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Q. HOW DID YOUR FEELINGS CHANGE FROM FRIENDSHIP TO SOMETHING MORE? AND WHEN DID YOU REALIZE IT?






MIGUEL



I think I've pretty much answered this question.



Uh, no. Not really, no. Like I said, I can't explain it. I just...never doubted my feelings for her. There was no transition from a milder form of regard to something more intense. I knew how I felt about her from the start. Even during those years when all I wanted was to forget she ever existed, I never fooled myself into thinking I didn't feel this way. Denial would only have been a waste of energy.



Um, I don't know about that. Maybe it is kind of strange. Ivy said so once. She's got this notion that most guys are emotional retards, and it annoys her that things were so simple for me. She might have a point. I've seen Alvin, Dennis and Vince moan and agonize over whether or not what they were feeling was love, friendship or hormones. I've done it myself, to a certain degree. But not with Ivy. Never with Ivy. With her, it /is/simple.



She would say that. That's because her side of the story involves a lot of angst and drama while I, the emotional retard, figured it out long before she did. I tell her I'm not being smug about it. I can't help it if I'm naturally superior.



Yup, she'd have socked me in the gut by now.



Seriously though, I'm aware that between the two of us, I actually had the easier time of it. All I did was wait for her to notice that the kid she's hanging out with liked her a good deal more than as a big sister. That and try to find out how she felt about me. You know, if there was the slightest chance at all that she liked me too. We were friends, which was already more than I'd hoped for, and a part of me would have been content to leave it at that. But the rest of me wanted more, even though the possibility of that was slim to non-existent. A twenty-year-old fall for a thirteen-year-old?Nope, doesn't happen. But the thing is, I'd grown up doing things most people thought were improbable, even impossible. Deep inside, I believed that the impossible was only a matter of time, that if I put my mind to it, there was nothing I couldn't achieve. Ivy would be my girlfriend; the alternative didn't bear considering. Looking back, I realize how arrogant and na