My Crush to the Rescue

 Think of the most pathetic person you can in terms of being good with romantic interests.  Thought of the person? Good. Now think if that person were even worse. Then you'd have me. I don't care how bad the someone you know is. I guarantee compared to how I was at one time, they were a modern day Don Juan. 

Although I did have one girlfriend during high school, I didn't start to feel comfortable around women in a sexual/romantic/intimate way until I was well into my mid 20's. Before that point, I think I had an outright phobia of them under those circumstances. While I had female friends & was very comfortable around them, anything beyond that was quite terrifying.  

I had crushes throughout school, and 99% of the time, I did absolutely nothing about them. Most of my crushes never lasted all that long, but one did. There was a girl that moved into Sigourney from Burlington in the 4th grade and the second she flashed those baby blues my way, I was infatuated.  

It took my friend Tim Wehr all of about three seconds of watching me drool over her during lunch to figure out that I had a major crush on Jillian Kleinman. Being the loud mouth that he is, he'd say her name outloud so that others could hear.  It used to embarrass the Hell out of me. I'd turn red and if I thought she heard, I'd hope that the cooks had laced the dried piece of beef they passed as a Hamburger with poison. I just wanted to melt in my chair and die. When I discovered one of Tim's crushes a while later, I made sure to say her name as loud as a I could in epic vengeance. 

Tim and I came to an agreement that I wouldn't say the name of his crush out loud, if he didn't say the name of mine. We came up with codenames. His crush was "007" and Jillian was "R4."  You don't realize the stupidity of being young until you look back on it years later.  

What may not be so hard to believe is that my crush on Jillian lasted from the 4th grade through the 7th grade. It may have lasted even longer, but she moved back to Burlington with her family. What is hard to believe is that during that four year span, Jillian and I only communicated a handful of times.  

I guess when it came to attractive women, my stance was sorta like being a little kid at the store with your mom. You're told and you obey the rule of, "You can look, but you can't touch."  Or maybe better put driving past an expensive car lot full of Corvettes and Camaros. Dream all you want buddy, you ain't ever owning one of these. 

I enjoyed my fantasy. I enjoyed admiring Jillian from a distance. I'd day dream of us being a couple, hand in hand. I'd dream of taking her to dances. Going to movies together. The innocent stuff you think of at that age. Yet any time I got within five feet of her, I'd freeze up and become a blabbering fool.  

I have no idea what Jillian thought of me. I'm sure in four years she had to know that I was fixated with her. There's no way she couldn't have known. I doubt she was too thrilled about it, but I don't think she was horrified by the thought either. If anything, I think she probably get a kick out of it & found it humorous.   

One of the only times we conversed was when she initiated the conversation with me. 

It was 6th grade. Mrs. Wallerich's Reading class.  Now while I became a very good student in junior high, high school and college, in elementary I wasn't very good. I wasn't exactly a failing student with D's & F's. I was more along the lines of mediocre. Do what I have to do, get a few B's & settle for C's kinda guy.  

Only problem was, Mrs. Wallerich posted a question on the board every day about the books we were reading, that we were to journal about.  It was something like 25 questions & each of the answers needed to be at least a paragraph long. To a 6th grader, that's Mission Impossible.   

I can remember Mrs. Wallerich plain as day telling us that Friday afternoon, "Now remember your journal entries are due on Monday. They are 1/3 of your overall grade." 

I panicked.  

I was already struggling in Mrs. Wallerich's class as it was. I was getting a C- and I didn't have a single journal entry complete. I didn't even know what the questions were. I had actually forgotten that we even had a journal. I opened up my desk & searched through the jungle of madness that it was to find my journal near the very bottom. I opened it up and starred at the blank pages. What in the Hell was I going to do?  

Going to Mrs. Wallerich was the absolute worst thing I could do. If I were to go up to her and ask her for a copy of the questions, she would immediately know why I was asking. This would spell out certain doom. She was not a fan of mine to begin with, and me failing her class would probably have made her day.   

All I could do was sit in that chair & think of the horrific fate that awaited me. I thought of how all of my classmates would be going on to junior high, while I had to repeat the 6th grade. I thought that I might not even live to repeat the 6th grade, because once my Dad got wind of what was going on, he'd kill me. I probably looked like an inmate awaiting execution as I sat in that chair praying, hoping, wishing for someway out.  

The bell rang for our next class, as everyone else got up and headed out the door. In my own world, I noticed nothing around me until I heard a loud, "SPLAT!" 

I looked down at my desk. It was a notebook. On the cover in big black permanent marker it read READING JOURNAL MRS. WALLERICH. On the top left hand corner, Jillian K.   

I looked up to see her starring down at me.  In three years of being in lust with this girl, it was the closest we had ever been to one another. I mean that physically.  It was literally the closest we had ever been to one another. 

"Bring that to me first thing on Monday morning," She said. "If you forget it...I'll kill you." 

I slipped her notebook into my bookbag and that weekend I worked on the journal questions. I knew better than to copy what she had written. I didn't do that. I simply used her journal to know what the questions were and to remind myself of certain characters and parts in the books we had read.  

First thing Monday morning, I found her, handed her the notebook and simply told her thank you. She rolled her eyes at me and nodded her head. I handed in my journal and much to my surprise, I got an A on it. It raised my grade to an even C.  I was going to pass Mrs. Wallerich's class & I was headed to the 7th grade with the rest of my classmates. 

I'll never known why Jillian did that for me. Maybe she just felt sorry for me. It may have been an act of pity.  Eric Bates tried convincing me that she did it as a motion to show me that she liked me as much as I liked her. He tried to drill it into my head that she opened up a door for me & I was too stupid to walk through it. All these years later, all I can do is guess and speculate. Regardless of why she did it for me, I will forever be thankful. She kept me from failing a class & potentially from having to repeat the 6th grade.  

I'd like to tell you that I was able to repay the favor one day, but I never did. It's not that I wouldn't have, but the opportunity never came up.  She moved away before the end of 7th grade the next year & I only saw her once more after that. 

I believe it was my sophomore year of high school. She came from Burlington to watch a football game. We had a dance afterwards.  For some reason while most nights I had zero confidence, that night I was full of it. Perhaps I was possessed by someone else. I walked right up to her and started a conversation with her. I hung out with her all night. Then towards the end of the game I told her that there was a dance, and I'd love for her to go with me.  She said yes.  It was the first time in my life I had ever asked a girl to do something with me and she said yes.  Unfortunately she came up to me a while later and said she couldn't go. Originally her and her family weren't going to leave back to Burlington until Saturday, but her mom decided they were going back tonight. She seemed genuinely bummed, and I'd like to think she was.  It was the last time I ever saw her. 

It's been 20 years or more since I last saw Jillian. I've had many girlfriends since her & I'm in a very happy relationship with my current girlfriend of 7 years. I'm sure she's probably married with 10 kids by now. I don't know if I believe all things happen as they should, but I do believe the Universe has some sort of order.  I don't regret that she and I never got together. It obviously wasn't meant to happen. She wasn't my someone and I wasn't her's.  Yet I do regret that I never got to repay the favor. I do wish that I would have gotten to do that. She literally saved my ass that day.  I'll forever be thankful and I'll never forget it.