The crush was not a lightning strike. It was a leak. Slow, then a flood.
It started innocently. All teenage friendships have a headquarters, and ours was the C’s basement, a dank paradise of old couches, a PlayStation, and the faint, permanent smell of popcorn. Diane was the atmosphere above us. She would descend the stairs occasionally, carrying a bowl of chips or asking if we needed anything. For years, I saw her the way you see wallpaper—present, but not observed. my first love is my friend’s mom
And you do live with it. You fold it into the shape of who you become. You let it teach you tenderness. And then, finally, you let it go. The crush was not a lightning strike
One evening, the geometry collapsed. Jason had a late practice. Diane asked if I wanted to stay for dinner anyway. Just the two of us. We ate spaghetti on the back porch as the sun bled orange. She talked about her own youth—a marriage too early, dreams deferred, a life lived for her son. She wasn’t a mom then. She was just Diane. A person. Lonely and beautiful and sad in the exact way that a fifteen-year-old boy mistakes for an invitation. It started innocently
The guilt was a separate, uglier animal. At night, I would lie in my own bed and replay the day’s smallest interactions: her hand brushing mine passing the salt, her leaning over my shoulder to see my phone screen. Then, immediately, I would see Jason’s face. Jason, who had shared his French fries with me in third grade. Jason, who had defended me from a bully in seventh. Jason, whose trust was the very floor I was walking on. Loving his mother felt like stealing from him, a theft so profound I had no language for it.
Then, one summer, I observed.
