Young Lovers Overcome Shyness
to Become Best Friends

by: Seth Sturgill

My name is Sam Johnson I am junior at Crawford High. I have always thought that Jamie Norton was the cutest girl in the whole school. She had brown hair, a beautiful smile, and was “painfully shy”.

              I never had trouble talking to girls, but with Jamie things seemed different. She was so smart and loved to read, I’ve heard that she can read as much as one or two books a day. Whenever I see her not reading a book, she is talking with her friends and looking so happy while doing it. As much as I wanted to,I just couldn’t seem to get myself to go talk to her. Although I could do well with the combined pressure of hundreds of people watching me during several playoff basketball games, for some reason this is the sort of thing that gets me intimidated. 

              Walking through the hallways is a routine that is done on a day to day basis, but for someone like me, making a stop at the library isn’t on the regular agenda. Though this is true, all through the week I had stopped in to talk to Jamie at the library. This is where Jamie always went after eating her lunch to read a story about love, or something of that sort. Every time I had walked in, I caught come pretty strange glances as if I were out of place, although to a certain extent, I was. I went in the library all week and not even made an attempt to talk to her until Friday.

Not one look ever came from Jamie the whole entire time I was talking with her, and this is probably why it was so awkward when I finally made an attempt to have a conversation. “Hey Jamie”, I said, “How are you?” she simply replied, “Good” then continued to stay focused on her book. “Well what are you reading” I asked. “Twilight”, she said.

I had no idea what this conversation could have been like because I didn’t know much about Jamie. I knew that I had been being as shy as a junior high boy that was acting like he was glued to the wall at a spring fling, but I didn’t actually think that I had a good reason to act like that. (Knowing that you are about to get short answered by someone can quite often be a good reason.)

“Is it good?” I questioned her. “Yeah, it’s really good” she said.

I then thought about how desperate I felt for another question to pop into my head, and that maybe the guy from the love story that she was reading might not be doing half bad. I couldn’t think of one single question. “Well I guess I will talk to ya later” I added as I slowly left the table she was reading at. There was no remark in return, which is the reason I decided to look back as I was leaving. Before walking out I remembered looking into those gorgeous brown eyes and right before I left, and receiving a small smile that was shot in my direction. As small as that smile was, there wasn’t anything in the world during that particular moment that could have made me as happy as that did.

Several months have gone by now and I continue to talk to her. Things were really slow at first, especially the first time we talked. Later on I found out that she wasn’t trying to be rude, but was rather nervous about the situation. Now Jamie and I talk all the time and we are always happy around each other. We go out on dates as much as we can and I doubt there is a single thing that I wouldn’t do for her.

In no way am I saying that Jamie was some sort of prize for doing a good job, but the good things in life don’t come easy, and every time I am having trouble with something, this story reminds me how true that is.

____