"That One Summer Night" by Merosa U

The summer night of July fourth I experienced one of the most embarrassing yet memorable nights of my life. My family hosted our family and friends on the fun Independence holiday. I had expected all of those who attended to come except for one. This happened to be our close family friend’s nephew T, who I had a huge crush on at the time. Although I was not prepared to see him I was definitely pleasantly surprised. I spent almost the entire gathering trying to find ways to “get him to myself” (just to talk and get to know him of course).

            I had several minor encounters with him that day, except I never got my chance to really talk to him. Night time soon creeped up on me and the day was slowly coming to an end. Most of our guest remained and everyone but the adults decided to play fugitive. The game of fugitive is great for large groups such as the one we had that night. When playing the game the players must choose some people depending on the amount, to be the “cops”, and the remaining players to be the “fugitives”. Then the group chooses a destination for the fugitives to attempt to get to without getting caught by the cops, the first fugitives to get there win. Due to the amount of people in our group we split up in pairs. My first thought was to make sure I was paired with T and I thankfully was able to make that happen.

            The game began and everyone dispersed, the destination we chose was a field on the local high school behind my neighborhood. T and I set off to our destination and I pretty much mentally lost the entire goal of the game. I honestly couldn’t have cared less if we won or not I was just glad I finally got to talk to him. While he was actually trying to win the game, I on the other hand was distracted by his presence and risked our chance of getting caught multiple times. We finally made it to the field safely and won the game. On our way back I finally got to talk to him with no distractions. The conversation was everything I hoped for and more. We reached the exit of the field which required us to climb over a fence. He hopped over first, effortlessly and offered to help me down. Assuming I was more athletic I declined his offer and decided to jump off myself. Which was probably the worst mistake I could have made, I completely failed! My shorts got caught on the top of the fence and ripped, not just a little tear, oh did I wish it was just a tear. The shorts completely ripped in half, so it pretty much became a skirt at that point. On top of that my cell phone flew and scattered on the ground. After my horrific fall T immediately came to my assistance completely unware of my split shorts and tried to help me up. Once I noticed he was totally unaware of my shorts I quickly turned his attention to my scattered cell phone and yelled at him to grab that instead. Unfortunately my yell came off slightly rude which was definitely unintentional. He put my phone back together and we made our way back to my house. I struggled to hold my shorts together, keep up with our conversation, and make sure he was slightly ahead of me so he wouldn’t see my embarrassing shorts. I felt like it was the longest walk of my entire life. I couldn’t enjoy the conversation and was too embarrassed to admit what had happened. We finally made it home and without a word I took off running into my house. I changed quickly but it was too late T left and I didn’t get to finish our conversation or say goodbye.

A couple of days later I saw him again and he asked me why I rushed in without saying good bye that night. He thought I was irritated with him and he couldn’t have been more wrong. I explained to him what happened including my feeling of total embarrassment. To my surprise, he explained that he actually found my incident really funny but cute and that I should have just told him. T and I are just friends now and reminisce on that night all the time. I learned that I’m horrible at communicating with boys and just to be honest in circumstances like this. Since then I avoid the game of fugitive as often as I can and definitely do not pair with anyone I’m attracted to.