Twizzlers and Carla Sparrow

“I’m in love with Carla Sparrow” I told Paul as I took a bite of my twizzler.

“I’m sorry what?” Paul asked as he put his backpack on my bed.

“I love Carla Sparrow” I said again with confidence.

Paul sighed, and it was not the first time he had heard me claim my love for someone. But this was the first time he had heard me profess my love to Carla Sparrow one of the most popular girls in 10'th grade. But all those other girls were nothing compared to Carla. Carla, a transplant from New York had taken American School like a hurricane.  She didn’t care about being cool or being part of some of group. Which made her infinitely more popular and cool. It’s as if the rules of high school did not apply to her. Looking back now, I realize that Carla was just more mature than all of us.

She had been more sexually active than any of us. She could kick anyone’s ass both verbally and physically. I remember one heated exchange she had with Stephanie Robles. Stephanie was the uptight borderline snobbish girl in our class. She always acted better than anyone else and for some reason was twice as cooler than I was.

“Carla you're just New York trash” Stephanie said one day in class.

“I may be trash but a least my boyfriend is not a fagot” Carla replied in a relaxed tone.

Stephanie turned three kinds of beat red that day and could not form a response. Probably because it was true, her boyfriend Manuel was clearly gay.

She was everything I wanted and more. I was hopelessly in love with Carla Sparrow. I wanted to scream it to the sky. I wanted Carla to be mine; I wanted to give her my heart and soul. Even my fantasies of Carla were romantic. All I wanted to do was kiss her. Okay, that’s a lie I craved to have the chance to smell her neck. As for sex, I was still a virgin and unlike other boys my sex fantasies were pretty tame. Cinemax soft-core porn was as bad as they got. But I refused to think of Carla in that way. Unlike other guy’s intention, I wanted to be honorable. I wanted to treat her with respect and just love her.

Paul looked back at me and said “Really dude, Carla?”

“Yes Paul, I love her with all my heart” I replied eagerly.

“Look, Dave there’s no easy way to say this, so I’m just going to rip off the band aid” he replied
We stared at each other which seemed like an eternity; then he began to speak.

“Carla is just…” he began

“She’s wonderful” I interrupted.

“She’s out of your league dude” he finished.

“But, I love her” I replied
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“Dude think about it, what kind of guys does she go out with?”  Paul stated

It was true Carla was known to go out with guys from the other side of the tracks. Her last boyfriend was a guy who could probably crush me with one hand tied behind his back. The bad boy was something I was not in high school. I was into Dungeons and Dragons, I collected comic books and still had action figures in my room. I was the polar opposite of the kind of guy she went out with.

But doesn’t love transcend all barriers? I thought  

Paul spent the next hour giving me a reality pill. I was never going to be anything to Carla Sparrow and no amount of love poems I wrote about her was going to change that. I was nerd and she was something far more. There was no reality where me declaring my love to Carla was going to end with anything but disaster.

It was a hard lesson to learn. There are some battles you face in life that you just have to accept that you’re going to fail. It’s not fair and it hurts, but that was life. I would face more battles in my life growing up. Some I won and some I lost. But when I think back about my high school years. I wonder that maybe Carla Sparrow was a battle I should have fought a little bit harder for.