Possessive crush

What I dislike most about myself is the moment when I am close to a crush and can't look at him. Only towards him, I am shy, so how am I going to get his attention? With this behavior, it's impossible. I will never dare to take the next step to change something in my life. Apparently, dreams do come true, but it takes a fighting spirit to realize them.

Felix takes all my courage away, because I guess that a boy of his kind will never look at me. Probably in his eyes I am an ordinary, undistinguished girl, and he needs someone charismatic, someone like himself.

I lean against the wall and pretend to read a book. I surreptitiously glance at Felix, as he is standing not far from me in the corridor accompanied by his best buddy. They are talking about something, laughing, and at one point Mike's eyes find me. Abashed, I cover my face with a book, not intending to have anything to do with him after the way he recently mocked me.

Unfortunately, he is not going to let go of me and approaches me.

- Hello, junior colleague. Did you take my words to heart and send that dangerous friend to hell?

I raise my eyebrows and stare at him for a long moment, in my mind asking him to leave. I would rather not talk to him when Felix is around.

- No. This dangerous friend is just lying in bed with a fever," I reply, glancing at my love out of the corner of my eye. I blush up to my ears as I notice how intense the gaze he fixes in me is.

What is he thinking at this point? What kind of pathetic person am I?

- But she must be hot in that bed tonight. - Mike fanned himself with his hand in front of his face, clearly loving making a jester of himself.

- Excuse me? - I am outraged by his behavior.

He tries to stroke my chin, but I tilt my head to the side.

- You, however, are cute, and guys like cute girls. - His wry smile drives me crazy.

What is he thinking?

- Are you having a good time?

He shrugs his shoulders and turns toward his friend, so I follow his gaze. I don't know if I'm imagining too much at this point, but I think Felix looks like he's enchanted? No. I spend too much time writing a story starring him. I'm getting mixed up in my head and I don't distinguish between fiction and reality anymore.

- Are you done? The break will be over in a while," he turns to his buddy.

Mike moves his eyebrows to me, then walks over to Felix and puts his arm around him. Before they leave, I am able to hear one sentence:

- Are you still insecure? You know I'll do anything for you, baby. - I see him sending him a seductive kiss.

I get the impression that Felix is the opposite of his goofy friend. He seems to be ... more serious?

- I knew that if Eve dated another every day, she would eventually get an STD. - Sebastian leans next to me against the wall, and crosses his arms over his chest.

My face probably expresses distaste now as I shift my gaze to him.

- Just because she goes on dates doesn't immediately mean she sleeps with everyone. More respect," I warn him, beating on his head. - Eve is sick. She is lying in bed with a fever.

- It's a good thing it's with a fever and not a dude.

- Sebastian! - I chastise him once again. - Bite your tongue before you say anything. If Eve heard that, you would have just been picking your teeth off the floor.

He merely shrugs his shoulders.

- Our whole class is gossiping about it. Can't she see that she is adding an ugly label to herself? At sixteen, she has bleached hair, and that puts her in a bad light.

- And since when do we judge people by their hair color? Everyone is entitled to look how they want. Don't take the example of our class and just swallow the venom instead of spitting it on others.

The 16-year-old looks at me with a sidelong glance.

- Eve should be happy to have such a friend.

- No worries. She's happy.

I toss my hair back and walk away from him, having no intention of listening to his childish texts. The people in my class are really hopeless, and Sebastian fits in perfectly with them. Gossiping and poisoning the lives of others are their greatest achievements.

They would have done better to study and improve their class average.

*

The end of class is salvation for me. As much as I love to get up in the morning and eagerly go to school to see Felix. By the afternoon I'm so tired of sitting in boring classes that I dream of nothing but going home, going to bed and firing up my favorite TV series.

It's white outside. The snow is still falling, so I wrap myself in a shawl, then go outside and nearly fall over in front of the door when someone grabs my arm. I look back and wide-eyed stare at Mike.

What does he want from me? Why is he so fixated on me? It's all Eve's fault, who pushed me.

- Will you reveal your name, rake? - His teammate parries with laughter at these words.

- Rake? - I repeat with indignation in my voice. - Do you even know what that means?

- And aren't you a flirt? Ever since you fell into my arms, I can't stop thinking about you. Before my eyes, I keep seeing your flirtatious look, the way you bat your eyelashes seductively and puff out your lips.

If it weren't for the fact that he's older, and I have to show him respect, at this point I would have put him on the ground so much. He wouldn't get up from the ground for five minutes.

- I don't recall behaving that way towards you.

- You just don't control it.

Keeping his hands on my shoulders, he looks at me with sparkling eyes.

- What do you want from me?

I am overjoyed that Felix is not with him this time.

- That you reveal your name.

I roll my eyes, then answer him:

- Selena Wesley. Will you stop teasing me now?

- No. - His smile drives me crazy as I guess that I have officially become the team mascot, and my chances with Felix have dwindled to one percent.

Eve will be dead as soon as she recovers. I'll strangle her with my hands, since she's the one who threw me into this swamp.

I furrow my eyebrows as he tousles my hair, then places the hood over my head. He walks away, and my gaze finds Felix, who is just walking through the door. I think for a moment my heart stops beating as he looks at me blankly, then speaks directly to me:

- My buddy is not into you. He just likes to play with girls. - His voice is rough, and his gaze is stern. - Don't imagine too much.

I open my mouth in astonishment as he walks past me, and joins his buddies who are waiting for him at the gate.

I feel hopeless. The spell I was intoxicated with up to now is gone. My crush just now turned out to be an asshole. The first words I heard from the boy of my dreams broke my heart. I think I would already rather give him a love letter and be rejected in front of him than hear that I am his buddy's naive toy.

I feel tears gathering under my eyelids. A person passing by nudges my shoulder, and I continue to stand in the middle, disbelieving that this day has finally arrived.

The three sentences uttered by my crush, definitely broke my heart.

- Now I have no desire to come here," I whisper under my breath, seeing Mike say something to Felix, after which they both look in my direction.

They probably have a good laugh at the silly 16-year-old.

*

Pressing my lips together, I tear the pages from my notebook, not regretting the peculiar story I have so far wasted time on. The fiction I created in my head has not become reality. Dreams of a perfect boyfriend are unreal.

How could I continue to sigh for someone who sees me as someone so hopeless? I prefer to pour this platonic love into an idol, at least I know I won't be hurt by him.

I'm sitting on the windowsill by the open window, and I don't mind the frosty air, because the high pressure makes me hot. I'm so angry that I tear all the pages out of my notebook, letting the wind carry them away.

- Let people see what a horny idiot I was," I mutter under my breath. - I am as pathetic as this story.

Into my hand, I take the phone and answered a call from a friend. In a text message, I manage to describe the whole situation to her, so she already knows how much she's missed because of her illness.

- I keep wondering about Felix's words.... what's gotten into him? Does he speak to you so suddenly and yet so meanly? It sounded like he was jealous....

- Why would he be jealous of me?

- Not about you, but a buddy," she replies, to which I croak. - Listen... maybe he is gay? He's not interested in girls, he's said to have high standards, and what if he's hiding? Perhaps he has a crush on Mike?

If she had been sitting next to me, she would have been hit in the head for telling silly things.

- Stop obsessively reading about boys' love.

Eve laughs into the earpiece.

- That would be hot. Two sexy teammates in a relationship. I can already see how the school would be buzzing with rumors! - she says with excitement in her voice.

- Keep quiet; otherwise I will disconnect.

The blonde mumbles, letting me know that I am bored.

- But he seriously sounded like he was jealous!

- Any slight hope that about me?

- Until now, he didn't know you, he didn't know who you were, so why would he be jealous of you?

- Maybe he fell in love with me at first sight? - I hear my friend sigh with resignation. - I swear that when I was talking to Mike I caught him looking at me with enchanted eyes. It couldn't have been my imagination!

- You're gorgeous, but I don't believe someone would fall in love with you at first sight and immediately be jealous that his buddy is hitting on you. It doesn't make sense. Such things only happen in fanfic. Be realistic, Selena.

I snort under my breath.

- You are not helping me understand the situation.

- So let's stipulate that your ideal turned out to be a nasty bastard.

- And that's why I tore the story sheets out of my notebook a while ago," I mutter under my breath. - I am suffering from love.

- Rather, infatuations," Eve corrects me.

- It's too strong to call an infatuation. It hurts my heart to think of him.

I'm sure my friend is just rolling her eyes.

- I hope your next crush will be more to my liking.

- There won't be another one. Felix had something in him that made him special to me. No one can replace him.

*

I can no longer remember the last time I went to school with such reluctance. Yesterday made me feel sick of everything.

I'm not an idiot, and I'm not going to cry over my lost hope of love with crush, but I'm sad that he turned out to be a bastard. I think I imagined too much. In the story, I created the boy I wanted him to be, and then transferred that fiction to real life.

Only now I see that I'm sixteen years old, and I'm acting like a child. I should change that.

- Hello, my sexy lady. - Eve catches up with me in front of the school gate, and puts her arm around my shoulder. - How are you feeling?

- Shouldn't I be the one to ask you first? Have you recovered yet? Did your parents let you go to school?

The blonde looks at one point and puffs out her lips.

- I was sick of lying in bed. I had to get out of there since I had missed so much yesterday.

- Health is more important than your friend's school dramas.

Eve strokes my cheek with her finger and smiles broadly.

- You are my lady, so I have to protect you, no matter how seriously ill I am. It was enough that I wasn't by your side yesterday, and you lost your crush.

- I think I saw through it," I mutter under my breath. - This is a sign that Felix is not meant for me.

A friend snorts under her breath.

- And you inferred this literally from the three sentences he said?

- It's not my fault that I have such a character. Hold a grudge against my parents.

She squeezes me tighter as we walk through the main doors. We head towards the classroom where we start class, ignoring the stares of others. I think everyone knows my secret.

- Why do people look at me so strangely?

- Your sick head creates images that don't happen. Actually, two people looked at you, and they were fellow second-graders.

Nevertheless, it seems to me that the whole school already knows that I have been rebuked by the school star.

- If any rumors arise about me, I will never set foot in this building again.

- You really need a psychiatrist. - She knocks me on the forehead with her finger. - You should have answered him, not stood there like a peg.

- And wouldn't you be clobbered if you heard similar words from crush's mouth?

- I don't choose crushes for myself. I just go on dates with guys I like. Try it, you might like it.

- I'd rather rock and create scenarios starring a crush than meet another guy every day. In class, they have already given you a patch. Sebastian stated that you are a slut.

The blonde opens her mouth in indignation.

- Let me just get him.... - She looks around the corridor, and her radar picks up a peer who is standing against the wall laughing with his colleagues. - Give me a moment. I'm going to go kill him.

I furrow my eyebrows as I watch Eve get him, and slam him against the wall, using tricks from the books I read.

I turn my face away, not intending to look at it, and my eyes meet Felix's eyes. I feel a blush coat my cheeks. I blink my eyelids, looking at him for the first time from such a close distance.

- Selena Wesley? - he asks, and I could swear that his lips twist in a slight smile for a moment. - It seems to me that when writing stories like this, you shouldn't sign your name on the page.

My face burns with a living fire as Felix lifts a sheet of paper torn from my notebook, which features an erotic scene involving the two of us.

Can a person face something crueler? What I feel now is something much worse than shame. I feel like collapsing to the ground, seriously.

And how am I supposed to get out of this now?