort.

The year was coming to a close and there was nothing left for me. I was off to a college far to the north in the fall and Felicia was talking of long term commitments with her beau. It was not to be. The happy, outgoing, spirited me was going to fade away never to be seen again. I decided, if this was to be my fate, I should at least allow the man I wished to always be one last statement of purpose as a sort of suicide note for that part of my being. I wrote Felicia a letter and on the last day of class, I handed her the envelope. I asked her to read it later and she gave me a hug. We exchanged email addresses (I had gotten online just a month earlier) and she turned and walked out of my life. I had no idea if I would ever hear from her again. It was foremost in my mind that she may not like what I had to say in the letter and never email me. The one person that made me feel good might be gone forever.