Chapter Text
Senior Year. Somewhere in Autumn, maybe? I can’t even remember.
“Mi luz, me hiere.” She told me, glasses pulled slightly below her eyes, and a hat somewhat crooked. Our eyes were locked onto each other, only mine were filled with a particular kind of fogginess that I could not explain.
She was fidgeting with the tie that I’d fixed for her that morning on our walk to school. The one that I'd done hurriedly, despite it being routine. She had a habit of being late, and I knew it well.
“Chance, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for things to be this way.” I scratched my elbow with my nails.
“Might I ask why?” She took a slight step forward, instinctively making me take a step back. Any closer and I likely would’ve run away. In reality, nothing was stopping me from doing that exact thing right now.
Four years. It’d been over four years since we’d started dating. It was roughly three-quarters into our seventh-grade year when one day, under the largest tree near the garden that our school had out back by the field, Chance dragged me all the way over. She told me she had something important to say to me, but all I could think about was the potential that we’d miss our bus.
It was simpler then. It didn't feel like it at the time, but in comparison to all of this now, it was so much easier.
My hair was much shorter then. I’d still identified as a boy then. It wasn’t abnormal for a guy and a girl to be friends, but it was only a matter of time until one of them would develop feelings. For the longest time, I felt that Chance and I were different. Because we’d known each other since elementary school, we'd never let the idea of partnership or the potential for eventual marriage and such complicate our friendship. But out of the blue, one day, I found myself daydreaming about her in a way I’d never before.
I didn’t make the connection as soon as I probably should’ve. By the time I had, she and I were already under the tree. The flowers hadn’t bloomed yet; it was still too cold for them to open their petals to take in all the sun they possibly could. It felt almost cliché. I felt embarrassed.
She'd gently grab both of my hands and pull them closer. Her face was tomato-red as she confessed the feelings she'd been aware of for a long time now. My response was hesitant, but that didn't make it any less accurate. I felt the two of us would never be separated again.
But things were different now. My hair had grown out longer than it ever had before. You could pull it back into a ponytail, maybe even braid it if you wanted. I had become familiar with makeup. I had become familiar with dresses. The stereotypical girly things that made me feel real.
I felt happy.
But I also felt like this would only burden her.
“There could be a million reasons why, but I don’t think any of them would make sense.” I’d respond after a couple of moments. Why was I doing this?Was it for her sake, or to protect myself from the inevitable pain? More importantly, why did this feel so dramatic?
The leaves were flowing around us. I remember them being variations of yellow and brown, which made me feel like this was happening in the fall. My brain has worked around the clock to try to force me to forget what happened that day. Some of the events will be lost to time, others will imprint themselves in my memory until the day I die.
“Tesoro. If this is about the girl thing, I want you to know that it means nothing to me.” She took another step. I almost hesitated to take another backwards step. “You are the same person I’ve always loved.”
The terms of endearment almost made me feel sick. It felt as if they were exploding in my face. They didn’t belong to me. They shouldn't. I had no right.
“But it should matter,” I responded, clenching my hands into fists. My eyebrows slightly furrowed in frustration. The solution to this whole mess was easy for me to see, so how could she not see it?
“Ellie-”
“Don’t you understand, Chance? I’m not the same person you fell in love with anymore.” I finally broke eye contact, choosing to look at the ground over her visibly tense face.
She muttered something that I could barely hear. It wasn’t loud enough to make it out, but just audible enough to know it was there. It sounded like something mixed between a sigh and a sniffle, accompanied by some strange string of words that seemed to solidify something to her.
“If I can’t change your mind, I’ll get out of your hair.”
I averted my sight upwards again. Her glasses were slightly foggy, and I could tell her eyes were threatening tears. Just slightly, her bottom lip quivered, only to be stopped by the intense biting of it. She’d fix her glasses before placing her hands deep into her own pockets, making the slight hunch in her posture all the more noticeable.
She’d turn and make her way down the sidewalk. I stood there, unmoving. I couldn’t. Any step I’d take would be towards her. My decision, one I’d thought so thoroughly, would be for nothing if I took that step. That one step would turn into so many more until I ended up in her arms again. She’d have to deal with my confusion, all of what was pent up inside of me. She doesn’t deserve that.
So I stayed unwavering. I stood meekly at the end of the pavement until I could no longer see her beyond the bustling of cars and other people on the sidewalk. It was only then that I started making my way home, in hopes of finding comfort in my own room that I hadn’t realized had been solely taken over by the thought of her.
She'd become everything to me—the clothes that I wore, the air that I breathed, the arms that I rested in.
When I finally did make it to the driveway, my legs ached. It was an unfamiliar pain.
My house was not far enough from the school to tire me out before I made it through the front door, but something about today felt much longer than the other days. Perhaps it was because she was not here to walk beside me, to hold my hand, or wrap an arm around my shoulder when a near-beginning winter breeze would abruptly make itself known and I’d shiver as an immediate response.
Nobody was home, surprisingly. I couldn’t tell you whether this made me feel all the more lonely. It felt desolate. It dawned on me that Mia was staying after school for some club, and as per usual, my mother wouldn’t be home until roughly seven or eight. Maybe later. The thought of clocking in for work subsequently escaped my mind as I made it in. I paced to my room, hardly aware of my surroundings but crashing into nothing because I knew the layout like the back of my hand. This feeling would become normal for such a long time to come. Days felt indiscernible. Everything would bleed into each other, and I would have no proper way of determining what day of the week it was if it weren’t for my alarm clock only sounding on weekdays. Sooner or later, I found myself in a dream-like state. With all the diversity of my life that she took with her, this new monotony would confuse me. 'Was I still dreaming? Did I even wake up this morning?' would rack in my brain at almost every moment of the day.
As soon as I opened the door, I stumbled into the room and was almost immediately greeted with the hard wooden floor on the palms of my hands and knees. Pain shot through my body, and I could feel nausea coursing through my stomach and up to my head. A mixture of remorse and guilt circled everywhere that wasn’t a constant reminder that I felt like throwing up, and the disgusting feel of heat hit me like a bullet to the face as I began to cry.
Just how dependent had I become? Why was something like this hurting so bad when it was ultimately my decision? She has to hate me now.
I pulled my knees up to my face, securing them tightly in my arms, and I held and held until my body ached from the uncomfortable position. I was overreacting, I truly was. I shouldn’t have felt sad about what happened. I should’ve felt remorseful for how I treated her.
Soon enough, I’d slowly pick myself up from the ground and carefully walk over to my bed. Once I sat down on it, I pulled my covers over me and pressed my head against the comfort of pillows and stuffed animals. I didn’t deserve any comfort, but I had no intention of not taking it.
Selfish, I was. Greedy, I’ll always be.
I was lulled to sleep by the ticking of the clock at my nightstand. A quiet sound that always annoyed me when I was doing busy work or trying to focus felt like the most familiar thing I’d ever known, having lost the most valid form of comfort because of my own stupidity and culpability.
I woke up sick the next morning. My mother made me stay home.
She never asked. I never told her.
I was on my own now.