Well, this is new.

Last night's dream was not about W, or Piano Man, or Blake from American Idol. Nor was it about Lui, or that nameless, faceless guy with the tendency to leave me wanting more and wondering who the hell he was.

Last night, I was in some auditorium with a bunch of people I went to high school with. My seat wasn't very good, because I hadn't realized I'd needed to reserve early, and when I got into the building and tried to grab an empty seat, this guy, one-of-the popular-kids-in-elementary-school-turned-fuck-up-in-junior-high (he was actually held back in 7th grade, I think) -apparently-turned-nice-guy-by-society, David Hays, kindly reminded me that it was his seat, but that the people behind him would make space for me if I needed it. Somehow this moved me - and David - from the third row of the auditorium to the third row of the furthest back section of the auditorium, but I thanked him for helping me, and sat down.

It was hard to hear what was being said onstage from that far back - so hard, in fact, that I couldn't even figure out what we were there for, though from the look of the audience, it had to be some sort of reunion. After a few minutes of trying, Emi darted across the aisle from her seat, grabbed me by the wrist, and led me excitedly out into the foyer.

"What's up with you and Mike Lefton?", she asked.

There was a name I hadn't heard in a while, though secretly wished I had. Mike was one of those guys I never knew I had a crush on in high school until much later, though I do remember secretly wishing he'd ask me to Prom (he didn't). He was sort of awkwardly attractive, a total nerd, but popular, on ASB (treasurer, I think), and one of the genuinely nicest guys I've ever met. And I'm not just saying that because he spent hours on the phone with me, helping me cram for math and physics tests my junior and senior years, or because when the last-minute tutorials hadn't quite worked, he let me copy his papers (and let it be said that I did the same for him in Spanish). Aside from being helpful, he was just so goddamn friendly, always smiling, never judgemental: a good guy to know, and a good friend to have, and probably would've made a really good husband - but of course I was 17 and totally not thinking that way. Our friendship didn't really extend much further than sitting together in class and discussing class on the phone - the ASB and Journalism circles, while clearly linked, never really overlapped - which is probably why it's still so easy to romanticize him.

I summed all this up for Emi: "Omigod, I had such a big crush on him in high school!"

We went back inside, and parted ways, and the next thing I knew, she was back and Mike was with her, standing off to the side. Emi said something affirming my belief that he'd kinda liked me too, and then she left, and Mike switched seats with David, and turned around to talk to me. I admitted I'd wanted him to ask me to Prom; he apologized and said he realized later that he should have; and it seemed like the whole thing was really going somewhere...

And then I woke up, to the hated cell-phone alarm, and Lui, with about a million things wrong with him lately (not least of which is the attitude he's choosing to take toward them) sleeping next to me.

But as soon as I got to work, I did what anyone from my generation would do in this situation: I searched, found, and poked Mike on facebook. Hopefully he'll respond, because I think it's finally time to come clean.