His name was John and we were in tenth grade. He had soft hair and an easygoing smile, one that went kind of crooked when he laughed. I remember him as funny, in a way that was silly, goofy, cuddly. He was the kind of person who, when I was struggling in math class, even though he knew that I was smarter than he was, offered to look at my homework for me when he saw that I was nervous to turn it in. It’s easy, and it’s clichéd, but I fell hard and fast.
We started talking, more and more each day. He asked for my number; I was ecstatic. I’d stay up an extra hour or two to talk to him, talking in hushed tones on the phone so that my parents wouldn’t hear, or texting back and forth, swapping photos of cute baby animals. We’d walk out of school together after our last class. On the last day of school, he gave me a hug, said that he hoped to see me this summer. I’m sure that I blushed, and said that I hoped to see him too. We parted ways, and I stepped on clouds.
Summer came, and the days once imprisoned by long hours of class were freed. The nights got shorter, the days got warmer, and the cicadas came out at sunset. I got my first job. I went to dance class. I spent my days off lounging in the pool. And every spare moment I had, I tried to talk to John.
Something about summer was different. Maybe that’s where my mistake was, assuming that the status quo would stay the same. He began to disappear. The texts that would summon a response so quickly were gone. If I called, I got his voicemail on the other end. I did not see him. I got no reason for his gradual disappearance, and my heart slowly began to feel like a deflated balloon sitting inside my chest.
With a little bit of borrowed courage from a friend, I tried to call him out on it.
“Hey, I liked you. What happened? Where did you go?"
The fight that ensued was one of the most dramatic moments of my 16th year. I don’t remember most of it. He probably said something about working a lot. I probably told him I worked, too. I wanted him to let me know if he was just busy. I wanted to be sure that he still cared. My gut told me that there was something wrong; he was so defensive. Maybe he decided that he didn’t like me after all; maybe he had met someone else. Either way, all I wanted to know was what had changed.
What I got in response was two words: “You’re crazy.”
Keep in mind that this was not the good kind of “you’re crazy.” John’s “you’re crazy” was not his way of dismissing my fears. It was not, “You’re crazy,” followed by an unspoken, “I’ve just been busy, there’s nothing wrong, I’m crazy about you and you’re crazy to think otherwise.” No. In that moment, those two words were a brick wall slammed down in front of me, a way of shutting down the conversation. It was a way to shut me up, a way to make me question my own rationality, so that he wouldn't have to have a difficult conversation. After all, no one wants to be the "crazy" girlfriend we see stereotyped in the media, or the "psycho" that we hear our guy friends talk about. That’s why it works so well.
I wasn’t crazy. I was hurt and confused and 16. And yet those words still stick with me. Today, every time I’m hurt, or confused, or angry, I hold myself back, wondering what will happen if I let my feelings loose. Every time I need to express a negative emotion, I give it a preface: “Maybe I’m crazy, but,” Because someone did not take the time to understand, because of two words someone said to me when I was 16, I now second-guess myself every time I need to say something that matters. I’m now afraid to open up, to say what I feel, for fear of being misunderstood, distanced, and ostracized.
Maybe I'm crazy, but that's not OK. I deserve better than that. We all do.
