Teenage Love

The snow is beginning to clear now and I’m willing to venture out more. Yesterday afternoon I walked over to the supermarket. As usual, I was late and met Nina walking home from school. She always appears in her own little world, her bag over her shoulder and her long hair flowing down her back. Sometimes I can persuade her to come with me and we enjoy the hour, without her brothers, wandering around the shops, talking about her school friends. This time, I couldn’t persuade her, she had too much homework and was already cold after the short walk. ‘I had to work with Christopher in French. I’ll tell you later, when you get back’ was the parting shot, which she knew would make me hurry back home, anxious for news.

Christopher is a tall, shy boy in her class. He’s from a large family and both of his parents have impressive jobs. He suddenly appeared in her life, as a peripheral figure, last year. This year, as the class became smaller and more intimate, they began to sit next to each other. By the end of last term he was texting her regularly throughout the day. Christopher’s humour was sufficiently weird that he soon attracted my attention. He would spend the rare free lesson making origami hats in the library or argue, in a good natured way, that he is cleverer than she is. That riled her, as she has a reputation for being a blue stocking and he, like many boys, is too lazy to work hard.

Last autumn I met Christopher’s mum at the school. I told her how much he entertains Nina and she appeared very surprised, he spent his evenings at home, quietly and soberly sitting in his bedroom, she didn’t recognise the comedian I described. The school hall was crowded and Alex was pulling me away, so we parted before we could say more.

By October, Christopher was looming large in our lives. Nina would come home daily and tell us anecdotes about their friendly rivalry and their running jokes. May, who knew the family, would raise her eyebrows and drop a stitch as we listened to the latest news. As Nina walked out of the room, May would look at me significantly and reiterate that there was clearly something going on there. If a boy showed a girl that much attention then it was obvious that he fancied her. Finally unable to keep it to ourselves any longer, May broached the subject of young love to Nina. ‘Oh, no, it’s not like that, Christopher isn’t like that. We are just friends’ Nina tried in vain to reassure us but we were women of the world, with a wealth of experience between us. Her protests became stronger and stronger but we would just look at each other across our knitting, in a knowing way. Finally, the truth blurted out ‘he’s gay, he fancies one of the other boys in the class. He told me.’ Sure enough, as the weeks wore on, we heard more and more about this. He showed some boys his diary, detailing his crush on the (unfortunately) heterosexual classmate, he was caught looking at the Gay Times (but was too scared to buy it), he followed a younger boy with a cute, snub nose around all day, he had even asked out a boy in their year (who had politely declined). There are plenty of boys in Nina’s school who are openly gay but Christopher wasn’t like them. Here was a boy who was still well and truly stuck in the closet, anxious that his mother shouldn’t find out yet confiding in not very discreet friends. It just didn’t make sense, so May and I developed increasingly far fetched theories to explain his situation away. But fact is always stranger than fiction and teenaged hormones can make the most sensible person behave like a prat.

One Friday the heterosexual Crush, Nina and Christopher sneaked out to the shops during the lunchbreak. Christopher had initially been excited at the prospect but became increasingly bad tempered as they walked. Finally, as the crush popped into the baker’s, Christopher hissed at Nina ‘why did you have to come and ruin it for us? We wanted to come on our own, you aren’t welcome.’ Then flounced off to meet the emerging crush. Nina was upset about the treatment but they are all still children and I assured her that everything would be back to normal on Monday morning. But it wasn’t. Christopher was still angry with her and pointedly ignoring her, worst still, he was sitting next to the Class Bitch in English lessons. Then Nina made the situation totally worse when The Crush sat next to her in the library and made her laugh just as Christopher walked in.

There followed weeks of frankly girlie spats. The emails stopped and he refused to sit next to her in lessons. She wailed that she had lost all her friends and that no one liked her. In a totally new twist, he started the ‘death by Facebook’. It started innocently enough, with him dropping her as a friend and posting that he couldn’t wait to leave home and make new friends. I emailed him privately, telling him I would do whatever was necessary to help them resolve their differences and stop my daughter from being upset. He responded by dramatically telling me that it was too late, they could never be friends and they had to just manage the next five months of living in close proximity as best they could. May declared that if an actress had written that then she would have accused her of over-acting.

Other classmates started to mention that Christopher was acting strangely, not only with Nina, but just generally.

Christopher clearly spent the next few weeks trawling through the more obscure clubs and groups on Facebook. I think it started with ‘I used to like you but I don’t like the way you’ve turned out’ or some other such twaddle. Within two months he had joined about 10 of these groups but they didn’t satisfy his anger. My post to Nina was pure retaliation, ‘Can you find the group You Behave Like a Wanker and Fight Like a Girl, I want to join!’ It entertained me for half an hour, until Nina read it and removed it. At New Year he became Nina’s friend on Facebook, but not in real life. He has started telling other classmates that she is a liar.

Nina has mentioned discussing the problem with a teacher. May and I are encouraging her because we both feel that Christopher is getting a bit mixed up and needs help. We are also concerned that he is going to say something stupid to The Crush and alienate most of the hot blooded boys in his year. I am hurt at the way that he is upsetting Nina but I can’t do anything about it, just provide her with support and love.

As for her news last night, she says he didn’t talk to her, just worked by himself. And no, the teacher hadn’t put them together because she knew about this bitch fight.