This is what happens when it’s a recovery ride day and your coach says NO to the group ride you planned to join:


After riding v e r y  s l o w l y  by myself, I joined the group at the post-ride breakfast and spotted My First Crush working the bar. This boy was in 3rd grade while I was in 2nd, but we were in a mixed 2/3 class together and he was the first person to win my wee little six-year-old heart.


I’ve seen him around the breakfast place before and heard people call him by name, so yeah, I know without a doubt that it’s him. [And yeah, I feel like a creeper, no need to say it.]

He has no idea who I am or that I once tried to impress him by flashing my copy of “The Babysitters’ Club: Goodbye Stacey, Goodbye” (what I thought to be very mature reading material) while announcing excitedly that the pages smelled like Twinkies. It was to no avail; his heart belonged to a pretty blond third-grader named Amanda who wore Umbros and played soccer just like him. My shiny teal Umbros were not enough to distract him and my love was unrequited. As I sat at the bar this morning eating yogurt and watching him put on latex gloves and spend twenty minutes pitting olives, I felt okay about this. Olives are disgusting; Amanda can keep him.

One thought on “Stifling tears, she pressed her face to the cold fence and strained to hear the sounds of laughter and whirring hubs echoing in the distance

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