I pause, savoring the moment of sweet silence, weighing my options with an unconvincing brush of wildness and deciding how far I want to go.

I should say something.
I will say something.

I could start small: “What do you think of our math teacher?”
I think I’ve already asked him this. I know the answer, anyway. Our math teacher is atrocious.

“I hate chemistry,” feels safe. He hates chemistry, doesn’t he? I need something witty, but nothing comes to mind. I need anything. “Do you like pears?” would be a venture, but it might be worth it. Many a deep and significant conversations have begun with a simple pear. This thought rolls through my brain before it is discarded.

Desperation grows, but the words don’t come any easier. It’s difficult—they will portray me. They could be what he remembers me by tonight when he’s lying awake trying to figure out his Homecoming date. I think boys do that. Girls do, anyway.

I want to say, “When I look into your eyes I feel like I’m diving into deep, safe pools of sparkling liquid diamonds, and I want to stay there forever, I really do. There’s nobody in this entire school, town, beyond that has eyes quite like yours and eternity looks good—more than good, glorious—if I have those eyes to stare into.”

This seems like something I might possibly regret saying.

I could abandon language and appeal to another sense. If I gently, nonchalantly, carefully grazed my fingertips over his wrist, he might notice enough to notice me, to drag his eyes from that girl across the room and see me. Me.

This task—the task of touching him, caressing him, if you will—is too big a step. I am an amateur. I need to start smaller.

One minute until the bell will ring and the class will flee and I will have to spend another whole day waiting for this moment to come again tomorrow. I am running out of tomorrows.

There is a rush, propelling the seconds forward much faster than they should have been moving. He was already beginning to gather his things together in a pile, ready to dump them into his backpack and leave without a second glance at me unless I acted. Now.

The bell rang as he stood up. “Hey,” I said.
He nodded. “Hey.”

And, though he could not see, I soared.