Weekly Writing Challenge: It Happened in a Second

It had never happened to me before. Not like this.

I couldn’t believe it. I had been so successful in avoiding it. I didn’t really see the need for it. I didn’t see the point.

I’d always see these ditzy girls pretending to know about sports and laughing that fake hyena laugh just to get close to one of my friends. I didn’t understand what that was about. These guys were like my brothers. These guys were “the guys,” and me being the tomboy that I was … I was one of the guys too.  I had always been. So I never understood the ditzy girls.

And then it hit me. I don’t know how it happened, but it did.

And it didn’t take a week, a day, or an hour.

It took a second. Maybe less than that. Maybe it was a split second. I don’t know if that’s faster, but it felt faster. Like speeding.

It didn’t slowly creep up on me. It pounced. It wasn’t a pitter-pat. It was a BOOM-BOOM.

Jake Ryan

I saw him and it hit me. The BOOM-BOOM. I had recognized this special effect. I had only had it once before with Rafa, but this time was a little different. It was louder and there were more butterflies. The butterflies were in the pit of stomach. It was the Jake Ryan–Sixteen Candles–Somekind of Wonderful type of BOOM BOOM. There was no music in the background when it happened. No Thompson Twins, Tears for Fears, or Peter Gabriel. Just silence and slow motion.

He walked across the basketball court in a t-shirt, blue jeans, and white high top Nikes with the blue swoosh. I locked into his Ryan Gosling eyes as he smiled and said hello.

That was it.

I had lost it.

It only took a second. A split second, but it had changed my life. Love. Head-over heels-kissing-in-the-rain-first-love-kind of love.

I hadn’t become one of those ditzy girls, but I sure understood it. I was never the same.

Advertisement