Her eyes gaze into mine and I know my tiny infatuation has grown into something bigger. Something more powerful. Something dangerous.
Her eyes twinkle with the light of mischief and her little smirk has me smiling uncontrollably in response. The corners of my mouth hurt with the force of it. She laughs then, a real laugh, not one just anyone gets to hear. Her special laugh, reserved for only those she really knows.
I really know her.
My heart is beating straight out of my chest. It’s a tight sort of feeling, like I could either begin falling or taking flight but either way it’s sure to be exciting. The wind will whip in my hair and I will soar in the sky. That’s the funny thing about flying; you never know if you’ll fall and crash or touch the clouds and ascend. Or maybe I’ll do both at once, the Earth and Heaven moving closer together in this moment of pure thrill.
It’s too much all at once and I don’t know what to do about it.
She doesn’t even know how I feel. How can she when I can’t begin to put words to it myself. All I know is that she’s the reason I get up in the mornings. She’s the reason I drag myself to school everyday, and she’s the reason I can’t stop overthinking at night.
She. Is. Everything.
And yet I’m just somebody.
She says something then, probably a joke of some sort, but I’m too busy in my own head that the words don’t register. I ask her to repeat herself and she just shakes her head with a small smile on her face.
“What?” I ask.
“Just… you.”
I can feel the burning in my cheeks already, and I’m mortified that she can probably see the effects her words have on me. I do my best to act as if nothing is happening, pretending that these words won’t circle around and around my head for the rest of the day, making me dizzy with the effort of trying to decipher their meaning.
It means nothing; you have to stop.
“Let’s get out of here,” she says, grabbing a hold of my hand.
We’re holding hands, my mind says before I can shut the thought down.
“Where?” I ask, but I’m ignored.
She pulls me through the crowds of the diner we’d eaten at and out into the sunlight. I tilt my head up to the sky, basking in the joy of this moment. The soft breeze in the air, the endless expanse of sky, and my hand clutched by a girl I surely must love.
You can’t love her.
But I do.
My stomach turns at the thought; the realization both inevitable but anxiety inducing. I love her. I can’t possibly do this; who do I think I am?
But then she turns her head to look back at me, as if she’s making sure I’m still there even as we walk hand in hand. And yes, I know, I love her.
“Where are you taking me?” I say, half out of genuine confusion, half to make sure I don’t just stare into her eyes.
“Who knows? You just looked uncomfortable so I decided it was time for us to leave,” she states, matter of factly.
She cares.
“Well, then, let’s go for a hike then, shall we?” I say in response. Without letting go of her hand, I take the lead, walking to the forest just a few blocks away from the diner.
Sunlight flickers through the leaves above us, lighting the forest floor with green and yellow hues. Our pace has slowed to a leisurely stroll, the imagined urgency from before gone entirely.
We talk back and forth, but most of the walk is in companionable silence. Me, with thoughts racing, and her with… well I can never tell what exactly she’s thinking. That’s the problem, isn’t it? Her mind is a mystery to my own.
We reach a landing that overlooks a small pond. It’s very high up, but the view is to die for. Trees stretch further than I would’ve imagined given our somewhat suburban location. The expanse is unlike anything I’ve ever witnessed, and a deep sense of peace overtakes me. I walk closer to the edge, just to get a real sense of this moment.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” I say, voice soft with awe.
“Very,” she says, but when I glance at her, her eyes aren’t trained on the scene before us. She’s looking at me.
My head is screaming at me but I don’t break her gaze. Our eyes lock upon one another and yes, there is something prettier than the scenery beneath us.
Her hand lifts from her side and she brushes a strand of hair from in front of my face.
“Sorry, it was just…” her voice, gentle to begin with, trails off entirely.
Slowly, almost beneath notice, our heads move closer together. Lips centimeters apart, but not touching. I close my eyes with a soft exhale, her face too pretty to look at. It hurts, sometimes, to see so much beauty in someone and know it’s not yours.
It’ll never be mine. She will never be mine.
And that thought cuts right into my heart, slicing me into pieces.
I jerk back suddenly, the movement meant to be a small evasion, but I had forgotten how close to the cliff’s edge I was. My feet stumble and
Time.
Slows.
Down.
Her eyes widen in slow horror, arms reaching forward to grab me around the waist. My back leg, meant to catch my fall, never makes contact with the ground. It keeps falling back.
My arms flail as I go over the edge, getting further and further from her.
Our eyes are still locked and I can hear someone screaming and it's anyone’s guess if it’s her or me.
There’s a brief moment where I feel weightless. This, I think, is the moment time truly stops. If I squint my eyes and pretend, this could almost feel like flying.
That’s the funny thing about flying; you never know when you’ll fall.
Time resumes - quicker now as if to catch up for the moments lost when it slowed.
I crash to the ground and everything hurts.
My hands are slick with a coat of blood.
But the bleeding.
Won’t.
Stop.
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