The following story is entirely fiction. All characters are age 18 or older.
Special thanks to Marie Writer for editing and grammar correction!
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I don't know what I was thinking. Of course it didn't go well. I mean, I was seven years older than she was. What did I expect?! Still, I had gotten hooked on a girl that I wasn't able to have, and I think that means I'm allowed to plead temporary insanity. Before this gets out of hand, let me explain.
Sara was a friend of my younger brother's, and a stunning young woman. I had only known her for a year, but in that time, I was hopelessly enthralled. At first, I had felt bad about it. She wasn't even 18 yet when we first met. Yet, "young woman" fully applied to her, even then. Long brown hair, about 5'2", beautiful eyes, with a slim figure. She is the kind of girl who poses for fashion pictures without even meaning to. She
had
posed for a few fashion pictures, too, since her sister was an amateur photographer. It was all social media profile pictures and stuff, but I had downloaded all of them to my own hard drive as well.
By now, I'm sure you get the vibe that I'm a creepy stalker. Well, yes and no. I admit the difference in age between me and Sara meant that I was less than forthcoming about how I felt. It wasn't any help that I was essentially a "friend of a friend", even if that friend was related to me. The odds were stacked against me, and I knew it. She was just so damned beautiful, and I could not keep my eyes off her. I resigned myself to the knowledge that if anyone ever found out how much I liked her, I'd seem like a stalker. I hid my obsession rather well, and managed not to go overboard. No shrines, no secret life-size dolls, nothing that would indicate that I had anything more than a star-crossed obsession on Sara.
Overall, I had a decent balancing act going on. Until today, at her 18th birthday party. Sara invited me, too, which was nice of her. There were only a couple other folks my age there, since most of Sara's friends would be from her school and such. It seemed pretty innocuous.
Sara, however, was wearing a knockout red dress. She had shorts or something on underneath, too, so I really should not have been so affected. This was the first time I'd seen her wear something straight out of her glamor shots in real life, though. She was perfectly modest, and just so unaware of how hot she looked. Not even her friends seemed to really notice, and that infuriated me. The cretins! Unrefined slobs! Nobody was appreciating just how much my angel was shining! Okay, that last one was really creepy. Sorry.
I had to tell her how much she lit up the room. Do you know how hard it is to have any semblance of privacy at a girl's birthday party, when you're trying to talk to the birthday girl? It wasn't easy, and hopefully it didn't look as awkward as it felt. Either way, I managed to meet her in the hallway and...I blubbered something stupid. I don't want to remember what I said, and I'm certainly not going to tell
you
. The gist of it was that she looked beautiful, I loved her, etc. Yeah, great. So much for the balancing act!
To her credit, Sara didn't outright embarrass me. She could have done a lot worse, things like calling her friends over or something. I know I was certainly cringing, waiting for something like that. Instead, she sighed and rolled her eyes. I was too old, of course. I did not talk to her very often, so she didn't know me very well. However, she said, I wasn't the only one who had been stupid in a similar fashion that day.
Wait, what? Better not be one of the boys her own age! That little...it wasn't a fair fight! There must have been a look on my face or something, because Sara actually did laugh, then. She reached up a bit, placed one hand on either side of my head (oh, the joy!)...and turned it. I was now looking directly down the hallway, to where a girl from the "older siblings club" was just clicking the shutter on her camera. FLASH!
Now, look. I'm 5'8" or so. Average looks, but not terrible. Normally I don't care if I get my photo taken. Normally, nobody needs to take my picture, either. Some small part of my panicking brain drily told me this would
not
be my best-looking photo ever. Before I could panic fully, it occurred to me that Sara's hands were still holding my head in the direction of this other girl. "She did the same thing," was what I heard. "Go talk to her." With that, Sara let go of me and walked away, down the hall.
I actually sorta knew this other girl. Stephanie, I think it was. Roughly the same age as me, shoulder-length auburn hair that she dyed red, and closer to 5'6". She was nice enough, and I think I'd shared a class or two with her before in community college. She was dressed in a hoody sweater and jeans. The camera in her hands was still a potential threat, but maybe I didn't need to panic just yet. She snapped another picture or two, but she seemed focused on Sara, not me.
Sara reached the end of the hallway, turned, rolled her eyes, gestured in a way that suggested, "See what I mean?" and walked back into the main party area. I badly wanted to believe there was a little sashay in that walk, but I also knew I wasn't thinking very straight. Talk to Stephanie. Right. At the very least, I can make sure she doesn't have some sort of incriminating evidence of my madness. I walked to the end of the hallway myself.
"Um..." I started brilliantly. Stephanie was faster. "Let me guess. Too old? Doesn't know you well enough?"
"How did you know?"
"I was standing here, from start to finish."