Crushes

I didn’t fancy boys my own age. I fancied teachers. Friends’ dads. Men who smelled like authority and looked like safety.

At fourteen I thought this was sophistication. I thought I was mature. I thought wanting a thirty-five-year-old geography teacher meant I was ahead of the curve while the other girls were still drawing hearts on pencil cases over some spotty lad called Josh.

I wasn’t mature. I was damaged. But damaged and mature look almost identical when you’re fourteen and nobody’s taught you the difference.

The wiring had been crossed so early I didn’t know it was crossed. When the first thing you learn about physical closeness comes from someone who shouldn’t have been teaching you, your brain builds desire on a broken foundation. And everything you build on top of it leans.

I leaned towards older men. Towards power. Towards anyone who looked like they might protect me, which is ironic because the person I needed protecting from looked exactly like them. Same age bracket. Same casual confidence. Same ability to make a child feel chosen.

Chosen. That word did more damage than anything physical ever did. Because once you’ve been “chosen” by someone who shouldn’t have chosen you, you spend the next twenty years confusing selection with love.

He picked me. It must be special.
He noticed me. I must be worth something.
He wants me. I must exist.

I carried that logic from the classroom to the car park to the bedroom to the altar. Different men. Same pattern. Same girl in a different body looking for the same thing she was never going to find in someone else.

I know that now. I didn’t know it at fourteen. At fourteen I just thought Mr Henderson had really nice hands and that probably meant something.

It didn’t. But the wanting did. The wanting was a scar wearing a dress and calling itself a crush.