Every Man I Fall For

I don’t know what I was expecting after that. Fireworks, or an orchestra, or a dance break maybe. But life seemed to go on normally, the river running on straight to the sea after a little bend. I couldn’t pretend I wasn’t sort of wishing it had taken a more definite curve. Because now that I’d had this revelation that yes, yes, Thom’s fingers fit just with mine, I wanted them there for a long, long time.

But Monday I came in with an expectant smile and I was met with one that could barely melt butter. I didn’t understand what had happened. It was like one day it was OK for me to count his freckles and wiggle his toes and then suddenly I was downgraded to C-class friend. He hardly spoke to me at all, once to ask about my weekend and once to borrow a pencil. I felt sick. That night was one of the worst since that night, and I barely left my room, barely moved my eyes from the plaster on the ceiling. Tuesday I came in grey and left black. I felt so small, so fairweather. And so embarrassed, that I’d opened myself to him, to his stupid pumpkin coloured room, and now I was being white-walled.

And now it’s been six days and five nights and now I’m at school and now I’m realising, here in the third row of my Ancient History class, that he never said it back. He never said it back.

And at the time that was OK because we lay and we talked and he smiled so wide and so easily, and I thought my heart was going to burst. Except it wasn’t those three words, not the really important ones anyway. And they’re what matters, aren’t they? Because like fades, like isn’t forever, like isn’t tomorrow morning. He hasn’t smiled like that at me again this week, not once.

I let this realisation hit me, but it’s like opening a flood gate to this part of me that I keep dammed up in my heart and very very quickly it’s rushing out and through my blood and down to the very tips of my toes.

It’s all in your head. He’s all in your head. It’s sympathy.

I can’t see, I can’t hear.

Pity. You’re worthless. You’re nothing.

The room is spinning and my head is pounding and I’m going to fucking scream.

“Excuse me, Sir?” I interrupt. He looks annoyed.

“Yes Mr Hartcher?”

“May I be excused? I think I’m going to be sick.”

“Yes, OK, would you like someone to go with you? Allie-“

I’m out the door.

Sprinting.

When I get to the closest bathroom I throw the door open and make a beeline for the closest stall. Kneeling down, just in time, I heave and heave until there’s nothing left, until the only thing my body has left to expel is the salt water running down my cheeks. And then I slump down against the wall of the toilet stall and I sob and sob until even that is empty as well, and all I am left with is the fucking humiliation of this situation. I can’t believe I’m here, again, like clockwork, crying over a boy that drives me crazy but is just out of reach. Except this time is different, this time he can’t have ever felt anything about me, and I can’t tell if that hurts less or worse.

“Oliver?” a girl’s voice, from the door. “Oliver?”

I wipe my eyes ferociously and attempt to steady my voice.

“Yes, I’m in here.” It doesn’t crack and I silently praise every God that ever existed.

“OK. I can’t come in because it’s the boys’, but Mr Waters told me to come and make sure you were ok…”

I place the voice as Allie Wexler. A funny girl, very outgoing. Well liked. Thom’s type.

“Thanks Allie, I-“ fuck. “-I’ll be out in a minute. I’m fine.”

“Alright” she says uncertainly, but I hear the door quietly click shut and I breathe a heavy, shaky breath, and run my hands through my hair. I can’t afford to lose control again. I can’t.

*

“Fuck, Ol, you look like shit!”

I sigh, dropping my schoolbag on the rug. He’s in my room again, reading. He says the light is better but I think he just likes being here when I’m not.

“Thank you, Adrian, charming as always.”

Running a hand through my hair, I shuffle to the bed and plop down on the edge. I’ve been unconsciously doing that all day, and my head looks like a birds nest. I look up at Adrian and when he catches my eye, his expression changes instantly to one of brotherly concern, and he marks his book before laying it on the bedside table.

“Oliver.”

I know this is him prompting me to spill everything on to him like some upended paint can, but I make him say it just to be annoying.

“What?”

“Well, what’s wrong? I haven’t seen you like this since...”

I wince.

“…for a while. What happened?”

I decide to go for the short option.

“People at school are ignoring me.”

Adrian’s mouth turns further down at the corners.

“Is this Harriet in one of her moods again?”

I shake my head.

“You don’t know him.”

And Adrian’s face breaks like the sun at dawn and he gives me that fucking pitying sad smile he’s had to use too many times and he says

“I’m sorry, mate.”

And as he gets up to leave me alone, he gives my shoulder a quick squeeze and shoots me another look.

I want to die.

Dinner is just as bad, if not worse, because Adrian has obviously told Dad, and everyone is treading softly around me like I’m some horse that’s prone to spooking. The conversation is so forced and mundane and I just want to leave, just go lie in my room in the pitch black and stare at the wall and let myself have a melodramatic moment for once in my fucking life.

And that’s exactly what I do, for an hour and a half, before my eyelids grow so heavy that I fall back and straight in to a dreamless sleep.