You can see me. I know that you can. You can see me even though you are across the room hidden in what you thought was a safe zone, a secure area, hidden behind the heads of the people you call your friends. You can see me. Your sleek, ocean, eyes cannot hide from my piercing green. They never could.

You can pretend like I don’t know all you want. However it does not hide the truth that we both share in our heads. I do know. I know everything. It scares you. It makes you tremble. Because when you see me, and you can, you see you. When you see me you see all of your secrets. When you see me you see all of the things that you wanted to hide. I know this because when I see you, which I can, I see all of that too.

You made a wish last summer. You remember the wish don’t you? Your eyes say “yes” as they glaze over the many heads of the people you once said were just people you use as cover to the high school tribulations, to me. You can see me now. Right now. You look away though, because it frightens you. That wish, the one you made last summer as we laid our heads together under a tall, purple, tree in the park. The color landing around us, never on us, as you whispered “I wish this moment would last forever.” I did not say anything I just let you wish “I wish that you and I could be together, right here, for all of our lives.” I didn’t tell you what I was thinking. I was afraid in truth. I wanted to be there now, right now, under my favorite tree with my favorite person.

You can see me. You have always been able to. You can see when I say “I am fine” it really implies “help me.” You can see that when I bite my lip I am about to let out a tear. You can see that when I become frightened I begin to shiver. You can see that under my confident exterior and all of my make-up, I am really weak, desperate, in need of someone to rescue me. You can see all of this. That is why I pushed away. That is why I said go away. That is why I said goodbye.

However, here I am, sitting across the room, a sea of teenagers and teachers filling the air and the space around me, and all I see is you. All you can see is me too.

So I did it. The one thing I could never do. I pushed away all of my fear, I embraced all that you knew of me and all that I knew of you, and I saw you. I saw you and I didn’t look away. Instead, I stood up. Instead, I ambled forward, hesitant at first, but confident in every step afterwards. I stopped in front of you, and I let you in. I saw you. You saw me, and I whispered “I wish that too.”