#my exams start on monday and i'm not even halfway through everything i need to know for my first exam

[shesjustthinking]

Bus Boy

Okay, So here's the thing,

there's this guy at my school who catches the same bus as me to and from school. I started catching this bus about three years ago (in grade 9) and we didn't really talk that much, just kinda smiled at each other if we accidently made eye contact. One of my friends was really close to bus boy and another had a crush on him because their star signs were compatible. At the time I had the biggest crush on another guy who caught the same bus as us. And they were both friends. So when the guy I had a crush on caught the bus I would talk to him and by association the bus boy. Over the holidays I talked less to the guy I had a crush on and he got a girlfriend at the beginning of grade 10. I didn't really get over him that year. Meanwhile, I keep catching the bus once a week all through grade 10. Bus boy and I start waving at each other when he gets off the bus. (I discover later that he didn't like me at first, because I lived further away from school than him, lol). During grade 10, we'd converse over our mutual hate for another school that caught the same bus as us - pretty much just rolling our eyes at each other. Mostly it would just be small talk for a couple of minutes while we put our headphones in. Sometimes we'd chat for a bit during lunch as we had heaps of mutual friends.

Then in grade 11, I started catching the bus every morning and afternoon. In the morning we didn't talk whatsoever, we would just squint our eyes at each other in greeting. We shared two classes, Study and Biology, sometimes we'd talk for a little bit about that. Then one afternoon he started talking to me about a video he saw on instagram about robotic and glass eyes. We talked the whole bus ride home, I said goodbye to him instead of waving and he squinted his eyes at me in response. This continues on, we chat all afternoon. The guy I used to like sometimes catches the bus with us, we didn't pay him too much attention. I didn't really realise that I wasn't upset over him anymore. In the morning, bus boy gets off a stop before me with some of his friends I don't really talk too - while its quicker to school, it's a longer walking distance. I prefer waiting until the end of the line at the next stop as it's a shorter walk. One morning he didn't get off with his friends. Instead he got off at my stop and we walked into school together. This continues on all year and slowly but surely we become friends and I start looking for him at his bus stop in the morning rather than the guy I had a crush on in grade 9.

Skip forward a bit further into the year and I go out with two of my friends to lunch.

One of them asks, "What about bus boy? You guys are really close."

I skirt around it, "He's a really good friend."

Unsatisfied the other tells me, "He definitely likes you."

I respond, "that's nice of him" while stirring around my hot chocolate. (Wow go me, totally subtle, very cool about it *face palms*). Up until this point I hadn't really thought about him whatsoever in that way. He was a friend who I'd somehow conveniently slipped into my circle and set up camp. No romance whatsoever at this point. I just knew that I enjoyed talking to him. My friends let it go and I forget about it. Quite literally, I forgot this happened for a bit.

I invited my friends over for a thing at Easter. We ate cupcakes and played Mario cart. He rode his bike to my house and I hugged him goodbye on my front lawn.

Skip forward a little bit more, after we'd finished our last exam in term 3 our whole group decided to go for lunch. We went to get fish and chips. My friend had been telling me about these milkshakes across the road from the fish and chip shop, so naturally I wanted to try one. Bus guy, my milkshake friend, two of my other friends and me head over to the milkshake place. I got my milkshake with little hesitation, bus boy didn't he doesn't really like ice cream. My friends were being indecisive about if they wanted a milkshake or not. Bus boy told me that he needed to be getting home. I told my friends that we we're leaving to catch the bus home because neither me or bus boy wanted to catch the bus by ourselves if we didn't have to. One of my friends winked at me, one of them was annoyed we were leaving so early, the other said something along the lines of "You're leaving together? We'll that's nothing new."

Me and bus boy go home, he gets off at his stop I get off at mine. I remember what they said about him liking me and over analyse everything on the way home and then forget about it again.

That year I make him chocolate cupcakes for his birthday per his request. I was sick on his birthday and couldn't bring get them to him on his actual birthday. I gave them to him the next week and he was very thankful and bashful about it.

Fast forward to my birthday. I invite both my friends from high school and primary school. My two friends from primary school came over earlier to help set up and ask me about my friends who were coming over. I listed them all off and gave a bit of description. I got to bus boy and said, "We catch the bus to school together. He's my best friend." My friends got excited and started teasing me about it. When my friends from high school got to my house, my primary school friends asked them about bus boy. They collectively teased me about him. He arrived and shoved a box of chocolates in my face and said happy birthday. It was pretty funny. I'm fairly certain I went beet red.

We then had our semi-formal toward the end of the year. We spent most of the night chatting to each other.

At the end of the year, our group organised a picnic. I bought him a gift for Christmas and he got embarrassed that he didn't get me anything.

Fast forward to Grade 12. Year 12 started out crazy busy. He started working on Monday and Friday afternoons. My time got chewed up driving to school in the morning to try and get all my hours for my learners license. I began missing out on lunches attending meetings for leadership stuff. We didn't get to speak as much. About halfway through term everyone began talking about our upcoming formal, discussing dates and such ( and by upcoming, I mean four months away).

I went on a camping trip not long after this. My friends started talking about dates.

One of them said to one of the other girls there, "Well you have to come with me to formal because no ones going to ask me." And immediately I thought why am I not being included in this? Who's going to ask me? I must of made my confusion pretty obvious because that she said to me, "You're going to get snatched up by someone..." Again I thought who on earth is she talking about.

And then she says, "Bus boy".

While my brain is quietly exploding inside my head I respond timidly, "That's cute but I don't think he would ask me." Having known him pretty well, I continued "He hates asking people at the shops where stuff is, he's not going to ask me."

One of the other girls asked me, "If he asks you though will you say yes?"

Without thinking about it, I say, "Of course I would. I'll probably spend most of it talking to him anyway."  And then they spent the rest of the weekend teasing me about it.

I began to overthink every interaction I'd had with him, to figure out if he'd ask me and if I really want him too. I came to the conclusion that I would say yes if he asked me but continued to wonder if I should ask him first. I went back to school and everything was relatively normal. Me and bus boy didn't talk about formal. My friends continued to tease me about it. But I realised that something was up when the guy I used to have a crush on in grade 9 asked me, "Has bus boy asked you to formal yet?" 

I was positively confused, we barely talked anymore but he was asking me about this? I responded, "No he hasn't said anything. This is bus boy he's not going to. Have you mentioned it to him?" 

He then told me, "I've talked to him about it. I said that he should ask you. But (the girl who used to like him based on their star sign compatibility) was thinking about asking him too. Bus boy said he'd say no."

My friend who used to have a crush on him, asked me later at lunch, "I was going to ask bus boy to formal as friends but I think he'd be better off going with you..." 

Picking  up on her suggestive tone I asked, "You think as more than friends?"  

She responds "Well yeah, you talk to him a lot more than I do." I'm was confused by all off this sudden talk about bus boy that I went home and tell my mum. We had a bit of a laugh about it and she said, "I think he'll ask you."

In the middle of this, my primary school friend posted a snapchat about formal dates, and I responded saying that I can't wait to meet up and tell her about my tragic situation. We organised to meet up the week later with our other friend.

The next Tuesday, me and my friend got called away from lunch to do house captain things. When we got back to lunch, I ha only just sat back down, my friend hadn't even sat down yet before bus boy walked over to me and said "Will you go to formal with me as friends?" It kind of just spewed out of his mouth all of a sudden.

And I was SHOCKED. I didn't think he was going to ask me, and I had just sat down and it was so abrupt, and my face just went bright red and my heart just left the building and I just said "aww okay". He turned and walked away as soon as I'd said anything and I watched him walk towards his friends who began to tease him. I turned back towards my friends and said "we'll that happened" and they laughed at me and cooed.

One of them asked "Is that a yes?"

I just blushed deeper and said "yeah that's a yes". All of them were looking at me, and I was just so shocked.

Another one of my friends said something similar to, "I knew it. I knew he was going to ask you. I've been rooting for this since like grade 10." And I wasn't really thinking anything in my head. I was just trying to figure out if it had all really happened. When lunch ended he stormed off to his locker. My friend walking next to me said, "That was so cute. I'm so happy for you guys. You'll have to like match his tie to your dress and get a corsage and it's just so cute." I just laughed at her, to overwhelmed to respond properly.

That afternoon we caught the bus together and avoided talking about formal altogether. I smiled really big at him when I saw him and one of his friends who sometimes catches the bus (not the guy I had a crush on) tried to take a photo of us and put hearts around it. Bus boy got pretty embarrassed - it was pretty cute.

I told my mum Friday afternoon and she started teasing me about it too. (Some mother she is. I've never seen her resemble a teenage girls quite so much).

On that Friday, I told that whole story again to my primary school friends and they cooed at me and asked me if I liked him. I told them, "I don't want to get my hopes up in case it goes wrong. I'm going to feel it out first and then decide whether I should do something about it or not."

After all of that, me and bus boy still haven't talked about it very much. It feels as if we both know there's an elephant in the corner and we're not addressing it - just staring at each other more intensely than usual. We have started to talk more outside of school but that's about it. I want to talk to him about it but I feel like there's no way I can do it without saying that I'm infatuated with him. I want to talk about it in person but with no one else around to overhear. We're both very personal and pretty shy. I wouldn't want to make him uncomfortable. Every time I've come up with the dialogue and the scenario to start talking about it, I've lost the courage or we get torn away from each other by work or school or friends.

I'm over telling myself that I don't like him or that I can't be excited over the fact that he might be interested in me. I miss him when I'm not talking to him, I enjoy his company and it makes me feel pretty fantastic when I make him laugh so unexpectedly. Sometimes I wonder if he still gets off at that last stop in the morning and walks by himself into school or if he gets off with his friends.

I really like him, I'm fairly certain he likes me too but I just don't know how to tell him without fucking everything up. He's just the best.

This has been an emotional word vomit. I hope I don't regret this.

xx