Simone

I remember high school by boys.

Freshman year, I liked so many boys. A new boy every month; it was invigorating. I knew nothing would come of my crushes—I was too afraid. It was OK. I was 15, which made everything excusable. I had three more years to develop real feelings and have them reciprocated and live experiences that would later be stories in my novels and screenplays. What I had was enough; the blush of my cheeks after hallway interactions and the cracked deliveries of returned hellos were constant reminders of my youth and vitality, as were the blood pumping to orifices and my heart at the sight of someone special. And there was Harry Styles. I loved him. I read fan fiction every night before bed because my new house was scary and only thoughts of his heat radiating next to mine could lull me sleep. I built a shrine to him in my room. I thought about him more than anyone.

Sophomore year was spent kissing the same two boys over and over again in a pattern and going crazy thinking about what they might have said to their friends about it or thought of me. To offer perspective, I still had braces at 16 and very low self-esteem. I had a compulsion to be validated by others. I decided Harry Styles wasn’t cute anymore, largely because he was in a boy band on the verge of irrelevance.

Junior year I entered a civil agreement of emotionless fun with an older boy of good standing, and was maybe attached (I’m only beginning to be truthful with myself about this). I rarely wrote about it because once said boy told me he’d been high and read everything I’d ever written on the internet ever. There was no structured end to things, because it’s 2016 and things don’t work that way anymore. I thought about boys maybe as much as I did freshman year. Sometimes they were specific—obsessive re-evaluation of a conversation; other times broad—wondering where and who I’d be involved with in three days or two months or a year.

Senior year, I have bigger and more important things to focus on than boys. The school feels smaller and less full of opportunity. For this reason, I avoid boys. I feel independent, and a little bit alone, but I’m my best self in solitude. Except I don’t know really. I feel like shit. (This is unrelated to boys, more to do with my academic aptitude, or lack thereof.)

Harry Styles was on the cover of a magazine because his boy band is now irrelevant and he has to establish himself as an unaccompanied star. My friend sent me the photos, and this great feeling came back, of youth and vitality and complete freedom. A displacement of all my real feelings, romantic and sexual, into a photo of a celebrity that I’ll probably never meet. It erased all sinking sentiment of being unsure or nervous or, worse, invested. It was just me, and the pictures in the magazine, designed to sell me teen idols and Gucci loafers. ♦