The Chase by Kayla Davis (book series for 10 year olds TXT) 📕

He was not from this time.  Ok...he was.  Technically.  However, his eyes betrayed an old spirit.  He seemed wise.  He was smart, responsible, chivalrous (at least I thought so).... and only five years old.  

Pardon my alienating introduction, but this boy... he was special.  His name was Ronan.  At five years old, he seemed, to me, to have the wisdom and maturity of a grown man.  A wise and mature grown man.  I met him at the neighborhood park one summer.  He and I, we were the same age, but he liked to act like I was his little sister, and everything I did (playing tag, drawing with chalk) was silly and pointless.  You see, Ronan was not at the park to swing or go down slides head first.  He was there to look at bugs.  He, magnifying glass in hand, would sit in the grass for hours following around a single grasshopper, or watch a single worker ant make its way down the sidewalk with a miniscule crumb on its back.  

One day, when I stopped playing tag to say hello, I remember him telling me, "Cora, you're wasting your time chasing the other kids around the playground." When I asked him what he meant, he shook his head and said "You're so slow, you never catch them anyway." I pouted, and told him he was no longer invited to my birthday party.

I was more than a bit put out at the time, but as I grew up, I realized what he said was true.  Why spend so much time trying to do something that you just weren't meant to do?  He followed bugs around all day because he could keep up with them.  Why should I chase what I could never have?

As it turned out, this principle did not only apply to playing tag on the playground.  We grew up a little, and Ronan turned into the most adorable, nerdiest, awkward dork in the entire grade.  Don't get me wrong: he was not the kind of adorable, nerdy, awkward dork who the popular kids pick on.  No, no.  Not Ronan.  Ronan had somehow charmed everyone, and was constantly surrounded by friends.  Popular friends.  But I digress.  

Ronan had a girlfriend.  That girlfriend was not me.  This fact bothered me quite a bit.  I schemed and plotted, but despite my efforts, Ronan was unattainable.  Too aloof.  Always so coy.  But one day, I remembered Ronan's advice. Why should I chase the other kids on the playground when I was so slow?  So I made a decision then and there.  If I couldn't date Ronan, I would become Ronan's best friend. 

That is just what I did.  We got to a point where we had deep, scientific, opinion-oriented, controversial, moral dilemma conversations.  And then he would tell me all about the last girl he kissed and how soft her "elegant long hair" was.  I put up with it.  I had to.  It was Ronan. 

Time went on.  He once referred to me as "the sister I never had."  I thought it was sweet at first.  Then I went home and thought about it.  That's when I realized I'd not only been friend-zoned, I'd been family-zoned.  Irritated, I lost contact with Ronan for a little while, thinking maybe, just maybe, if I lost sister status, I'd have a chance.

One night I got a call... from Ronan, of course.  Who else?  He sounded like he'd been crying.  Ronan never cried.  Ronan never got sad.  Ronan was perfect.  Right?  As it turned out, his dog had died.  I was the only person he had thought to talk to about it.  He decided to cry to me.  ME. I talked to him and tried to make him feel the least bit better if I could.  

As smart and observant as Ronan was about everything else, he sure was naive and oblivious about my feelings for him.  As I spoke to him that night on the phone, I had a thought.  A horrible, bad, bad thought that I never should have acted on.  But I was not a socially bright child.

"Ronan, I love you." I said.

This shut him up for all of three seconds while he contemplated life (or so I imagined he was doing).  His ignorant reply was "I know." He didn't realize what I meant. 

Or maybe he did.  I'll never know.  Four years later, when Ronan and I were sitting on a park bench watching little kids play tag, I said to Ronan, "Why do little girls chase the boys around the playground when they're so slow?  They'll never catch them."  He turned to me, took my hand, and said "Because sometimes, Cora, they know that the boys may slow down and let the little girls catch them."

Text: Kayla Davis
Publication Date: 02-23-2014

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