When I was in sixth grade I had a huge secret crush on a boy in the eighth grade, I didn’t even tell my best friends, for fear they would tease.
The day after the last day of school the good kids got to go to Santa Cruz for the day. My crush was going too and I was so excited!
The day started with the excitment of getting to go to the Boardwalk and the beach with no parents, even the long bus ride couldn’t dampen our spirits.
I spotted my crush and we ran into each other a couple of times. Then, as if by magic, we ended up spending the whole day together. We splashed in the ocean, laughing over his lack of a bathing suit as he played in rolled up jeans in the surf. We rode rides and ate dinner. He won me a small stuffed animal.
We rode home on the bus in silence, everyone sleepy after an exhausting day of playing hard and having fun. As the bus got closer and closer to school the tension in me mounted. What would he say, what would he do? With our parents calling us to our respective cars as we stepped off the bus he found a pen and wrote his number in my hand and mine in his.
We never called. Fate had brought us together for one magical day, more than that was not allowed.