He looked up at me when we passed in the hallway. We both knew there was something there. We had something. But it's awkward. It's always been awkward. No. Wait. Not always. Not always. Last year it wasn't like this, it was good. Almost perfect actually. We were so like each other, an obvious chemistry linked us wherever we were. He'd look over his shoulder at me in French at me, and we'd smile at each other. Everyone noticed. It was hard not to.
But good things never last, and this weird relationship surely didn't. And it was my fault, like always. Of course I screwed everything up.
Now we don't talk. He doesn't smile at me in French, we don't share looks. He tries though, I can see it, to talk to me sometimes. He asks about his brother, where he is, we're both in the Play you see. That's probably why I do as much as possible with his brother. So he'll ask me. I guess I never moved on. He did. He has a girlfriend now. It's my friend, too. That's probably why I hang out with her. So he'll see me with her. And they do god-knows-what together, and now that we're in high school he smokes god-knows-what all the time and hangs around the jerky stoners. He used to be the rocker kid. Now he's just the bad one.
Sometimes I talk to him in my head. We have long conversations, like the one we'd text last year. God- I know so much about that boy. More than anyone. I'm sure. When we talk in my mind, it always starts out the same way. He asks me who I like, who my latest crush is. My answer is consistant.
I can't tell you.
Why not?
You won't understand.
Then he looks into my eyes, and I can see, that yes, he does understand. For he knows me, too. And I just smile and tell him it's him I'm crushing on. But there's someone inside of me that knows it's not true. It's a different boy I like. One who wears his hair long and floppy, Bob Marley t-shirts, and this one that's orange. It has a big peace sign on it. He wears ripped-up jeans, and he has a scarf too. I always loved that scarf. And his sneakers. His beat up dark green converse. These made me like him in the first place. The boy I love was the boy that played the guitar, collected vinyl records, the boy with the bracelets. The boy no one understood. No one but me. That was hard though. It would be for anyone. Too hard. So he took off his bracelets, his scarf. He cut his floppy hair and threw out the ripped-up jeans.
I ruined our chance of love, but maybe, just maybe, it was because I could feel him changing. All those months ago at that terrible school dance, we slow danced. There was no chemistry. Nothing. In fact, at one point, our feet bumped. When this happened we both looked down. Maybe it was then I realized I couldn't ever be with him. He had lost the one thing that made me fall for him. On his feet were a new pair of sneakers. I never saw his green converse again. I never saw Ben again.