Middle School Heartbreak

The trials and tribulations of a middle schooler

By Samantha De Leon

Try and blur out your middle school years all you want, but this was a period when our preadolescent minds believed that we could live happily ever after with our sixth-grade love. This fairytale would inevitably come to an end when your crush didn’t respond to your goodnight text, making you want to crawl into a hole and die of embarrassment. I remember my first heartbreak, delivered to me via text on my Samsung slide phone. The brutal message read: “Sammy, I just want to be friends.” After my heart dropped to my bedroom floor, I lay in bed thinking about why he had sent this. It finally occurred to me: I had been curved.

I had thought that he liked me, because the night before, we were sending each other flirty Facebook messages with kissy-face emojis. I always wore my best outfits on days I knew I would see him, so I knew it had nothing to do with my Twilight graphic t-shirt or my Silly Bandz. But my outfits hadn’t won his heart, and his text message was a way of easing the pain of rejection. 

Despite my awful breakup, getting curved made me learn some important life lessons. I learned that your best friends will always help you after a breakup and that there is nothing that comfort food, sleepovers, and movies can’t fix. I learned that there are plenty of other fish in the sea and that I was so over what’s-his-face and dating in general. Most importantly, I learned that this only stuck until you met your new crush, and then you’re right back to where you started: in love.