the boyfriend list.

2.
Daniel was my pre-school crush.

He had chocolatey brown eyes and hair to match. Back then, I was just one of the guys. I always left my hair unbrushed and wore paint-covered overalls. I went by Crys, shorter than Crystal and more masculine, too. We'd play dinosaurs together, stampeding around and knocking down Michelle O'Reary's block castle, which she built the same way every day. Daniel and I like to switch things up; dinosaurs one day, and poorly finger-painted fruits the next. 

My crush on Daniel didn't last long, though.

One day, I heard him with his friend, Dex (short for Dexter, who was a girl) talking about me. 

"Crys is such a loser!" The loser sounded more like 'wooser' because he had lost his front teeth in a basketball accident, but I knew what he meant. I ran to Ms. Wood and began to cry. Later that day, at nap time, I told Daniel I hated him—I had no idea what hate was; I had heard the word when my parents were arguing one night—before proceeding to my mat beside him. 

Daniel was the first boy I'd ever had a crush on, but he wouldn't be the last.