Crushes, Confidential

Contributor Micheline Chen reflects on a series of childhood crushes, taking readers back to a simpler time where puppy love was an emotional rollercoaster, and everything had high stakes.

*Real names have been changed in this memoir

A guy slipped into French class late in the first year of secondary school. The door was at the very back of the classroom, and I sat closest to it. Brown hair, brown eyes, class clown—unanimously the best-looking boy in the entire grade. I remember telling myself ‘no one would find out’, and that was the beginning.

I had the habit of ‘dropping’ stationery, looking back at the door and continuously ignoring him. Nothing beat the thump-thump-thumpity-thump rush of feel-good as he looked over his shoulder whenever I did, or when he helped pick up my stuff. Stupid, I know.

“What page are we on?” he’d ask.

Maybe it was the nerves, I liked the attention, or I didn’t want him to get close and then not like me, or a combination of all three. I’d ignore him as usual.

Students were already clustered in tables of six when I entered French class the next academic year. I put one foot in front of the other towards a small clump of empty blue tables. 

“Nickel loves you!” a girl joked.

My cheeks burned as I hastily slid into a seat at the cluster he was at. Cue ignore.

There were other instances when he was nice. Like when he waved at me, or stood behind my chair at homeroom, waiting for me to break the ice. I remembered looking anywhere but at him. And my sigh of internal relief and heaviness after he walked away. He no longer tried again.

That wasn’t the end of it, unfortunately. It would’ve been less embarrassing if it were. I kept a diary that I always wrote in. It was a fluffy, rainbow-striped, heart-shaped Smiggle journal, always soft to the touch. During recess or lunch breaks, I’d be seen scribbling or drawing on the horizontal lines in my seat. 

I was scanning jumbles of alphabet letters—in the Young Post newspaper word search—in homeroom as usual, when I felt a presence looming over me. I looked up and saw Minos. 

“N,” his finger landed on the newspaper, “I,” another letter found. “C,” he continued pointing out the alphabet. “K,” his finger moved relentlessly. “E,” and another. “L,” he withdrew his hand. 

His eager eyes were scanning my face.

How did he…?

Seeing no response, Minos walked away.

Another day, he held my diary in his hand.

“Give it back!” I blurted.

He sprinted along the corridor, and I took off after him. Our footsteps pounded like hammers on nails, and students leapt sideways. I stretched out an arm. Minos’ head turned around, his eyes widened, and he had a burst of speed. My fingers grasped air. He kept running. 

I stopped just outside the male washroom. 

“Dear Diary, Nickel sat next to me in class…” Minos flipped the page, then smirked at me amidst the blue tiled male zone. I wanted to both cover my ears and shut him up.

I remember looking around and begging him to stop. Minos flipped backwards and forwards. I don’t remember how exactly it ended.

Shino snatched and threw someone’s backpack in the men’s room, stepped on it, and grabbed the diary from Minos. Four hands pulling the fluffy journal back and forth, with Shino throwing punches. It reminded me of a nature documentary on wild animals fighting.

“You’re in the male toilet,” Minos had gritted his teeth.

“I’m standing on a backpack,” Shino retorted, “so there’s no contact.”

Somehow, she ended up wrestling the diary from him before returning it to me. Somehow, all the pages were intact. I thanked her.

Her advice?

“Sometimes you gotta fight when you need to.”

Thanks to Minos, everyone in Secondary Two heard about my crush on Nickel. I wanted to hide under a desk ‘til graduation.

I took precautions when it came to my diary. I placed it in my backpack to and from school, or in the locker when I wasn’t scribbling in it. Except I couldn’t find it one day.

I asked one person, “Have you seen my diary?” and the next and the next. No one had seen it. With each no, I turned around faster and scanned the room for classmates I hadn’t asked yet. Eventually, someone suggested I check the lost and found in reception. I hurried there during the next recess.

The colourful, fluffy diary was sitting in the cardboard box. I breathed a sigh of relief.

“Is it yours?” the receptionist asked.

“Yes.” I held it to my chest.

Even the receptionist knew, and god knows how much reception staff liked to gossip.

Nickel kept his distance. We had Kahoot in French. Being the class clown, he jumped around, played with the blind’s strings, and looped them around his neck.

“Curse you,” he said aloud to whichever player ranked ahead. It was out of the blue when he said, “Oh no.” I peeked at his iPad when he wasn’t looking. Wasn’t too surprised to see my name.

At the annual school barbecue, I fanned the flames with a newspaper while my stove mates were away.

“Curl your hair with this,” Minos put a cordless fire starter down. “You’ll look like Jackie.”

“Why mention Jackie—”

That’s when it hit me. Nickel liked Jackie. I fanned the flames harder.

Then there was Malachi, the boy I sat right next to in homeroom. Did I see something in him, or was it merely proximity? All I knew was that I switched my attention to him right after the first boy fiasco. Now get ready for the second.

I had decided to write him a Valentine’s Day card.

And I ran into Jackie on the day of love.

“Any guys this year?” she teased.

“Yeah,” I mentioned the card. Maybe I wanted to prove I was fine after the diary incident. Or because Nickel had fallen for her.

I slipped the enveloped Hallmark card into Malachi’s drawer. And held my breath for the entire day.

He did ask if I wrote it. I paused.

“Either you wrote it, or you didn’t,” he said. I nodded.

“Someday someone will like you,” he returned it to my table.

I swallowed the lump in my throat. Nodded. I threw the card in the bin.

Later, the card sat open on my desk. It was graffitied in different coloured ink, with multiple handwritings.

Scribbles, grammar corrections and carets were everywhere. Some of my own words were crossed out. I stood there and stared at my handwriting, “I really, really, really, really, really, really like you”. And I swore I’d never have a crush again.

The final bell rang, and everyone grabbed their bags and left.

I don’t remember what happened to the card afterwards—if I’d taken it home, or ripped it to pieces and discarded them on the way back. I wished I’d burned it. Maybe turning the card to ashes would turn the shattered pieces of my heart into ashes, too.

For the rest of the year, I gave Malachi anything he asked for—answers, correction tape, for him to peek at my work in English dictations. He and his male friends kicked a soccer ball during breaks at the back of class. Once in a while, the ball smacked me in the head. I had a smile on my lips instead of a complaint. It was awkward between him and me at first, but we kept things civil—the homeroom seating plan never changed. 

He later asked out the class leader. What stung the most was that he dated the girl seated literally on his other side. Her table was to his left, across an aisle. She called “Malachi,” and got his attention only to say, “nothing.” He did the same to her. I was the third wheel.

I struggled in Chinese nearly as badly as in the romance department. So I moved myself to the first row one day for a temporary group activity. And stayed there for Chinese class since. Still not sure if I wanted to pass the subject or to get away from the lovebirds.

It wasn’t until the summer holidays that I walked away emotionally. As for Nickel, I moved on a few years later, during the Covid lockdown. Interesting what a period of isolation could do.

Looking back, it might have been the antithesis of The Summer I Turned Pretty—two boys, two unrequited crushes, and no brothers involved. My twelve-to-thirteen-year-old self still lives in me somewhere.

by Micheline Chen