How Romantic

              It happened my junior year, about two years ago to date, at Highland High School. I was in gym class playing basketball with some of my friends. Before long, we grabbed the attention of nearly the entire class who then joined us. It was fun and a good time, as always. My crush was on the opposing team, Chris. I liked him, he just didn’t know it yet, and I did everything I could to get him to notice me. He was among the first guys to talk to me, mostly “how is your day?” or the like, so it felt good to be noticed. No matter how shy I was (and I was VERY shy, he would always ask me, every day, even if he didn’t always get an answer. Sometimes he would just get a smile or a nod). In class, he always cared about what I had to say, even if I wasn’t talking to him directly. 

                Well about ten minutes into the game, I decided to throw myself out there a little more and get the basketball from my opponents. As normal, someone had the ball and I went to steal it. However, as I was running towards him, he moved at the last minute, revealing Chris who I hadn’t noticed standing behind him. It was too late! I couldn’t stop in time and ended up slamming myself into him. Chris is significantly bigger than I am, and didn’t move whereas I on the other hand, bounced back 5 feet where I twisted my ankle, and if that wasn’t bad enough, another classmate stepped on it, breaking my foot. Everyone was laughing at me, thinking I was okay. It wasn’t until Chris noticed that I wouldn’t move that anyone realized I was hurt. 

               The teams were getting ready to start again when Chris approached me asking “are you okay?” I just looked at him and said “mentally, yes. Physically, I don’t think so.” He then picked me up to take me to the office, where the gym teacher, Ms. Heimlich, stopped us. “Let her walk, she’s okay,” she said so Chris put me down which resulted in me falling immediately. Chris said “it’s okay, I got her” and proceeded to carry me to the office where I waited for my mom to get me. I was in a lot of pain, and tried so hard not to cry, I didn’t want Chris to feel bad. He saw that I was hurting and smiled at me saying “at least we know you can take a hit. Any other girl would be bawling right now,” which brought a smile to my face. And this is the story I tell people when they ask me how my boyfriend and I met, because this was the first time Chris and I actually had a conversation.  This is also the story I tell people when I tell them no to a game of basketball.