Humbling Spot Conlon (A Spot Conlon Love Story)

Ch. 14: Get Over It

Spot's POV

I shoved my hands in my pockets, shaking my head. "Sure." I began back towards Brooklyn. I was fuming. I couldn't believe she lied to me. I couldn't believe I thought she was actually going to tell them. Why did I ever trust her?

I walked slowly, secretly wishing she would come after me. I didn't know why, but I just couldn't seem to get her out of my head. I had never felt like this. 

Initially, I had tried to push the feelings away, mentally punching myself every time I thought about her. That got harder as I got to know her more.

I tried not to hope for anything. I assumed she hated me and convinced myself it wouldn't be any other way. I knew hoping for anything else would just get me hurt.

I didn't quite understand what it was that I liked about her. But the more I thought about it, the harder it was to think of reasons not to like her.

She was different. Not only because she was pretending to be a boy. And maybe she's only different because she spent the last three years living with the newsies, maybe not. Either way, it wasn't helping me to keep my feelings inside.

At first glance, she would just look like a young boy. But, after knowing she's not and actually getting a good look at her, it's easy to tell that she isn't.

If you ignored the fact that she was dressed as a boy, you'd come to realize that she's really quite pretty. Beautiful, even. I don't know when I came to this conclusion, whether it was before or after I started feeling things. But, it doesn't matter, that wasn't the thing that I was most attracted to.

She didn't seem to care what anyone thought. She was unapologetically loud and annoying. She took your insults and threw them straight back, without the slightest trace of being offended.

Except, she did seem to hate being underestimated. I am guilty of doing that. She just didn't seem like she could fight. And I often tried to deny when she would beat me at something. I was too competitive, but so was she.

She's not afraid of me, she seemed to laugh at the fact that people were. I found it intriguing. It seemed more realistic than people actually being afraid of me.

She, despite being small, seemed to scare a lot of the Manhattan newsies. She even kind of scared me. Well, not really. It's hard to explain. Since knowing she was a girl she kept becoming more intimidating. I was afraid of what she thought. I was anxious to know what she had to say to me, which a lot of the time was, "I hate you".

The feelings started near the end of the strike. I started to notice the day of the rally. I wasn't sure what was happening. It started out when my face became warm after holding her hand (which was completely unintentional).

I didn't think anything of it. I figured it was just embarrassment, hoping that's what she thought it was as well.

These feelings were easy to deny then. There were just a few butterflies from time to time. It didn't take much for me to force them away. It became harder near the end of the strike. It was like a whole army of butterflies had a party in my stomach whenever I saw her. It drove me insane.

I don't know how or when I got to the point of no return, but at some point, I couldn't even hear her name without feeling giddy. It was torture. I was meant to be the most feared newsie in New York, here I was, hardly able to talk to a girl.

That was the worst part. I had trouble thinking of things to say. It may not have seemed like it, but I was struggling. She was so easy to talk to as well. Err, not for me I guess.

She got along well with practically everyone. Although she was sarcastic, it was hard to talk to her if you couldn't handle it, I'm sure. But I could, and her sarcasm was something I liked for some reason.