When chugging shampoo sounds like a good idea, it’s time to give up that fourth cup of coffee
It’s time for authorial ambiguity here, as Summer of the Netherfield Witch goes into Part III, “Jane Takes Control?” with chapter 21, “It’s time I ended this.” Sense some authorial ambivalence or uncertainty here, but you’re not sure which? Because uncertainty of uncertainty is meta-uncertainty, which is sort of meta-human, but not in a comic book way. Maybe it’s a profound metaphor for the relationship between readers, the author, and the characters in the story. Or maybe my morning caffeine high is out of control.
Anyhow, Jane’s got a death curse on her. Her best friend is in love with a dragon. Her next best friend at this point is a talking basset hound with what we might delicately call a skin condition. And she’s got a crush on her stepfather. The last is still recent, so it’s a really intense crush, but that’s as far as it’s gone. And as far as Jane is concerned, that’s as far as it will go. She’s quite willing to entertain some drastic ideas on how to end that crush of hers, and I do not mean killing her stepfather. Yet. Time for you to read chapter 21 while I go away and try to sleep off a sugar rush next.
But if you, you personally, are feeling sluggish and tired this morning, have I got a bargain for you! You can start this story all the way back at chapter one, and read it all the way through to the current chapter; they’re all hyperlinked together. And the next chapter will come out next week.
Sillyverse 
I’d like to empathise with Jane, reveal my own inappropriate teenage crush. But I just didn’t have one. Except for an Olympic gymnast . . . but that’s a sad story and I’m not going there.
Tease.
Since I spent much of my adolescence in an all-boys school, opportunities for crushes were limited. And that’s all I am going to say!
Hey, boys have crushes on other boys, we all know that. It’s normal. And I wasn’t teasing with the gymnast. But it’s not my story to tell, and it truly is sad.
A crush on a boy? No. At least not that I know of. (I would know, wouldn’t I?) No, my range of potential crushes was limited to faculty wives (yeah, problem there), faculty daughters (one candidate, period), cousins (different problem there), girls remembered from 7th grade (who no doubt had forgotten all about me), and fantasy figures (including at least one UFO alien).
So you had crushes on green-tinged aliens too.
Yep, mine were a cross between those on Star Trek, Lost in Space, and the novels I got from the Doubleday Science Fiction Book “Club.”
Even with such a vague allusion I feel sad there was a sad story in the past! No crushes here, I was far too clueless far too long!!!
I suspect most crushes are ultimately sad stories, because we don’t end up with that person.
If you’re willing to go back to the puppy love ages, I do have one of those to tell. In third grade, I liked this girl. So when I imagined stories before going to sleep at night, she would be my colleague in them. I lost track of her after 7th grade. And then only a year or two ago, I found out she had died. Judging from the obituary, photos, and memories people left behind for her, I gather something went wrong with her life, but I don’t know what, and am not in a position to ask. So i must mourn the girl I knew, not knowing but fearing that she may not have had a happy life.
The sad story has a happier if much-delayed outcome when sad chap’s death brought two people together with instant attraction. Sad chap’s brother remains in my heart forever and is the pattern for several of my male characters. More of that story you’ll not find here. As I’ve said, it’s not mine to tell but belongs to his family, and that I respect.
OK, my impolite curiosity is sufficiently satisfied.
And certain kinds of torches get carried forever.