A small reprieve was needed. It was getting stuffy in the civic center and Brandon was once again freaking out.

He would’ve been ecstatic back in middle school; the girl of his dreams asked him to senior prom and it wasn’t out of pity.

However, years later, he was only a little ecstatic and moreover mortified of the situation he was in.

Brandon was two months removed from a relationship that ended, once again, with the girl telling him some bullshit excuse (like “I don’t love you the way I should”) to dump him with. After this, he went back to his good ’ole pining after Casey.

This time he was sick of it; repeatedly in a cycle of dating someone he didn’t truly love, getting dumped by them, and finishing with realizing that he was in love with Casey. He did not want to be in love with Casey, but once again, he fell into the trap.

The cherry on top of this situation was the person Casey was dating online- a similar situation to the one faced in middle school. Once again, Brandon was in love with a taken Casey, who was taken by someone Brandon has minimal contact with.

A perfect storm.

Standing there in the backroom of his town’s civic center, Brandon couldn’t help but think about his situation; how he could’ve avoided this years ago, how he and Casey would still be dating, how ready they would be for marriage despite being high school seniors (something Brandon interpreted as a fact they wouldn’t realize if the scenario was truly being played out), but most of all, how happy they would be together if he wasn’t such a fucking idiot in middle school.

He sighed.

“I’m a mess.” He said to no one in particular.

He slumped down on the wall behind him and sat down, with his legs bent at the knee in front of him.

He slowly began to laugh, trying his best not to break and at the same time laugh at the situation he found himself in.

“What a comedy of errors I live.” He said in between chuckles.

He sat there for maybe ten minutes, in the small back room, all by himself. He was alone, uninterrupted, and placed somewhere between peace and chaos mentally.

Once the ten minutes was up, Casey came in. She looked down at Brandon, frowned, and asked simply, “Are you okay?”

He looked up at her and laughed sardonically.

“What do you think?” He asked back in a sarcastic laugh.

“Brandon, I can’t just dance around the topic, just tell me.”

“Why not dance?” Brandon retorted, “We’re at prom anyhow.”

“Brandon,” Casey said pleadingly, “cut the shit. Tell me.”

Brandon felt the tears of anger, sadness, and confusion start to well in his eyes. He didn’t want to do this. Not now.

“Isn’t it obvious by now?” He started, getting up slowly to pace.

“No…?” Casey asked.

“You know as well as I do that I want to be happy, right?” Casey nodded a yes in response. “Of course. You do know how I’ll get that happiness, right?” Casey nodded her head no.

“Acceptance, Casey. Love. Knowing someone cares for you beyond friendship or family. I’ve wanted love.

“Remember the conversation we had back in February? The one about Valentine’s Day?” Casey this time said “Yes” in response. “I hate Valentine’s Day because I’m envious. Everyone else has the happiness I’ve strived for. Even you.

“But back to that love I’ve failed to get. My dad always told me that I need to choose who I pick as a partner, not settle for who I pick as a partner.

“I have dated six girls, and a solid 83% of them I have settled for. You know what that equates to, out of six?” Casey audibly replied “no.” She was never good at math.

Brandon smiled. “Five. Five out of six. There has been only one girl in my life that I haven’t settled for. The one I’ve chosen.

“You know who that is, right?”

Casey never had self-esteem about her. In a conversation, once again back in February, Brandon had gotten mad at her for saying that she “wasn’t that important.”

Thus, she answered “no.”

“Don’t play bullshit with me, Casey. This is why I’m angry, it’s my fault.

“Of course it’s you.”

Brandon sighed.

“Is it not apparent to you that I’ve only been truly happy with one girl, that I’ve only looked back on one relationship with happiness, that I’ve repeatedly broken my heart over one girl, and that girl is you?

“I look back on all of my relationships with regrets. I have regrets about all of them- except for one. That’s you, and I have only one regret about dating you.

“I regret I allowed our relationship to end.”

Casey stayed silent as Brandon began to pace faster.

“I hate that I keep falling in love with you. I hate it. You have been dating someone else for a year, and if I had interfered and confessed again during the school year, I would’ve stressed you out more and gotten in the way.

“But moreover I hate it because…” and this was where Brandon’s voice started to break, “... you’ll never love me back the way I do, you’ll never want to date me, you’ll never want from me what I want from you… no, not even close.”

Brandon had marriage in mind, but did not want to freak Casey out more than he already thought he had.

“That’s why I’m so anxious to get out of this town and go to Southern Methodist. I can date there, I can wake up with feelings for you but face the day head-on because I know I won’t see you.

“I can get over you there. I can find someone better than you, which is still a hard task… but it’s a start!”

Brandon was shaking with tears in his eyes, with his shoulders moving up and down in anger and in an attempt to slow his fast breathing.

“So.”

He stopped, realizing his cloture was here, knowing that it was nearing ten o’clock, the time he was allowed to leave prom.

“The TL;DR? I love you. And I hate it. And it’s all my fault.”

He stopped, headed past Casey (he did have to juke her first) and stopped once he reached the door that let him out of the room he was perched in.

“Prom was wonderful, by the way.” He said, looking down at his feet. “Middle school me would’ve loved it.

“But would he have loved the outcome?”

He ran into the crowd so he could not be spotted leaving by Casey. It worked as Casey almost immediately lost track of him in the dense crowd. Casey looked on in disappointment, barely fighting off tears.

Brandon went home.

Eventually.

She asked me one day if I had decided what I was going to wear to prom.

I told her I did. That was true, I had decided when I was still dating Maddie. I was still gonna stick with it, as I always

wanted to rock black and red.

Looking back on it's rather weird; we were indeed on the topic of prom, but it still felt out of nowhere, like it had been on her mind for whatever reason.

This feeling, continuing to look back on it, was heightened when my sister told me that she mentioned that she was going to take me to prom, despite my sister not really asking about prom.

I'm a bit torn. She is in a relationship. She told me she felt torn about said relationship and never elaborated. She talks about her girlfriend every day. She seems more flirtatious with me.

Maybe, just maybe, I'm just being myself again. You know, the one that overanalyzes one thing she said in a conversation.

Or maybe, just maybe, she does still love me. And she is still afraid of hurting me.

I love her.