It gives me the butterflies, gives me away

I sat behind J in English class. It was my junior year and she was my crush. I projected so much onto her, but I hardly knew her. This was my first encounter with poetic beauty, poetic desire. I was awkward and unsure in the face of it and navigated the process of courting her in a drunken, loping manner. She swam in my head tirelessly, but I told no one about her. I didn't want anyone to talk me out of, or into - I'm not sure which - asking her out. I was eventually talked into it by Pete The Greek.

Pete The Greek (I did not anoint him with that name) was a coworker of mine in the produce section at the grocery store. He was a year or two older than me and  heavy with a machismo that was endearing only because it was inauthentic and not quite convincing. During a quiet shift one night, he got it out of me that I was smitten with J, who worked in the store as a cashier. "So go ask her out", he said, as if it were as simple as that. He badgered me with increased intensity throughout the rest of our shift. When I finally told him I'd do it, I wasn't under the impression he wanted me to do it that night, but that was exactly what he expected. "Why put it off? Just get it over with. Don't be a pussy.", he said. I wanted to get away from him, but underneath I was grateful for his prodding.

Later, I found myself outside near the entrance with J and Pete The Greek. I talked a bit with J and discovered Pete had gone back inside. Time to act. In my green produce coat and hat, I bit through the tongue of my nerves and asked J out on a date. She said maybe. At the time I thought maybe was better than no, but I've since learned it's often better to receive a definitive answer over one that offers up a cloudy menu of frustration and uncertainty.

In class the following day, I asked J if she'd come to a decision. She told me she had, and it was one I had not entertained. "Here's the thing, T (her best friend and our coworker) really likes you and I'd feel weird if I got in the way of that." I didn't know how to respond. I barely interacted with T and was not attracted to her. I wondered if J had made up a story so she wouldn't have to let me down directly. It didn't matter; whatever notion I had of us being together had been hung by the neck. Dead, extinguished.

It wasn't until a couple of years after graduation that I thought of J again. I was on my way to work and spotted her walking towards me on the other side of the street. I was assailed with old feelings and  tried to sort through them before they overwhelmed me. After that, I saw her frequently on my way to work. She had gone from being a memory shelved in the past to to suddenly ubiquitous.

I felt like the Universe was playing a cruel trick on me, like I was being toyed with. It was a lonely time for me; I had just gone through a protracted and painfully ambiguous relationship with K and my heart was young and raw and wounded. One day, after seeing J again, it became too much and I went into my room and wept into my pillow at the unfairness of it all. I was a stormy sea.

J reared up in my life in a different way. I was in the middle of my shift at the restaurant and heard the bar manager mention her name to someone she was on the phone with. I listened intently, puzzling over how she knew J. It didn't take long before it became evident that J was seeing my manager's son.

About a week later, I made a discovery. The woman I'd been seeing walking along the road was not J at all. I can't recall exactly how I figured it out, but I did. I felt foolish, the victim of another cosmic trick that served to rekindle the flame of longing I thought had been stamped out. I should note that this case of mistaken identity was not the result of my seeing J in every woman. As I said above, she hadn't been on my mind for a couple of years. No, this woman shared more than a passing resemblance with J. I remember thinking while smiling ruefully that I may as well ask this girl out - she was close enough. I didn't, of course, but I tell you, after re-watching Vertigo last night, I 'm glad I avoided that psychological rabbit's hole.

About a month later, I saw J, not her imposter, for the first time since high school. I had been having an awful day. I had just totaled my car and consequently was forced to abandon the idea of going to school that semester. Sean and I went to the movies to see JFK that night  to get my mind off the day's events. As we sat waiting for the movie to start, I saw J a few rows in front of me, sitting next to her boyfriend, my manager's son. Not a banner day.

That was the last time I saw J. Years later, with the advent of Facebook, J came back into my life. Not through a friend request, but upon viewing the friend's list of a high school acquaintance. She was still beautiful, now a wife and mother. No feelings were rekindled, I had moved on.

The other day, I saw a picture of her with a blond woman who looked familiar, but barely. It was a glossy, heavily touched up, professional shot. There was a comment below from J, thanking the photographer for taking the shot, adding it was a great representation of their love. Their love? I looked at the picture more closely. The two women were seated close to each other and were touching, but nothing in the shot suggested something amorous.

The photographer, who graduated with us, provided a link to a blog post that detailed J and the vaguely familiar looking woman's coming out. Amorous, indeed. Another shot posted today cemented the nature of their relationship. There they stood, standing in the middle of some street, holding hands and kissing. I figured out who the other woman was: it was none other than T, the best friend of J, and the one who ostensibly had a crush on me.

I read the photographer's blog entry. She detailed the events that led up to J and T's pairing. Back in their Junior year of high school, they had become so close their parents had taken measures to separate them. Their burgeoning love for each couldn't be quelled, however; a class trip to Italy provided the environment for them to express their feelings unhindered. After that, they went their separate ways. They lost touch and led the lives of straight women, each marrying and having children. Recently they met up through Facebook, and discovered their love for each other, long dormant, was still present. They plan to wed.

After all I went through with J (most of which she was mercifully unaware of ), I have to laugh at how it all turned out. She was a lesbian the whole time I was swooning over her, fancying sweet images of her and I braided in everlasting love. Maybe the Universe had done me a favor after all.