Two Mondays after homecoming, I saw them. Aurora and Bryan. Hands intertwined, lips pressed together before class. My heart broke. I broke. I was so good at keeping it all in, though.

The proof was in the way my eyes never swayed. The way I avoided Bryan’s face in class. The way I stared at my feet when he passed me in the hall.

I could feel his eyes on me. I could feel a reaching out. He wanted me to look up. He wanted something from me, but I wouldn’t give in. I confessed my assumptions to my friends at lunch one day, when the bubbling over felt too loud.

“He keeps staring at me, right? I can feel it. Maybe I’m making it up.” I gripped my tray with my left hand, stirred my runny mashed potatoes aggressively with my right.

“He keeps looking at you. Like, these little bullshit glances. When his face isn’t attached to Aurora’s.” Britt sounded bitter, carrying my rage, my heartbroken humming.

“Okay, so at least we know I’m not insane.”

“Debatable.” Christina nudged me, trying to cheer me up.

I’d been a downer since homecoming. I didn’t want to talk on the phone, and I didn’t talk in the halls. I carried my broken heart around, heavy on my shoulders. I wrote poetry until late at night. My father would rap his knuckles on my door, ordering me to turn my lamp off.

The bags under my eyes were dark, unbecoming. I needed to snap out of it. This was a silly high school love. I didn’t get the boy. It happens all the time, and it’s not a tragedy. I reminded myself of these things every day.

“This isn’t a tragedy,” I mumbled, pulling my eyes from my mess of food.

“No. It’s not. He’s a stupid fucking boy. And he picked the wrong girl,” Christina said confidently.

I shook my head. “It was never a choice. Remember, he didn’t like me. He was just being polite.”

“I don’t believe that. You don't jam your tongue down someone's throat to be polite." Britt propped her head on her hand, glanced Bryan’s way. “He acted so freaking weird around you. And when he picked you up that night, just to make sure you knew he wasn’t going to be a caveman and slap your ass. Then the dancing at homecoming!”

I held my hands up, halting her. “We can’t go down this road again. Trust me, I do this in my head every damn day. I am so tired of overanalyzing it all.”

“Chapter closed?” Christina grabbed her boxed milk and held it to the center of the table. We all grabbed ours, toasted to the decision. A chapter closed.

* * *

He found me later, during my free period. I was in my usual spot, behind the red curtain. I didn’t know it was him coming in the auditorium. I heard the door open and close, but it didn’t register to me. Students came in and out all the time.

I noticed his shoes first. His unlaced Nikes. One of his touchstones. One of the things I would always associate with him. They were right in front of me, so I stared at them for a moment. Refusing to look up. Bryan cleared his throat, moved his weight from his right foot to his left. I heard him say hi, so I reluctantly looked up, clutching my notebook to my chest. “What brings you here?”

“I wanted to see how you are.” He said it simply, like it was something he did all the time. As if we were friends in some other life. As if it was simmering over into this one. The one where we couldn’t talk in the halls, couldn’t be friends in any way.

“I’m fine.” We both knew I wasn’t, but I needed to say it. I hated looking up at him, and I could tell it made him uncomfortable, too. I didn’t break eye contact as he lowered himself down onto the stage floor. “I suppose it’s okay for you to be with me here then. You know, since no one can see you.” I was bitter. Bitter over his new relationship.

“We both know no one would like it.”

“Do you know I don’t care anymore?” I pulled my legs in, crossed them at the ankles. My notebook was shoved behind my back, distanced. The words there would be safe. But I was not, sitting here in front of him.

“About me?” He pointed at himself as if I wouldn’t know what the hell he was talking about.

“I mean, all of it. But why would you ask me if I don’t care about you? I don’t think you have a right to know that answer anymore. You have a girlfriend. The feelings of any other girl are a non-issue now. Those feelings are officially off limits for you to know.” I pointed at him, angry and showing it. I didn’t care anymore.

“Yeah, I get it. You’re repeating yourself.”

“Just want to make sure you know.”

“How am I an ass for coming to see how you are?”

“Because it’s so fucking arrogant. You’re just walking around thinking you shattered me or something.” My voice was rising. I wondered if Kenny, a saxophone player in the school band, was in the room. He liked to come practice here on his own. I hadn’t seen him come in today.

“I’m not trying to be arrogant, or an ass. I’m just trying to be nice.”

“Well, trying to be nice and just being nice, are two different things. You think just because you’re the preacher’s son and you don’t say much means you’re good. But maybe it just means you were raised to be good, and you hide the bad. Don’t they say preachers’ kids are actually the worst? Maybe that’s true.” I stood up. I couldn’t be near him. I couldn’t handle his heavy presence, the way my body reacted to him. The pouty lips and the sad eyes. The ivory skin and the way he smelled. Like clean clothes and spice.

“I’m sorry I kissed you,” he said, standing, too.

His voice was low, and he didn’t sound like he meant it. It sounded like he regretted the way it made me feel. But I couldn’t be sure. Because I always defended him in the end. It was a weakness of mine.

Later that night, Britt dropped me off after having dinner at her house. I found a bouquet of roses on my doorstep. Ivory, yellow. I grabbed them and walked to my bedroom window. I placed them on the windowsill so I could grab them when I got inside. I didn’t want to explain their presence to my father. I didn’t want to give him more proof of my broken heart. That someone liked leaving roses, but wouldn’t pull me from the shadows.

We were having a bowl of ice cream before bed when I decided to ask him about my mother. It had been a while since I brought up the past, went digging.

“So mom had a thing for you when she had another boyfriend, right? That’s what you said?”

My father ran the tip of his spoon over the edge of the bowl, his eyes were aimed at the living room. The news was playing softly in the background. He blinked twice, and I could see the wrinkles on his face more prominently. His age was more apparent. It made me sad. I wondered what he would do in our little house when I left, so soon.

"She had a crush on me. For a while. Yes.”

"And you didn't have a crush on her? You were too wrapped up with the girlfriend she noticed you with?”

“Yes. I only had eyes for the girl I was with. And your mother, she was shy and she painted. I ran track and hung out with some assholes. I was an idiot. When she told me she’d had a crush on me for a while, it was a surprise.”

"How long did she have a crush on you before you felt the same?"

"Too long. Eventually, I broke up with my girlfriend and your mother got tired of her boyfriend. Sometimes stupid boys don't know what's best for them. That boy was stupid, and I was also stupid at times. Promise me you won't fall for a stupid boy."

I regretted asking. I was rewarded with more fuel for my fading fire. And it was too late for me. I had already fallen for a stupid boy. Chapter closed.