A Crowded Place

Chapter 3: Boyfriend?

If you had asked me a year ago: 'Liv, do you have a boyfriend?', my answer would have been 'Heck no!' Or 'What are you talking about? Get out of here!'.

But now, I'm not so sure as to what to respond.

You see, there's this guy in my year called Aaron. If I'm being honest, I've been obsessed with him for quite a while now. No, not a while, years. Ever since I attended one of his solo performances in the auditorium at school in grade 7. Duh. What other way is there to fall in love for a 'basic' girl like me?

What drew me to him was more than his prodigal violin skills, or his charisma and charm and his ability to make me laugh. It was his passion for music, which became to apparent to me when I saw him performing on that stage.

I seldom ever saw that kind of passion for anything in anyone around me, and I could relate because my feelings for music were similar. I felt understood, finally, by someone else. Even more so than by my parents, who are both music-lovers but with too much of a vision for music as a career as opposed to music as a hobby, which was my idea.

After the performance that night, I'd always kept an eye out for Aaron, along the corridors or in the Performing Arts Centre. However, I constantly felt like a stalker because Aaron didn't even seem to know of my existence, and he had never as much as glanced in my direction in orchestra rehearsals or when we passed each other around the campus.

So that was the situation between us two (or so I thought). That is, until one day when I was in 9th grade, I overheard one of Aaron's mates talking about me.

'...he told me about this girl Liv - no, Liv Garner - yeah. He thinks she's pretty. I know right! Something about her music too - yeah, she's the violin girl, isn't she?' And that was about all I heard before I sprinted into the girls' bathrooms with a pounding heart and hid there for the rest of the afternoon.

I was certain they were talking about me and Aaron. But - how could it be? He had never as much as cast a glance in my direction before. To be fair though, he had seen me perform a couple of times, but that was it! Did he know that I liked him too?

Over the next 2 years, we played what I like to call 'a game of hide-and-seek' with each other. Neither of us wanted to make the first move, even though it was pretty obvious that there was something blooming between us. I was mortified at the thought of having to make the first move, but then again, school would already be over in a year - if there was any time to make a move, I had to do it soon.

So during the summer holidays leading up to 12th grade, I DM'ed Aaron via Instagram, and we pretty much just hit it off from there.