for someone so smart, it was a stupid thing to ask carly to ask for my number.
carly: your best friend’s ex-girlfriend.
i’m still laughing.
i bet you were laughing at two a.m. afterwards.
laughing at your mindless request.
of course all of my friends said they didn’t have those ten digits.
beep. beep.
liar. liar.
she lit andy page’s house on fire.
the next day: my heartbeat almost killed me.
you held the door open for me as we left our last class.
2:10 p.m.
210 times I wished you were mine.
we headed to the parking lot under a cloudy sky.
the breeze blew my hair as our hands swung back and forth.
and your left hand
almost. touched. mine.
nonchalantly, your brown eyes flickered to meet mine.
held my gaze as you asked if i was going to the dinner that night.
i shrugged and ran a hand through the tangled mess of my hair.
“i don’t feel that well.” i said. “but i’ll be there.”
you smiled just a bit: a hesitant shadow on your lips.
if I hadn’t been staring at your mouth so intently i would have missed it.
it was there for just a second.
without a word you lumbered over to your red jeep.
i fled to my best friend’s car.
red just like yours.
red just like that thing in my chest pumping blood and falling in love.
with a boy five feet taller than my own height.
that night at 5:46 i threw on an itchy sweater.
i got in the back of a beat-down truck with three lonesome strangers.
we drove downtown and drew pictures on the icy window glass.
waiting for december to pass.
we walked into the restaurant.
you were already there.
seated at the front of the long table.
the first to get there.
i saw you look up and move closer to your ginger-haired friend.
the one who finds power in words bigger than his head.
that was when i noticed the empty chair beside you.
just one empty wooden chair.
right. beside. you.
but your eyes retreated from my form to look down.
your fingers playing with a white napkin on your lap.
my friends called me to come over.
so i sat at the very end.
the farthest from you.
but not far enough from your questioning gaze.
the one that made lindsey ask who you were looking at before you looked away.
i stared out the foggy window watching as pedestrians crossed the street.
dodging the servers’ questions of what i wanted to eat.
my stomach was turning.
my heart already bruising.
there’s so much you don’t know.
there’s so much i have to figure out.
about. myself.
you left without a word.
walked out alone.
car keys jingling.
we’ve both felt alone for so long.
i think we’re too scared to find out what it would be like
to

let


yourself




fall
for someone as lonely as your reflection.
the next morning my mother was sick.
i walked to the grocery store to buy her a bouquet of yellow flowers.
just like the ones on my new shirt.
i swiftly hid them under my jacket when i came back to school.
but you noticed them and asked whose they were.
one of our classmates absentmindedly pointed to me.
you asked who they were from.
“her boyfriend.” someone said.
oh how wrong they were.
something flashed in your eyes.
but you smiled as you gently held one of the petals between your fingertips.
and then.
walked. away.
again.
like we were used to by now.
i think you gave up that day.
because you only talked to me three times after that.
and then you left the class all together.
but every morning you walk by biology and expectantly look in the door.
and. our. eyes. always. meet.
and you always brush past me in the halls.
so close your breath tickles my ear.
and I remember that time our hands brushed.
and you turned red.
the same shade as that red plaid shirt you constantly wear.
the one I keep hoping to see again.