I walk around my house, looking for the missing item that nags at the corner of my mind each and every time I leave for school. It’s a vicious cycle, because it happens every day. I get this bitter sweet feeling inside my stomach and I search and search for what I can’t find. Eventually, I go to school and realize, I’m missing nothing. Then the next day, it happens again, yet, I can never find that one missing link to my life’s story.
I give up searching and run to the door, knowing that if I’m late to school again my teacher will give me a detention.
When I arrive I sprint down the hallways—a few teachers tell me to stop—and finally reach homeroom. As soon as my foot goes through the door the bell rings and I jump to the nearest seat, hoping that when Mrs. Huckins strolls in she won’t notice I’m out of my assigned seat.
Luckily, when she does come in, she simply calls out our names, we say, “here,” then the bell rings and we go to first hour class. I am the first student out of the room and I run down the hallway with agitated impatience, because I know when I get to English, the one girl in the world who really makes me happy, sits in her seat with her hands on the desk and her legs crossed. She smiles when I walk in and I smile back, mine filled with love, but hers filled with simple friendship, yet strangely, something else today.
Erin will always be a friend, never more—no matter how much I try. She will always think of me as someone to be there for her when she was down, to talk to her about her boy troubles, but the truth is, I would give absolutely anything to be with her. It feels like she makes my life go round, like she’s the one holding me to the Earth. Yet, she doesn’t see how much I want to be with her, and I can’t figure out how to make her see it.
She waves at me to come sit by her, I comply. Today, she looks as beautiful as ever, with her short brunet hair with a perm. It only reaches her shoulders, but it was still gorgeous. She has brown eyes that somehow sparkle despite their dark nature. Her face has a few freckles, but to me, that just makes her more attractive. Erin wore a red, V-neck t-shirt and jeans. She is a simple girl, she hated to wearing dresses, and frankly, she despises dressing up altogether. But nevertheless, she is still the most attractive woman I’ve seen in my whole life.
“Warren,” Erin says my name quietly, trying not to disturb the other kids in the class room.
“Yeah?” I ask.
She looks at me with her brown eyes and says the thing I would’ve never guessed, the thing I miss every day before I go to school. She says—
“I love you.”