Chapter 2: Valentine

EMETT

When I was in my first home (after Sharon CT, which I only have dim dream memories of leaving at around age four), we attended church. While this was the source of most of my friends, it also provided the first source of my perfectionism. Over and over again, as an acolyte, I was taught that candles be lit just so, starting from the right and working left to light, then starting from the left and working right to snuff. Had I been calm, this would have been easy to learn, but instead I fixated on doing it right. And in turn, I fixated from then on in doing everything right. I didn't want to be lectured or screamed at.

So when I moved to my new house, I wanted to not show any new friends any weakness. But it wound up that I didn't show them much of anything. I lost the ability to connect normally in conversation, so fixated was I with not appearing nervous or lonely. After watching a play called The Foreigner, I started acting weird, speaking in strange languages. What? I was a dumb teenager trying desperately to hide my own insecurities and make new friends. Of course I would go about it completely the wrong way.

Bullies are also lonely. So when they see a kid who looks lonely and an outcast, having poor skills to belong themselves, they tend to tease them. I was bullied by a kid named Frank. It was a religious private school so there was a limit to the actual physical bullying I got, but there was a lot of teasing. And not just from him, but from some of the other kids. There was Meredith, Allison, and Meredith's friends, Candice and Eva. While Meredith's friends didn't bully me much, I had a crush on Meredith. With her lean figure and red hair, I confused my crush for true love, and thought Meredith loved me back. Meredith had a very neat and organized personality, and didn't feel that way towards me, a grungy teen who hadn't yet mastered hygiene beyond showering. Somehow, I got invited to a party where I played spin the bottle, and got my only kiss for the next twenty years. Unfortunately, she commented behind my back when I was standing nearby about how at the time I had Cheetos on my lips and my mouth was really moist and gross. My second kiss, for the record, didn't go much better. Within a week of seeing that girl, the entire thing blew up. But that's a story for later.

I also had a crush on Allison, an athletic but slightly aloof girl who was forever running in track meets. She wasn't mean like Meredith, but there was a sense where she completely didn't understand my attraction. Such a person by later terms might be called an asexual person, but there was no such term those days. I at no point saw her interested in anyone else, so I can safely say that she wasn't just more interested in someone else, but in fact was not into anyone at all. But being a dumb teenager, I made the mistake of blurting out my affections of both of them while they were in earshot, and that I had "difficulty deciding between them." Needless to say, between awkward situations with the opposite sex, bullying from Frank, and just general confusion about how to talk normally to other people, I was having a miserable first few years of high school.

But it got worse. While my brother and sister kinda hung out with me (I typically wrestled with my brother Ash while my sister Willow watched and commented on this. Unlike my brother, I wasn't super-athletic, but not really out of shape either. My brother idolized wrestlers but didn't really bully me like Frank. It was more a good-natured exercise. Although there is was one time when my brother had played some kung fu game, and afterwards was trying out moves on me. I freaked out, and backed up, right into a tree root, breaking or twisting my leg. I was in a cast for months, and was held back a year, so I met different friends for my first year of elementary. He blamed himself for this, so his fighting never again was serious to the point of being bullying. On the other hand, an older man who was part of our church, and a bit goofy decided to bully me a bit. It was mostly teasing, but one time he wrestled me to the ground and tried to tell me, "Say you love Hanson! Say you love Hanson!!!" Hanson, of course, being a boy band where all members looked slightly like girls, and sang the smash hit MMMBop. I sternly refused, screaming, "I will never love Hanson!!!" To this very day, I think Hanson as a band is absurd at best, but now have a friend who sometimes plays YouTube videos of Hanson, because he's a bit of a troll. I will never love Hanson.

I dealt with this teasing and bullying for years, basically going to school, then going home and doing homework and then watching anime or playing video games. I had no friends, and it was starting to wear on my nerves. Then something changed, and things began to get better.

It started because of Willow. My dear sister saw what I was going through and basically bribed me. Noting Meredith and her two friends, she decided that Candice was probably the most down to earth and approachable. Her friend Eva, if I'm being honest now, was a bit like my brother. Down to earth like Candice (I'll say one thing for Meredith, she had pretty level friends), yet coarse to the point of being almost mannish. Eva was a dairy farmer's daughter, and kind of odd. So my sister told me, "If you talk on the phone to Candice for awhile, no being weird, I'll treat you to ice cream." I don't actually remember the ice cream, but I do remember eventually learning to be somewhat normal in terms of conversations again. And I remember talking to Candice normally from then on. After that, high school life went from being a fragment of hell to something actually nice. I had one friend. Even Frank started treating me better, it seemed.

As I got to know Candice, I discovered that unlike her friends who were odd in retrospect (Eva aside from being kinda a farm girl was blond with cow-like breasts, Meredith struck me as being flighty and I could never figure out how she had ended up with her friends), Candice was odd when I knew her. She told everyone she was dating a Mr Rutherford, who nobody ever saw. Like me, she had built a persona. I remember her also singing at one point.

My funny valentine, sweet comic valentine

You make me smile with my heart

Your looks are laughable

Unphotographable

Yet you're my favorite work of art

Is your figure less than Greek

Is your mouth a little weak

When you open it to speak

You are reading story Town of Winter at novel35.com

Are you smart?

But don't change a hair for me

Not if you care for me

Stay, little valentine, stay

Each day is Valentine's Day

Is your figure less than Greek

Is your mouth a little weak

When you open it to speak

Are you smart?

But don't change a hair for me

Not if you care for me

Stay, little valentine, stay

Each day is Valentine's Day

She was heavier than Meredith by about thirty pounds, but with a cute face, and soft chocolate brown hair with reddish highlights (supposedly before I had met her, she had come from California and had totally flat blonde hair, but I think Meredith helped her out with her style a bit before I knew her). Something about all of this was endearing rather than repulsive. I didn't see a sort of crazy gal, but I saw someone who was dealing with much the same insecurities as I was, someone who I could talk about anything with. She was indeed my funny valentine, and the first time that I felt in love and loved back, rather than simply subject to a crush and crushed back.

Near graduation, I danced with Candice. And I actually enjoyed it. She wore a silvery white dress if I remember correctly (and I don't) with heels and the whole look flattered her figure and made me forget my vain fixation with appearance and the fact that she was heavier than her friend. All those curves went in just the right places, and the dress itself turned me on for reasons subconsciously having to do with my own past with crossdressing but consciously about her looking that good in it. As we danced, I wanted her to lead, but she thought I should be a man and take the lead when I also didn't know what I was doing. So the dance wound up a bit like the first meeting of Squall and Rinoa in Final Fantasy VIII. If you don't get the reference, the two of them wound up crashing into other dancers and stepping on each other's feet before finally being among the better dancers. It was awkward, but I shall not forget that night. And then, I graduated and never saw any of them again. Except Frank, who I met again in college. But nevermind that.

---