In the end sometimes a crush is just that: a crush. No matter how far one gets with that person looking back on it they realize that it never truly mattered to either party involved. Meaningless flings and deep late-night conversations sometimes can fall under the category of one person when searching for a file in a memory bank, but that doesn’t mean that person is anything more than just a memory. The best thing I can say is never fall too far too fast without knowing what one is in for before the leap. There’s a big difference between landing in the soft cushion of cloud nine and falling face first into a steaming pile of excrement. One should never be prepared for the first only to cry when life hands them the second.

It all began the first time I laid eyes on Elliot. He was a young specimen of maybe 20, and he was graced with every physical characteristic I myself would choose to put on a man. His jaw line was strong and square and his hair was such a dark brown it was almost black, his eyes were the same in coloring and each time he looked at me it felt as if he could see my soul. He stood about half a foot taller than me and if I imagined hard enough I could see myself fitting perfectly underneath his arm. Though he did not have the toned body of someone who worked hard every day to keep their muscles looking defined, he had a far more attractive type of strength. His muscles were built by years of hard labor and though they didn’t show through the loose clothing he wore, I had watched him prove his strength time and time again.
Elliot was everything I had ever been afraid to want perfectly tied into one phenomenal package that I couldn’t help but crave to sink my teeth into. The tragedy in all of this wanting was that he was completely, undeniable, out of my reach. His personality was one all of his own, and though he was very withdrawn, he was proud. In his eyes I was nothing more than a child who was much too young for him to express interest in me. To try and convince him otherwise would be moot, but I had set goals for myself that involved doing just that. At the time that these goals were created my dream seemed realistic. He seemed to enjoy my company and had even offered to help me with some of my other goals.

Only after a bland, then steamy, one night affair did I realize just how deep my obsession with Elliot was becoming. I slowly started to alienate those who cared for me and had only my best interest at heart, and bring forth the dark desires that lived deep within my soul. It almost felt like relief, and at the time I can honestly say that it was the little taste of freedom I had been craving for so long. I had been tied down for years before that time, and I still felt as if I had emotional concrete poured not only on my feet, by also my heart. With the dead weight of unfinished feelings dragging me down into the depths of the inky pool of desperation and depression that was my social-life, it was nice to fight my way to the surface for a deep breath of air. It almost made it better that Elliot’s face was the first and only one that I saw when I forced my eyes open and the much-needed light flooded in.

That night we laughed and talked for hours. I learned things about him that he had never shared with even his closest friends. He told me about the hardships he had suffered early in his life, some of them disturbing and some of them just plain sad. He told me how he didn’t like that his lower lip stuck out just a little too far and that his chin went to meet it, leaving a small gap in between that he couldn’t stand. I personally thought it was beautiful. I suppose all of my opinions about Elliot were and still are quite biased, but to me it truly doesn’t matter. He is sensational, possibly one of the most fantastic people I have ever laid eyes on in my life and I was quickly and recklessly falling headfirst for him. The problem with that fall was there would be no one there to catch me before I bit the concrete.

I myself have always been a realistic person as a whole. When I decide to make a foolish decision, I am fully aware that what I am about to do is idiocy and that I should stop. I usually end up doing it anyway. Letting myself fall for Elliot was one of those things that I knew was going to blow up in my face, yet somehow I never did manage to stop. Nor did I try to convince myself to do so. Perhaps it was the knowledge that he would only be here for a little while before he would be off back to the place he came from without giving me a second look or a handshake or hug goodbye. I knew that no matter how much I cared for him, I would never beg him to stay or write or call. I knew that at the end of everything we would go our separate ways and that he would just be a pleasant memory lost in a life-time supply of pleasant memories. That type of knowledge could make someone the most attractive thing on this planet, or ruin them forever. Elliot was, at that moment, the single most attractive thing on the great green earth and I planned to take full advantage.

I fawned after him silently, my heart calling out for him each moment that he wasn’t near. I somehow managed to resist the urges that rose up in my throat, and keep my finger off the send button of my phone. It was a struggle to say the least, but I didn’t want to seem overbearing; crazy was a title easily obtained around Elliot. It has been my observation that when truly acting like a love-struck teenage girl, it is alarmingly simple to allow your crush to turn into an obsession. I really hate the word “crush”, but Elliot was by no means my love-interest, and there aren’t really any other terms to describe what he meant to me. I did, however, obsess.

It was almost unhealthy for me, Elliot’s existence in my life. I thought of him each waking moment and dreamed of him while I slept. I knew full and well that I was obsessing and that it was not only childish, but also quite alarming. I did not obsess. I was the one who men obsessed over. Though that may have sounded conceited, at the time it was quite true. It comes with the territory of being the only female amongst a group of males. Eventually most of my closest friends had begun to either want me on a sexual level or an emotional one. I had shamelessly encouraged this behavior and by no means was I an innocent party concerning the matter, but it is still troubling at times.

There were nights when I would lay with my eyes open but my body at rest, my mind racing with the things I had done that day. I to this day will never be able to tell my closest companion and potential lovers how I have, and still play them. If they knew of even a fraction of the times they could have tasted one another on my lips they would never forgive me. It started out as a bit of innocent fun but then became much more complicated, much deeper than what it was meant to be. Eventually I was juggling men like a circus clown juggled bowling pins, and most of the time I would be lying if I said I felt any remorse over the subject.

That was yet another reason that I ached so badly for Elliot. He did not love me. He wanted me, I am almost certain of that. He did not want me on any sort of emotional level, but in a more physical manner. It wasn’t legal by any means, but the best things in life never are. I knew that I wasn’t anything like the beautiful girls he went to college with, but I’m pretty in a very muted kind of way, and according to him I was the best he was going to find in the small town where we lived. My heart didn’t flutter when he said this to me, but something about being called the best gave me a sense of pride that I still can’t seem to shake. The best way I could describe his attraction to me is by using pizza. Good pizza is good pizza, yes? Good pizza being the girls he left back home. Pizza, however; is still pizza regardless. I wasn’t necessarily good pizza, but I wasn’t bad either. I was average. I like average, it suits me.

Whenever he was around me I longed for him to kiss me. I wouldn’t have minded, but he never seemed to want to with a large clump of wintergreen chew shoved lovingly into his lower lip. He was always chewing, and I even came to adore the bottle of spit he carried with him wherever he went. I never did tell him that I didn’t mind his little habit, and he never asked.

On the infrequent occasions when I was being honest with myself around Elliot I realized that he never cared what I thought of him. In a way I suppose that added to his charm. I wouldn’t say that if affected the hold he had on me, but at the same time I wouldn’t say that it didn’t. Looking back I realize that I took his blatant disregard for my opinions as an act of self-confidence; now I know that he has confidence issues that don’t seem to apply to me. That’s the thing about being young, naïve, and in denial about being both, one can disguise things that could be an unwelcome wake-up call and make them into something positive. Elliot never cared about my opinions because he didn’t see them as valid.

Age is indeed not just a number. Though most people like to tell themselves that, age is something that can make or break many situations. Regarding my infatuation with Elliot, my age was a serious inconvenience. He never valued my opinions and never tried to look past my youthful exterior into the person that I am. I was, and am, simply too young for his personal taste. I am better a closet mistress than any sort of open affair. I still wonder if he admits that we could be friends. Parts of me doubt that he would while others still want to believe. Those parts are the ones where I store my childish hope and I care about their opinions about as much as Elliot cared about mine.

I learned my lesson about love and I still have yet to miss Elliot now that he's gone. I understand that the best things are often the ones that we as people must let go, and I kind of like to watch things that I love fly away. We are both back in our own worlds now, and though I do plan to see him again I also know where things are headed. That place is the wonderful land of nowhere. These days I don't mind getting nowhere fast.