I chase my tomboy indian best friend across the cold outdoor halls, shoving grimy stereotypes and much too pristine lies out of my way. I catch my best friend, Kali, and hold her, laughing. She shoves me playfully but rough, into a story I never intended to tangle into, to ever have to tell. I fall, into the strong arms of the last guy I could ever think of falling into the arms of. He was, for lack of a better word, perfect. He was like an angel that burned away his wings out of fury and pain, a perfect scarlet and silver painting of everything steady and good in the world, laced with emerald anguish and traces of powder-blue hope.

I wanted to look away, wanted to stay in this moment, knew that this could never happen and if it somehow did, it would never work out. He was just a dream for a girl that was broken, a foolish girl that only ever caused destruction or pain in her life and was addicted to dreaming of what she wished she could be but would never be nearly and wonderful as her dreams. Catching my breath, I mutter an apology while he smiles an easy grin and looks at me almost as if he finds me interesting. Pretty. I step back and take long, sweeping steps as I hurry away, feeling his eyes on my back the whole way until I round a corner and am out of sight. Now I am infected with feeling, can't get him out of my mind, but I make myself give up on him. He catches me in the halls and we argue about who will hold the door open for who on the way to lunch when our classes intersect. Every time I see him, I start to smile and when I look into his eyes, the world seems to fade away for a moment. I know I am falling for him, never voice it or dare to imply it to him.

One day, he finds me ruined and in tears, sitting on the floor of the hallway with my knees up to my chest and my arms wrapped around them, nails digging into my palms to the point of bleeding, hair hanging in my blushing face. He kneels down next to me and forces me to open my hands, he wipes the tears away. For seemingly the billionth time, I look into smoky sky-blue eyes and get lost in the beauty of him and his tortured soul. Looking up, I share his breath and something in his eyes tells me he feels what I am feeling at that moment. He smiles shakily and tells me not to change, then hastily gets up and disappears out the door, back to his class. I wish I had had the guts to kiss him, know he probably would have shoved me away had I tried.

Mid-December, in math class. My eyes race over the drawing in front of me, analyzing, searching for the mistake. Bold black shapes pierced through with white ones. There was an overlap, somewhere. Something wrong. Somewhere...

The flower-origami form that flew to land in front of me startles me from my obsessive-compulsive tendencies. Glancing up, Kali narrows her eyes, willing me to pick up the paper, and gives me her trademark lip bite, right in the fullest part of her lower lip, not a sign of any flirtation, but to show there was something worth worry on her mind. Ms. Radford’s droning voice, her aggressive and somewhat masculine tones... It isn’t worth paying any attention to anyway. A flash of skin with golden undertones and shiny junebug green nails, and the paper was in my hand under the table. My sister always had a peculiar way of folding her notes; into a flower, one that had a secret way of opening. I carefully tug at the very center of the rose shaped paper, watching it unfold like a bloom. Her familiar and almost cartoony, over-thought script painted a smirk on my face.

“Murphy and I were talking at lunch. He wouldn’t shut up about you. He definitely likes you back. It’s funny, now that you stopped liking him, he developed a thing for you. The good new? Tyler has a thing for you too.”

The bubble of giddy laughter that escaped my throat was uncontrollable. I bit my lip hard, to bleeding, and picked up my pen with the creamsicle-orange ink to write back in my much less thought out “writer’s chicken scratch”.

“Really? Tyler? Is he still dating Savannah? I can’t stand her. I know she likes him. Not like I do though. I should have told her that I like him before she went after him so that I could be mad at her right now. She didn’t know though. I hope he breaks up with her. I sound so whiny. But he belongs with me. Y’know?”

I slid my hand down the side of my backpack, slow. Uncap the tiny bottle in the side pocket. Dip my finger in, dab the perfume on the corner of the paper, a sign to let her know that this was something we would be discussing later that night. Fold the paper back up.. A flick of my nail against the flower and it glided through the air freely, landing perfectly on Kali’s desk. We were so used to this, it could have almost been an art.

A few moments passed, the note came back.

“I know he does. You two have been crazy about each other for months.”

Eventually, a person in my class that I sometimes would talk to when I can bare to look up from reading informs me that the boy I have been falling so hard for has asked out another girl. I smile and claim not to mind, am happy he is happy, but my heart shatters and I feel that I knew all along I was never going to be the one he chose. I avoid him and it hurts to look at him, destroys me when he looks at me and he realizes that something is wrong.

A week or so later, he finds me at the public library, spinning dizzily on my toes in the rain, dancing to the song only I can hear. I trip, and he holds me around the waist so I don't fall. Looking up, I find myself falling under his spell again, a mere breath away from my lips meeting his. I back away suddenly, can't take the way he smiles at me and brushes wet hair from my face so gently, as if he really cares about me. What am I to him? Just another girl. I flee, cry when I get home and pour out my whole stupid love story to Kali over the phone. The day he moves to another town near me but far enough away to where I won't see him again, possibly forever, destroys me, but I force myself to stay alive at least and above the influence of others. I ache every day, make myself keep going, push my limits constantly.

One day I hear from him again. I feel so happy, pissed off, confused, the feelings come back to me, but then again, they never really left. Right as I can't take life anymore, he shows up again and takes away the pain. He saves me from myself, as he always did and is the most incredible person I have ever met. Eventually, we fall madly in love, it isn't perfect, but that is what makes it so wonderful. He admits he had noticed me all along, claims I had him at hello, but he felt he wasn't what I wanted. I laugh and wish that he had any idea how badly I had wanted him the whole time. He gives me my first kiss at 15 and promises me his heart. I gave him mine the first time he looked into my eyes. He is everything I ever wanted in a guy, he fixes my broken heart and I couldn't live without him again. I fell in love with him, as it remains, unconditionally. I never mind that I gave him my heart at age twelve. He would never break it, unless his feelings for me went away.

As long as he is happy however... Loving him from a distance wouldn’t be the worst thing, if he needed me to.