I was the one that had to get the guts to talk to him. Heaven forbid it be the other way around. It was after lunch on a Thursday that I approached him. He offered me M&Ms, and I took a red one. “Do you mind if we go outside and talk for a little bit?” He nodded. The halls were empty. Everyone was downstairs in the practice rooms, so the studios were pretty quiet.

The balcony we stepped on to hadn’t been used for a while. It was plain, concrete, and bird-poop stained. The eucalyptus trees danced above us in the hot breeze, sending long leaves downward in our direction. I did my best to explain everything that had made me wake up with a stomachache every day for the past week. I didn’t know was love felt like, and I wasn’t going to pretend like I did. But I did have a long list in my notebook of everything about him that gave me butterflies.

I don’t think I’ll ever completely understand what went through his mind. I remembered little things-- the massage, the smile in my direction, the remarkable fact that we both loved The Dirty Projectors—and gave them more meaning than what he had prescribed to them. I know now that I was too hopeful, too naïve.

He told me that I was the best friend he had made that month. That he hoped our last few days together would be amazing. But the smile that gave me slowly faded over time. I woke up the next day, and nothing was different. I woke up the next day, and still noticed every time he was talking to another girl. When I got in my car to go home after closing ceremonies on the last day, he still hadn’t said goodbye. Too this day, I am silently waiting for that goodbye.