Not a Crush by Nataliya Zaboychenko

Mary Jane is in love with a guy who

wears t-shirts with stupid words on them and eats nothing but pizza. It's humiliating. 

She wants to grab his shoulders and shake him while asking half-screaming: "What did I find in you?"

Little Mary, from the past, would be extremely disappointed if she found out who she is going to fall for. Teenage Mary is tired of being disappointed in herself, so she sits at their lunch table watching him talk, eat and text at the same time. He gestures with a slice of not-so-freshly-made pepperoni and asks something like: "If Star Wars movies were an animal, which animal would they be?" For some reason, their sophomore friend group takes it seriously, and they discuss it till the rest of lunch.

Mary watched all the Star Wars movies. No, not because it's his favourite, she just had a free evening, and then another one, and another one. It's a long franchise, okay? Unfortunately, all the movies got smashed together in her head and turned into this ten hour long space battle full of lasers, robots and bad special effects.

That's why she says "A snake?", but the bell rings and her answer drowns in its sound.

Today, he is wearing a "I am the king of the unicorns" shirt, Mary just a little mad at the Cupid who had one job, but failed it completely. 

***

When she sees "I put meow in homeowner" t-shirt on campus on her first day of classes, Mary doesn't know if she wants to cry or laugh. Of course, they had to go to the same college, to live in the same dorm. Universe has its own sense of humour and, as it seems, Mary doesn't get it.

To make everything worth — he got taller over the summer after their senior year, he gained some muscles. When he notices Mary and waves at her, she lives through a wonderful moment of believing that she will be smart enough to walk past him, without recognizing. Next moment — she waves back. 

University is full of cool guys, and she has four years to fall for someone new. She will be just fine.

***

After the first semester he finds a girlfriend and Mary is closer than she is ready to admit to bursting in his dorm room and ripping everything apart.

When she sees him kissing his girlfriend in the hallway, she is too mad to read his t-shirt. They have next lesson together so when he walks in with a sloppy grin, a hickey and "Smile if you want me" shirt Mary is ready to set the campus on fire. 

Life goes on after that. They still talk and joke, go to classes together, send pictures of funny animals to each other. He breaks up with his girlfriend after a month and Mary finds it easier to breath. When their biology class has a trip to museum of nature he points at the ugliest exhibits saying:

"Hey, Mary, look! It's you."

They are almost twenty, and she can't believe it. Mery looks how he touches things at the museum, right next to the sign "Do not touch". She closes her eyes and breathes out slowly. Sometimes she has to remind herself why it's all happening. 

Not that she knows why, but she remembers how it started. They met in middle school, he already had his adorable brown curls and light eyes full of silliness. He looked at people as if he pranked them, but they haven't found out yet. He still looks at Mary like that.

On that day in middle school, their PE teacher got really mad when Mary couldn't shoot the ball in the basket for the tenth time in a row. Mary was on the edge of tears, when a boy with brown curls took her hand and led to the outside part of the sports field.

That day she was sitting on the rubberized stadium cover, silently wiping her tears. He was shooting his ball in the basket, not missing a single shot. He talked and talked, so Mary concentrated on his voice, on a rhythmic beat of the ball and on the smell of fall. That was the day when she found out that his name is Jake, and he loves Star Wars. What else could you expect from a thirteen-year-old?

Now that sweet and supportive kid turned into a tall, handsome, incredibly annoying man and Mary can't pinpoint a moment when it happened. They were just hanging at school together, and then "boom!" she can't fall asleep without thinking of him. Like someone up there, snap his fingers and Mary turned into an emotional mess.

***

The first time she gets drunk with her friends, it's all girls in Mary's small dorm room passing a bottle of gin without tonic around. It's past midnight, they are celebrating the end of their first year at college, the room is full of perfume and giggles. Mary never had friends who she could talk to about her… not crush, she is not going to call Jake a "crush". Mary shared her high school friend group with Jake, she was too scared to tell anybody. But those girls don't even know him, so Mary rumbles about his cheeky smile, stupid fashion sense and sci-fi obsession.

Girls listen carefully and then bust into a thunder of advices, Mary can only make out among the noise short phrases as: 

"Is he blind?!" "Girl, you are stunning, fuck this guy, we will find you a better one." "You should go and tell him what piece of a jerk he is!"

Suddenly Mary thinks "Yes, yes I should." and the next moment she is knocking in his dorm room with her fist.

He opens the door with a confused look on his face. Jake is not sleepy, but he is pretty homie with soft pyjama pants and an old t-shirt on. Mary takes a second to read "President of the Justin Bieber Fun Club" before she goes ballistic. 

"You are such an asshole! I hate you, Jake, I hate you so much. My hatе is bigger  than your ignorance. I mean, are you blind, or what? I can't stand your stupid shirts, your cheeky grins, your stunning eyes, your smell of old spice, which you use since ninth grade. I am sick of thinking of you: I wake up and think of you, I go to classes and I see you, you sit next to me and I smell you. It is a constant cycle of Jake-Jake-Jake in my head, and I can't make it stop. But you, oh… You don't see it, you are too busy being funny, being silly. You are too busy living your life, while I fall apart. And…"

She runs out of breath. Jakes stands there silently, Mary knows him for seven years, but she can't figure what is going on in his head. A sudden, panicked "Oh no, what did I do?" thought strikes Mary's body, and she stands there eyes-wide. The door is still in Jake's hands, like he forgot to let it go, like he forgot that he is even holding it.

"So," he starts nervously, "you think my eyes are stunning?"

And Mary thinks, "I'll kill him". A simple thought just like "I guess I will have cereal for breakfast". So simple and clear. But before she can say it out loud, the world turners around, and she can feel something warm on her lips.

Because Cupid sucks at his job, but he is not a bad guy after all. Because she grabs Jake's shirt while kissing him back. Looks like she is about to become a first lady of Justin Bieber Fan Club.