I was sixteen years old.  I was crushing. Hard.  And it was just not cute.   In fact... it was downright humiliating.   No, actually, it was the worst thing ever.  It was just plain awful. 

     You see the thing was, I’d known him since I was nine.  Me in pigtails proclaiming him one moment to be an icky boy, and the next instant chasing him around the yard because he told me I was a girl with cooties.  It’s not hard to imagine is it?  But before you go there- let me just say right now-this isn’t one of those girl and boy next-door neighbors finally realizing eternal love crap that you see on Dawson’s Creek.  Because one, I’m not that sappy.  And two, he and I were never friends to begin with.  So please remove all thoughts of “best friends that one day want to be more” out of your head this instant.  Totally not happening here.  You see, the boy in question was, heck is, my older brother’s stupid friend.  He was never mine.  So, so, so, not mine.  We’re talking about someone who showed up one afternoon at my house after school, and became the brother I knew I never wanted.  I already had one to deal with.  I didn’t need another one.  But lucky me, as fate would have it, at nine years old I was blessed with one more.  Joy! 

     He and my brother together were nightmares come true.  At an early age they got it in their thick skulls, that because they were that whole year older than me, they had the right to do whatever in the hell they wanted.  All those stupid pranks, the name-calling, the snake (I am still traumatized.), the no girls allowed to play shit…were basically 7 years of dealing.  And let me tell you-there was no love lost.  None.  This girl may have been wearing a dress, but I wasn’t a pushover.  Everything they did to me they got back tenfold.  I harassed.  I teased mercilessly.  I bantered.  I screamed.  I was the annoying, stereotypical, little sister tag-a-long.  And as far as he was concerned I wouldn’t, and couldn’t shut up ever.  And that was probably the absolute most horrible part of this whole thing. 

     There I was at sixteen, crushing so badly that I became a walking mute, a Total 180 as far as attitude.  The furthest you could get from initial point A to current point B.  I turned shades of red every time we were in the same room.  I couldn’t form coherent sentences.  I’d play with my hair like a total ditz.  I couldn’t look him in the eye.  No more name calling or silly faces.  I rarely messed with them anymore.  And worst of all?  I was avoiding him like the plague. 

     My brother blew off my indifference as the next stage in being “girly”.  He thought that my sudden behavior change was due to the fact that I had finally graduated out of my training bra.   Forgo the fact that I hadn’t worn a training bra since I was fourteen.  Basically, in other words he blamed PMS.  Obviously, my brother has never understood women.  And let me tell you, it is just one more reason why I should have had a sister instead of a stupid brother. 

     But anyhow...

     Basically that whole year I was sixteen, it went on like that.  Me hoping my brother's best friend wouldn’t be around, and wishing that he was at the same time.  And by the time I was about seventeen, that was the big deal right there.  That year, he usually wasn’t around goofing off with my brother.  In fact, he hadn’t been for a while.  And that entire concept should have freed me from this crush.  But it didn’t.  It only made it worse. 

     You see… I may have forgotten to mention one small tiny detail about my loser brother’s best friend.  He joined a band a couple years back.  And a couple of years after that-they made it big, or rather blew up.  So because of that, though he tours the world promoting his albums, blah, blah, blah, and I can elude him physically, technically he’s everywhere.   Thus nowadays, whereas I never saw him till he got back, I see him all the time.  In fact, I now see and hear him more then I ever did in my entire life.  Uh-huh.  Escape him my ass.  Radio.  Television.  Perfect timing I’ll say.  They did great things at subsiding my crush.  Not. 

     Up until my sixteenth birthday, I didn’t understand why girls screamed and fainted for him.  He was…him.  And that was just… ugh.  Then I actually became one of those screaming and fainting girls because one day he smiled in my direction and I liked it.  The difference?  Those girls and me?  I of course was, and will always be, that bratty pig tailed girl to him.  I’ll never be a potential anything.  They can at least flirt with him.  My flirting is construed as well…me being me.  And that doesn’t help much in my plight does it?  Story of my life! 

     And so...

     Eighteen rolled around.  My blushes finally got under control.  Nineteen.  I could actually speak when spoken to.  By the time I’d turned twenty I’d gotten used to it.  But suffice it to say, our relationship was nothing like the freedom of those pre-crush days. 

     And so now…here I am. 

     I’m twenty-one years old.  And I’m still in love with Nick Carter.  The jerk.

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