This is about that girl at the end of my poem, Evolution.

Emilie

In all the girls I've ever known, this is the only one for whom I can say: "Now THAT's love". Because who knows what it is unless you experience it right? This is as close as I got so far. This girl opened my mind. Before her, I couldn't predict what my preferences were. I couldn't really say: "This is what I'm looking for in a girl". From that moment on, I became so much more aware of what I'm looking for: a treasure, a gem, a pearl. A woman so unique, so powerful, so interesting that I took it upon myself to write this. Truth is, I can't stop thinking about her and comparing everyone to her. It's all about her. For the last three and a half years now, I've missed her so very very much.

So who is this mysterious girl? Where can I start? Well I was in a few classes with her in 11th grade. During that time, I didn't know her at all. She was a new face. She was quiet and she took school very seriously so she didn't stick out so much in my mind. If only for her looks : )

Light-brown hair

Light-blue eyes

Caucasian with hints of pink… like the natural color of her beautiful lips.

Very muscular build: Big shoulders, big triceps… Big lungs, small breasts, very beautiful legs… muscular thighs, silky smooth, no hairs, no irritations… perfect. She was a professional swimmer but I'll elaborate later.

She also had a bellybutton ring… wow. Bellybuttons are so damn sexy.

Beautiful voice: full of happiness and joy.

And her sent... the sent of a woman. The natural sent. Unbelievable.

Well anyway, I hated going to school. I never did homework and I never studied for my exams. I hated doing that kind of stuff and I almost never got to learn anything of value. But that's just it; how can I be attracted to the goodie-two-shoe, I love school and I'm so proud of my marks kind of girl? She even wore reading glasses. Well this one was totally irresistible to me. Emilie. It didn't take long for my eyes to be permanently rigged. I was looking in her direction whenever no one was looking. I sat anywhere behind her, usually in the back of the class, from were I can observe her. I do that all the time. I always look at what interests me the most. It's not polite to stare but it's apparently ok when you're a hypocrite about it. Well I was a big hypocrite. I could spend more than half the class just looking at her hair or ears or smile or eyes… Why not? Well anyway, this lasted a long time. I discovered plenty of fantastic things but I didn't quite fall in love just yet. I still didn't know her so how could I? Like all the cop movies say: "after observation comes action". I had already learned that she was very desirable. She was very hyperactive. She smiled and giggled a lot. She was also a very physically active person but I'll get to that later. I think her happy/smile and her incredibly hyper states where the most pronounced I had ever seen. She looked like a happy woman and that's just something anyone would love to be around. At that moment though, she was just an acquaintance. And of course I had a big crush on her but that evolved into so much more the next year.

Last year of high school, grade 12… I was in most of her classes. I had my chance to get to know and hang out with her and it was just amazing. The whole year was amazing. We became friends but not too quickly. I let nature take its course. I introduced myself slowly. We mostly played cards but we were very rarely alone together. Well one day… early enough in the year, we had swimming in gym class. She was always at the center of any sport: she was the one that always hogged the ball, the one that had to score the goals, the one that had to be aggressive all the time. I found that very cool. Honestly now, she had a great spirit and for it to show so much in sports was a rare thing amongst the ladies. Actually, I've never seen anyone with that much spirit before. I was certainly a team spirit but I never took a sport that seriously and have fun doing it like she did. So back to the swimming... She was a swimmer! Damn I would have followed her to the Olympics to encourage her in a heartbeat. She was the strongest swimmer I have ever seen. At the beginning of almost every class, we did laps. It wasn't so great to be in her lane though, I learned that very quickly. Well it was like soccer except there was no ball to hog, only water. She hogged it well :P She would pass people like a zillion times so who could blame her? I was the second best swimmer there and she past me twice… Both times, she had to grab my leg and pull me back hard to get me out of her way. LOL! It didn't bother me at all. I tried to do the same to her once just to tease her… OMG! She was like a fish! That silky smooth leg… I don't know if she oiled up before swimming her laps but holy-crap was she slippery! She could just glide through a full lap! I probably had the hairiest legs in the class so I dragged a lot. I also have small lungs so I breathe every stroke while she only had to breathe to say she was still doing it LOL!

Anyway, one day, we didn't do laps. Instead, we played water polo. I didn't like that game and I wasn't the only one. For those who don't know how to play; that's the game where you swim on top of people's heads and steal the ball away. Then you throw it over - or skip it on - the water to score in the net. Ok well I had a very fragile nose and every time that ball hit me on the nose, I would bleed. The first course we played that game, I had to sit half of it out to stop the bleeding. The next time however, I had some good and some bad luck… You'll see. I didn't have to sit it out because I didn't get hit in the face but something else happened. Emilie. She was predictably aggressive in this sport as well. It didn't bother me one bit but I should have been more careful. I had the ball and she was after me. I shot to score and I did. But she really had to try and stop it. After the ball left my hand, her face got in the way. I felt a little something from my pinky but nothing else. After I scored and all, everything was suddenly quiet. I was looking for Emilie to gloat about my success - just a little friendly comment - but she was suddenly silenced. She was crying. She moved out of the water and sat on the side of the pool with her knees bent up to her breasts and a hand covering her wounded eye. It seemed my pinky had given her a slap on the eyeball. Of course everyone said I was an idiot for having accidentally poked her in the eye but I didn't pay any attention to that. I was concentrating all my thoughts and energy on the girl I like the most in the world. She was crying on the side of the pool for everyone to see and it was my fault. I didn't need anyone to tell me this. What I did need, more than anything else, was to see if she would be ok. I swam just underneath her. I was just there, on the side, trying to comfort her as much as I could. I was greatly relieved to see that she would be all right but I still felt guilty. I wanted to have a pizza sent to school to give her as an apology but that would have been too obvious. I had a mad crush on her and it wasn't exactly the best time to let everyone know. Instead, I did the next best thing and give the most sincere of apologies, only three times to be sure. Of course she forgave me. The next day, she was as good as new. She wasn't mad at me at all. She was still the happy and energetic girl she always was. She was just so great. This little incident actually gave me more of a chance with her. We got to know each other even more. We became better friends. We were still doing the swimming thing in gym but she didn't even have to do the exam, she was well above the 100 marks and she proved herself over and over again so the teacher let her sit during the test. The first miracle that ever happened: she was cheering for me the whole time. Not for her best friends, for me. She was just sitting on the bench at the end of my lane and encouraging me when I came by. You couldn't make me happier than that. It was surely one of the best days in my life.

It wasn't the only time Emilie made me feel that way. No way. It was just the first time. The second time was half way through the year. It was the Christmas exam period and she was studying on the table with her closest friends. Ok, she had a friend that always looked at me as though she hated me and she probably did but she would never say it. It didn't matter, that day; I was invited for a reason. They were curious about me. I was a genius in high school physics. I aced all the exams and I never did one homework problem… ever. I just had a natural comprehension of it. Well anyway, they thought I could help them study and I did. Only too well. I really impressed Emilie that day but I didn't know until later. After Christmas vacation, I came back with a goal in my mind. I needed to improve my relationship with her. It was extremely difficult because she lived very far away. She rarely stayed after school because of this and that made things hard. She gave me a compliment one day. We were discussing what we planned for our futures, being seniors and all, moving in new schools and so on. I mentioned that I wasn't sure what I wanted and she said: "But you're so smart! You should be a doctor!". Compliments like that are hard to come by nowadays. Ok so it was then that I could say I fell in love with Emilie. Understandable isn't it? There's nothing I didn't like about her and she liked me. I knew that for a fact and it made me feel superb. As before, she was the only thing on my mind but this love was also a new experience for me. I didn't know it was so rare. I still don't know if I'll ever get a chance like that again but regret is something I'm having a difficulty accepting right now. The thing is, shortly after that great compliment, I was told she had a boyfriend.

So much was going through my mind at the time, I could never remember all of it but what I know is that I was happy for her. I wasn't one bit jealous. Perhaps I should have been because now I know how badly I really loved her. But I was shaped into a being that simply doesn't get jealous. That's a rare achievement but at that specific time, it was more of a curse. The fact that she had a boyfriend and that she lived so far away was almost enough to cross out the possibility of increasing our relationship status further. I never had a girlfriend before and I couldn't be sure if I was good enough for her. You see my dilemma? I wanted her to have everything and I was pretty sure she couldn't get it all from me. Not unless I lived closer to her and I would still need her to be available. I didn't want to interfere with what she had. She was happy. I also didn't want to tell her how I felt and how she was always in my mind and in my dreams. I could never be certain what that would have done so I may never know if it was something to regret or not but I did tell her in other ways. The first hint was that I always smiled at her. If anything could be told about the way someone looks at someone else, that also would be a dead-giveaway. But there was also something else. You could understand that there were days in which telling her how I felt was the only important thing in my life. One day in particular:

It was spring and our gym course started to be outdoors. Running was the most important exercise and we spent a lot of time on it. Emilie was a great runner. It was obvious by the strength of her legs and the size of her lungs that she was made for cardio exercises like that. I was a bit better at running than swimming but that's just because I didn't drag as much in the air as I did in the water. There's also the fact that I'm very light-weight and I sink in a pool. I really sink. But I'm also muscular and athletic so I also had a good start for running. I was very close to Emilie's speed but she had something extra. One day, I had to be with her. I needed to give myself every chance I would have to break the news to her, to spill my guts, to offer my heart. I was already against doing so but if I didn't allow words to show it, I needed to let her know in any way I could. I caught up to her at the beginning and ran just next to her. We both smiled all along. I just needed to be near her. Just listening to her breath, just to be able to look at her, just to feel her presence beside me was exhilarating. I seriously pondered whether it would be appropriate to hold her hand. It was my greatest of desires. Just to be able to hold her hand would have been enough. I didn't do it for two reasons: first, it was unprofessional to hold hands and run at the same time and considering that she was serious about sports it would surely be annoying. But there was also the fact that it would have been too obvious. I didn't want to make her uncomfortable. I didn't want to ruin anything. I had so much to lose just because I felt too good just being next to her. That's how she made me feel though. I was undeniably in love with her and she liked me. There was nothing else that could have been said about our situation. I kept up with her speed until the very end, where she decided that she needed to push herself to her limits. Then I couldn't keep up with her.

I spent many nights contemplating a method in which I could tell her in words, always thinking about the outcomes. It was never easy to face the facts that even if she wanted to be with me rather than whoever she was with, our relationship would be hard to keep. School was almost over. We would be separated just after we start! That was why I never told her. I should have told her anyway just so that she would think about me one day, like today, and call me to tell me she's ready to try again. I would be ready now. I'm ready to leave everything for her. I wasn't old enough to organize a way for us to be together then but I am now. But I can't just try to search for her, call her up and tell her here and now that I love her and that I will always love her. Wouldn't that be… awkward? If I could have seen how empty my future was, I would have told her in a second just for the remote chance that something could have happened to fix my desperate situation. 20 years old and I was never loved back.

Emilie was second in line to give me a hug when I really needed one. She even kissed me once. I was playing cards with my buddies while she was playing truth or dare on another table in the back of the class. She approached me in a stealthy fashion and kissed me on the cheek. I swear it took like 2 sec for my brain to register it. I just couldn't believe it. I had to treasure the moment. I just kept staring at my cards and memorized every sensation that was paralyzing my body at the time. It was wonderful! I know it was a dare but she still had a giant smile on her face when she went back to her table. I almost forgot I was playing cards and everyone was looking at me. I didn't say anything but inside, I was going crazy. I needed to know why I was the target of this dare. I still don't know what that was all about. There was undeniably a reason for it but either way, there wasn't much to do about it. I have a poor memory but Emilie still fills them. I could never forget about her. I'm writing this now to refresh my memories. I keep getting moments of regret, flashbacks at these key events. I rethink them and try and see if I could have told her I loved her. That's how it's always been. That's love isn't it?

Every girl I have a crush on will always bring back memories of her. Thankfully they're all good memories but they will always be mixed with desire of something more. Even if Emilie wasn't perfect, I still could have been the happiest man alive with her. That's the constant that I have to live with now. I ask myself if I could ever love someone that much again and I honestly don't know if I can. There's this one girl now, she's really close to perfection. She reminds me of Emilie but she's even more my type: She has brown eyes (I melt when I see brown eyes! I just can't explain how crazy I go for women with brown eyes) and she was even more beautiful than Emilie but still, I don't know if I can ever love her the same way. She didn't complement me or kiss me or cheer for me did she? Love is different. I observed this new girl and I really think she's perfect for me but until I get to know her like I knew Emilie, nothing will ever happen. I stress about it now because I really need it to happen again. It took me a year just to be friends with Emilie. Isn't that pathetic somehow? This is the same thing; I can't talk to girls easily. I need friends. And if I could ever be friends with this new girl it will still be excessively hard to tell her how I feel; she has a boyfriend too you know but unlike Emilie, many people think she's the prettiest girl in the class. Men line up for her. That makes it hard for me as well. Emilie was too imposing, too spirited, too hyper and aggressive, people didn't find that very usual but I loved all of that! Love! And she looked very pretty to me, who cares if others didn't particularly think so? To my eyes she was very beautiful. It's impossible to find another girl like Emilie. She's unique. She could never be replaced, never. She will always have a beauty to her than none can surpass.

So now what am I supposed to do?

-I find myself with a large crush on the most popular girl in my program

-She has a boyfriend.

-I need to get to know her - aka: I need to be friends with her. -

Obviously she's very hard to approach with all those other dudes surrounding her like vultures. I also don't see her often at all. I see her once a week for like 1 hour but it's a lecture that I can't just chit-chat in.

-She also lives far away, though I'm much less afraid that would cause too many problems.

-I'm more nervous now than I've ever been. I'm constantly reminding myself that I should tell her how I feel now before it gets worse but my heart is very weak… Call me gutless but I honestly can't tell how I would fair with a rejection at this particular point in time. Things have been very difficult lately. I used to be an open book you know. I've told a dozen girls how I felt and how I would love to hang out with them and go out. I even wrote love poems and all but I got really depressed after being rejected again and again. There was a pattern there. I recognize it very well. I may as well have a big sticker that says loser on my forehead. I'm a hopeless case. History never lies but it can continue along another path. Could I learn from my mistakes? Could I actually tell someone I like them without getting my heart trashed? That doesn't all depend on me you know. The risk is very real and I only know one girl that I ever knew was worth it: EMILIE. Now I'm only wondering if it could happen again. I observe from afar to protect myself. I keep my distance and I go slow. For that reason I may never have a chance in hell with anyone. There are only two ways out of this one:

Luck

Or bad luck

Luck would be that someone else would have the courage to approach me. Wouldn't that be something for a change? That would be the best-case scenario. You know, I wish someone could walk up to me and tell me how they feel. Just thinking about it makes me feel like I must do the same. The problem is that I have a low self-esteem. I will always think that people don't like me. That's what Evolution was all about though it was only one key event. Similarly, when I told girls how I felt, our friendships would turn sour and I lose them forever. That's just my fate, my fear and the biggest reason why I never told Emilie. The second best scenario would be that I get a chance to make a move. A chance to make a friend and try to move to the next step but all of this would be done very fast, which is very unlikely as well. You can't rush love can you?

The bad luck would be everything else; everything that's ever happened to me and will mostly continue on until I die. It's far more plausible than you think. I suppose I too, like Emilie, am intimidating and noticeably unique. Yes I'm not perfect and I'm not in any popular branches. To be unique is definitely not a bad thing but what I am isn't of an outgoing strangeness. Emilie was a ray of sunshine. As for me, you can tell right away that I'm different if you see me in the streets but you wouldn't be able to tell what it is. I suppose the biggest problem is that no one's interested… or very few.