I don’t fault you. The blame rests on me, mostly (I think). But it still hurts, that echo through the halls that only I can hear as I move through people-streams, moving opposite you, breaking eye-contact, folding arms, sidling away… struggling to keep my neck anchored, un-rotating, as I hear your laugh behind me, knowing that even as you talk to the people beside you, your eyes are on me, wondering, because for some reason you act like it’s still the same. It isn’t.

We were the only people there when you told me. After you left I tore stuff up, papers and things. They fluttered away on x-cubed arcs in tattered ribbons, up, up into the vents. My stomach hurt. So did the area just beneath beneath my cheekbones and my eyes, an area deeper than flesh. It pulsed numb. Kind of like how when you were a kid and you would press on your closed eyes and see colors and spastic pinwheels and tessellating fractals and you would stop after a couple of seconds because it started to ache a bit and you were afraid you’d push your eyes into your skull. It was that kind of dull pain. I think the tears exhausted my eyes.

You teased me. That’s why it happened, (I think). We were the only ones at our too-big-for-two desk, the only pair amidst groups. Kicking beneath the table legs, as I attempted to catch you legs with my calf, enjoying contact. That felt wonderful, feeling you, your warmth, just occasionally brushing against each other. And then the times where you held yourself there, and held your eyes to mine, and we talked and smiled and I felt so warm inside, as your legs just twined with mine, locked into the recesses of my ankles. Or the times where we sat next to each other on trains, or cars, and our knees would just occasionally knock together, and I would try to catch your elbow with mine, trying so hard to avoid evincing any sort of ulterior motive. But I think you knew, because at the time you felt the same way.

Not asking you out then is still the biggest regret of my life. A big “gaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAH!” It almost nullifies the past two years, because that’s how long I’ve loved you (as much as a teenager can.) We talked then, too, but not in the same way, because I was immature and underdeveloped and unskilled, untalented, idiotic, dumb, annoying. But I was funny sometimes, and that was enough for my friends and it was enough for you, a friend. But hormones arrived in their dreadful calvalcade and it was then I knew that there was literally no chance I would ever be with you unless I changed. Everyone still attributes my sudden shot to the top to some hidden burst of ambition, or maybe an especially raw talk with my parents. But the truth is that I did it to impress you, because you were mature and talented and smart and funny and cute and your laugh made me laugh. Your the reason I skipped an entire year of math. Your the reason I ran thirty miles a week. Your the reason I turned my eighty-twos into ninety-fives. Your the reason I lifted, drew, strummed, wrote, read, cooked, and led. Your the reason I realized that no, I am not the dumbest person in the class, I am more than a clown, and I can compete and I can win. Your the reason I became interesting. But there’s more to winning a girl than whipping out your list of accomplishments. Your the reason I know that. There’s timing and awareness, too. I’m glad you told me that you did at one point like me. But that’s what makes me cry the most. That for a few months, your smile could have been mine, and I didn’t know, that my feigned disinterest was too convincing.

I can’t talk to you anymore. Not the way we used to. I love when we talk, but It just makes me think about you more. Every word and every giggle you give to me is another shot of pain as I lie in bed thinking about the day, mostly thinking about you, trying to move on. That’s why I don't respond anymore. That’s why I wait days before I answer that notification blaring the angry red, and why I quickly leave when some chance leaves us the only two in the room. You’ve moved on, and I haven’t, and I need time to do to you what you’ve done to me.