Falling In Love

• Anna Gavan, Grade 10
• Short Story
• 2020

“I woke up one brisk morning with my frothy doona cocooned around me; I wiggled and squirmed like a worm until I had escaped. I leapt out of bed, twirled upon one foot whilst throwing my uniform on and sprinting out the door, so fast that I nearly left my worn-out school bag on my bed. I dove onto the bus and sank into the hot, sweaty, leather seats. Vines of nerves grew inside me. It was day one of year eight…I had waited for this day for, frankly, eight years. As the bus came to a gradual holt in front of the school people flooded out from behind me, I stepped onto the pavement, inhaled and exhaled and floated to the side to watch upon the tsunami travel out of the bus. It was interesting, people hated school, yet they always rushed to get there though I loved school and most of the time, I was late. The ding of the bell startled me, rang through my body, I took off. My bag slightly bounced up and down off my back, the loose pebbles crunched under my stomp and my overgrown hair flew through the wind like waves on the ocean’s surface. Period one and two rolled over, and morning tea disappeared, but period three I’ll never forget. I slammed my bag against the port rack and took in my surroundings. There he stood, in central focus of my eyesight, a tall, tanned, blue eyed man with a smile to light up the world. His presence sent chills up and down my spine. Over the seventy minutes of period three I couldn’t divert my eyes off him, they were super glued to him. You know that warm feeling you grasp when you achieve something you’ve always worked for? The feeling that your really where your meant to be? Well every day I got that, every day I attended English class with him, my heart skipped a beat or two, my hands shivered, and all logic flew out the window. It was like receiving Christmas gifts repeatedly, or that rush performers sense as they stand behind the stage curtains. Progressively, I built up just enough confidence to speak to him; “So do you have social media” …he didn’t. I felt so small in this moment, as if he had complete control over me. I hardly spoke to him after that but by the end of the year, on the seventh last day of year eight, I spotted him sitting alone at lunch. I forced my confidence to measure out just enough to sit with him then and for my remainder four years of schooling. I felt that warm feeling in my heart everyday in school, and I still feel it now. Who knew that six months later I would stand in front of him and personally ask him to be my boyfriend, and who knew that nine years later I would be standing here in front of him saying…I do”?