My Love Life Part Two: Freddy Ackerby

Greetings.

Onward into my life.
Freddy Ackerby and I met when I transferred to Bennie's school. He had just transferred there too. He gazed on me from afar (I looked better back then) and developed a crush on me. The feeling was not returned.
Freshman year, he was alone. So I invited him to sit at the table with Bennie, Joseph, and I. Now, Bennie and Joseph had just met themselves and now I was adding a SUPER tall gawky relative stranger into the mix. I was asking for trouble. But surprisingly none came. Freddy and Joseph (whom I have known for approximately six years) hit it off imeediately with their shared love of sci-fi and video games. Bennie and Joseph got along when he wasn't reading, Freddy and she got along well, and I was feeling very proud of myself. Then Bennie asked the dreaded question: "Do you still like Harmony Margaret?" she asked one day. Freddy looked straight at me and said, "Yes." I was flattered, but I still was head-over-heels for Aaron. Or so I thought.
April Fool's Day, I kissed him on the cheek as a dare. (I think Bennie still has the video...) That sparked a revelation: I liked Freddy. He was sweet, tall, smart but lazy, funny, caring. The ideal TEENAGED guy. We bonded over the summer. I went away for my job like I had been doing since I was eleven and he came over every time I came home for the day. He called me every day. He asked me to homecoming. I was in heaven. I liked him and he liked me. I loved the attention, the first romantic attention I had ever gotten. It was bliss. Short-lived bliss, at any rate.
Around late September, it started crumbling. He told me that he had developed feelings for Bennie and that he wanted to ask her to winter formal. I was crushed. (Thank God she said no.) He came later that day, apologized, and asked me to go. I said yes but I wanted to be left alone. (It wasn't going to happen; Joseph and Bennie came and found us. Bennie was very worried and Joseph, despite his robotic demeanor, was even concerned.)
Then on October 7th, Bentley and soon-to-be-best-friend/sister Joss's birthday, he sat me down and said he didn't like me like that anymore. I was brave. That whole day I was in shock. I felt nothing. Then the next morning I crashed. I cried and cried and cried and cried all morning. Bennie, Aaron, Claire, and a few others tried to console me. Freddy said he didn't know why I was being so crazy. It hurt. He smashed my heart, my vulnerable first-love heart into little tiny pieces and he didn't know what he had done wrong. I wanted to hit him.
He got a girlfriend later in late November, early December. And I got a boyfriend a few days after the incident. (Find out more in Part Three: Victor Hausen.) I guess we're still friends. I don't hate him. But on October 7th, every year, I will remind him how he hurt me. At least, until the pain goes away...
To be continued.

Hugz
HM