It's Not Love...Or Is It?

Part 1 of 5

What happened? How did I get to this point? Here, laying in my bed at...2:36 in the morning. I just don't understand. Was it something I said? Things were so much simpler last year. Even a year before then, when we first met.

Her name is Karina. Yes, that's spelled right. Apparently it's pretty popular, but I've never seen Karina spelled with an 'k.' Not sure where it originates from but it's not Mexican, which she is. I give her shit about that 'K' sometimes but it's all fun. My nickname for her is K actually. It seems to make her laugh. Her laugh... I'm going to back up to two years before, when we first met.

Well, we didn't technically meet but it's the first time I saw her.

Two and a half years before today I began high school. In my first period, Biology, the first day of school, I was overjoyed my good friend Alex was in that class. And it was being taught by my science teacher from a year before at middle school. Things were pretty good. Honestly, if she hadn't told me she was in that class, I would have never looked back to that time and realize that she sat two rows behind me for a semester. But thinking about it now, I'm kind of pissed that I didn't talk to her sooner.

Anyway, our story begins in the summer after freshman year. I had this teacher, in freshman year, who was pretty cool. He was a White Sox fan like me, he and I sometimes talked baseball, a cool guy. The only problem is, he was a pretty bad teacher. His test were hard because he barely taught the lessons. Long story short, I failed the first semester of Algebra 1.

Fortunately I got switched out to another teacher for the second semester. Unfortunately, I was behind the class because of my teacher. I ended up failing second semester as well. Well I didn't "fail" either semesters, but I got a D+ and needed a C- or better to advance to the next math level, Geometry, so I had to take both semesters of Algebra in the summer.

How summer school worked is there are two sessions, a.m. and p.m. How it worked out was I had semester 1 in the a.m. and semester 2 in the p.m. That semester 2 class was the same one Karina was in.

On the first day of summer school, I didn't notice her because I didn't notice her in Bio, so how could I now? So I sat with a friend who was a sophomore, going into junior year, trying to beef up his algebra grade and get more mentally ready for Algebra 2 after a year off with Geometry, which is something a lot of kids did. She sat on the other side of the room with a kid named Johnny.

Johnny and I were acquaintances in middle school, never really that "friend" level. We didn't have any classes that freshman year, so we didn't talk. So during a break - we went on breaks because each session was about two and a half hours - when passing by his desk to go walk the halls with Shawn, the kid I sat with, I'd say 'hey' or whatever to Johnny.

One day, Shawn didn't show. So I sat by myself in the back, with Johnny and Karina in the front on the opposite side of the room. I didn't really know what to do during break, so I went and sat with Johnny and Karina. Johnny and I talked a little bit, but then she said something. She knew my name, so naturally I felt bad when I didn't know hers.

Being confused as to how she knows me, she pointed out that we had the same Bio class. That's when it hit me. Looking back at it now, considering Shawn and I aren't really close friends, or at least as close Karina and I are... looking back, I regret sitting with Shawn on the other side the next day and the rest of the summer.

So summer ended, I passed both classes so I advanced to Geometry, which wasn't any better, but I'll get to that. Fast forward the summer to fall, the first day of my sophomore year.

I had English seventh hour, the second to last in the day. In that class, I knew a few people, but nothing really close if you know what I mean. There was this one kid named Anthony. I can't remember how we started talking but we were acquaintances before that year - I think we started talking freshman year, but who really knows - so before the bell rang I'd sit next to him and we'd talk.

Believe it or not, but Karina was in that class too. And again I didn't notice her. But that changed about a week into the year.

She was kind of friends with Anthony too, so one day before the bell rang she came up to us and we all started talking. I felt bad because I had forgot her name - I'm not good with names don't judge. For about three or four days I avoided calling her name because I didn't know it. Eventually I figured it out without her knowing I had forgotten it to begin with, but I still felt like shit.

All was well that first semester. I'd get to class early because the period I had before was close. Karina would already be there because her class was closer. I'd sit with her and start chit chat. Anthony would join us usually when I was running out of things to say and save me from an awkward situation with the first girl who actually talked to me.