Awkward Intentions

“You’re beautiful,” thoughtfully, whimsically he says. His arms cross over the front of your desk, looking, searching your eyes.

Behind your seat, you look back sweetly, a bit confused, but mostly appreciative. Squirming in your chair, you pipe out a quick “thanks” and hope he receives your true message. You think he does.

You’re beautiful, too.

And maybe not in the most conventional of ways, but he is. He makes you smile on days you feel like phasing out. He had a certain glimmer in his eyes that made you question his motives, but you always disregarded the notion when his big blue eyes swallow you whole. You couldn’t possibly look into his gaze for too long, for fear that you might just lose yourself.

You’re brought out of your busy head by a question you didn’t hear, so you ask him to repeat himself. “Are you gonna stay here all day? Class is out…,” he trails off, looking pointedly at the clock, it’s just after three-thirty.

“Oh, oh right.” Your smile is humble, self-deprecating. “You’ve got tech club now?” You know the answer, but you still look to him with hope.

“Yeah, I do. You should come with me.”

You know you’ll disappoint him when you decline once again. You know you’ll stay inside your reclusive shell because you don’t know how else to be. So you shake your head and give him an emphatic smile.

“Sorry, maybe next week, yeah?”

His lips form a small smile, he has some sort idea walking past his mind and you can tell: you’ve studied his face a thousand times.

He makes an exaggerated pout, and you want to give in, but he halts and accepts your answer. He’s walking by your side, but pauses to affirm you walk out the door first—a halt in his step, an elongated, elegant hand extended, beckoning you to step before him. It’s such a simple gesture, but it drives you wild inside.

~

Frost blankets the barren grounds around the school courtyard; it’s late March. Behind the building, the sun is out of the sky, replaced by a cloudless night, tinged with a warm glow. Only a few mindless, mingling teens remain on the premises, most of who were huddled in groups smoking joints. The two of you are not amongst the masses, but rather you are placated merely by sitting apart from the others. You’re sitting next to him on top of a concrete parking block, your hands nervously rap-taping at the ground.

“You ever notice that ants are a lot like us?” He inquires, and you notice him eyeing a particularly large ant scurrying along the pavement, trying to find its way home. You encourage him to continue with a slight nod of the head. “Well, you see, they strive to do what every human does. They’re born, they grow, they work, they reproduce and they die. And then the cycle starts right back over again, just like it does for us.”

His eyes are wide with interest, and he leans forward, closer to you than you’re comfortable admitting, and gestures wildly as he speaks. “Have you ever killed an insect?” He asks, already knowing the answer.

“Yes.”

“Humans and insects are really similar. So what makes it okay to kill insects?” His curiosity is endearing, but you don’t have an answer to the question. You have to come up with something, something that will impress him, but with all your might and will and want…your mouth starts to rotate.

“Because they’re ugly and yucky and freaky!”

“So it’s okay to kill someone if they’re ugly and freaky?”

“No—that’s not what I mean!”

He’s looking at you like you’re the ugly and freaky insect as he dissects you with his eyes. You can’t interpret if he thinks you’re judgmental or just verging on psychopathic. Your mind exaggerates the situation, but you can’t calm your thoughts.

He drops the subject anyway, and you find yourself sitting comfortably next to him in silence. A chilly breeze wraps its arms around the two of you, sending icicles down both your spines. You scoot just a little bit closer to him, taking any excuse to do so. He looks over and down to you, smiles.

~

“I like you, too, you know?”

It must have been the way you tilted your head or grinned when he spoke, you have no idea, but as he says those tremendous words, you feel lightheaded and overwhelmed at his confession. And just like that, a crowd of doves escapes from your heart, spreading out to your lungs and stomach, their wings fierce and fluttering. It is as though a heavy burden from lifts itself from your awkward shoulders and you are free to soar over the clouds. The feeling is of a breathless, weightless kind, unshackled and alive.

~

His cornflower hair is stuffed under a cap and he’s dressed in graduation garb, standing before you. You’re unbelievably proud of his accomplishments and saddened by his approaching leave. Somewhere along the line, you must have fallen for him because at some point of making promises about remaining in contact and realizing you won’t, you feel your heart sinking, sinking, sinking into your abdomen. There’s always that protruding ache that finds its way into your being when you know you’re about to lose something precious. As you look into his intensely blue eyes, you know that this is it, that this is goodbye.

He presses you to his chest and crosses his arms around your back, enveloping you into a hug. You cherish his familiar scent, the crevices of his face, and the feel of his skin because you’ve come to find that everything ends. You won’t forget this. There’s a moment where he knows and you know that you should let go, but you allow that moment to pass and you hang onto the remains of a relationship before he moves away and becomes too important and you go back to classes and study hard to go nowhere. It’s a cycle.

Love is a subjective concept, without constrictions on time or depth. Even scrutinized under a microscope, one is unable to grasp it or attain it. It lives inside our hearts and breathes in our veins, like a fiery dragon mad with lust. It seeps into us, rains on our very being ‘til we’re intoxicated. Your hearts are wasted with an agonizing desire to consume the flames within each other. It’s a maddening sort of intoxication, an oblivion, if you will.