we first met in the ninth grade.
you told me that I was really cute,
a compliment perfectly acceptable when you're fourteen and
craving
to learn the feeling
of another human being being attracted to you somehow.
I thanked you, no matter how awkward it was,
because i would not leave your compliment just hanging,
suspended in the air only by that hopeful gleam in your eyes
or your damn smile
or the way your voice cracked every single time you muttered
"I love you".
We started dating a few months in to our freshman year.
I told you that I did not want to show you off,
I did not want to be so obnoxious or apparent with whatever it was
that we were calling a relationship.
Not because I was embarrassed of you,
not because I was afraid of any other girls stealing you away in to the night,
but because I did not know how to date you.
I did not know the meaning of affection,
did not know how to react to the warmth of your body against mine
or the electrical shock that shot through my veins
every time your hand found mine in the hallways,
going from class to class
as if it were the last time you would get the chance to
touch me.
I did not understand the difference between love and lust,
I did not know the difference between want and need
because for all I knew, you were all that was necessary for my survival,
you were the reason I ever felt a need to smile or laugh
or even enjoy life and for a long while,
I did not understand why that was a problem.
I switched schools my junior year,
something about grades not being good enough,
something about myself not being good enough,
a feeling that, at the time, I was not that familiar with.
We stopped talking at some point during that school year,
I'm not sure when, or why,
or how you could just
give up on the one person you told that you would never give up on.
I did not know how many other girls you told those same words.
During senior year,
we accidentally met each other once more,
and it was as if the stars had aligned,
as if whatever being was up above in the sky had planned it all along.
I started to believe in God again.
On our first actual date, you didn't even show up.
Even though the place was five minutes from your house,
even though you could have walked there,
could have dropped whatever it was that you were doing,
could have postponed any other plans aside from ours that had been in the works
for weeks before this.
You could have remembered.
You could have tried.
On our next date, you showed up fifteen minutes early,
as if those fifteen minutes was enough to mend an entire day of disappointed tears
and hate-filled punches into pillows
that I once curled in to at night wishing were you.
That was our first and last date.
About a month later, you messaged me online
because you did not have the guts to actually call me on the phone
and tell me out loud
that it was impossible to love me,
that I am a broken machine,
that you were constantly stepping on eggshells, trying to avoid confrontation
and conversation
because you did not know how to disarm the ticking time bomb
that you created.
You told me that you were sorry.
Three months later, another boy asked me if he could date me.
When those words came out of his mouth,
when I heard the pitch rise at the end of it as if waiting for an answer,
i felt my heart skip a beat, felt a mild arrhymthmia take over my entire body
and I was sure that he could see my skin trembling and buffering
and I just knew that he could see my brain trying to figure out
slowly
what to say next.
After a prolonged silence, I quietly told him no.
That I did not want to put him in danger.
He only laughed and
with pure confidence, told me that it was okay.
he was wearing a bulletproof vest.