Change, Pt 2 - A Love, Another Life

Month – May Year – 2023

Before 'Change'

She looks slightly sideways at him, a silly grin twirling off her lips, standing outside his car with the sun shining on their faces. Her stomach flips twice and then times seventeen as he looks back at her, time slowing down to second by second, and he smiles. In her head, she curses herself for ever falling for him in the first place- so stupid of her to do, so much pain and hurt and denial and insanity and anger, so much happiness and so much lightheartedness, such an oxymoron to the point that she is the moron- but it’s one of the best things that’s ever happened to her anyway. But she stands there, simply smiling despite her thoughts, looking at him. Something in his expression changes, and he ducks inside the car, quickly waving goodbye for the day.

He asks her later over text why she looked at him like that. “like what? when? wdym” She replies, staring at her phone.

“the equivalent of ‘get someone who looks at you the way a starved man looks at food does’,” he types. “or ’get someone who looks at you the way tom looks at zendaya. ykwim, like at the car when i was about to go.

She sits there for a second, still staring, confused as to who would ever say that phrase but understanding it at the same time, and decides on mild sarcasm and joking humor (as per usual).

“i’m f*cking in love with you” she types, and then deletes it, her eyes narrowing and eyebrows furrowing, and then types it again and smacks send and sighs and throws her phone into her backpack and half-runs-half-walks across her house to get a cup of apple juice and folds exactly twenty-four articles of clothing, suddenly being productive for the next ten minutes.

When she picks up her phone, he’s apologizing for something that he couldn’t help but do and was never his fault, and she falls all over again. After all, how could she not?

She falls all over again every time she sees him in the hallways, whenever she’s walking with him alone or with friends. She falls all over again when they make eye contact, and they stare until one of them cracks a grin first, or when one of them glances away out of nervousness but looks back a second later. She falls all over again when they’re in a crowded room and somehow the first person she looks up to is him. She falls all over again when they sit far away from each other, but their eyes still find each other, somehow.

She falls all over again when she braids little strands of his hair slowly, hoping the moment will never end, never having enough time to style his curls exactly how she likes, even though she’d never change anything about him.

She falls all over again when she purposefully brushes past him in an empty hallway as an excuse to put her chin on his shoulder.

She falls all over again when she sees his expression light up, when he loses himself in his characteristic bubbly laughter or in the crushing weight of his tears and fears.

She falls all over again when - perhaps this is bad of her to fall over - it is, it is, it really, really is bad - she’s the only one who he trusts enough to comfort him during a panic attack after a competition.

She falls all over again when he calms down by arranging pieces of sequins and glitter that she found on the floor into the shape of flowers and lets her hold him. She falls all over again when he apologizes for getting her shoulder wet. She falls all over again when he manages to laugh through his tears. She falls all over again when he doesn’t want anyone else in the fluorescent, sickly bright room but her and even goes so far as to block the door with a chair. She falls all over again when he tells her, later, that she was the only one who understood what he was trying to say and what he had felt.

She fell all over again, in those moments, in the past, when they were only friends, and he had a girlfriend - not her.

She falls all over again whenever he texts back something silly and wholly unserious, when he shows he cares, when he teases her, when he teases his friends.

She wonders if he knows that he holds her heart in the palm of his hand, if he knows that sometimes, the longing for someone who is so far away and yet too close to touch is simply too much for her, for anyone at all, to bear.

She falls all over again when he looks at her - when he really, truly looks at her - and she can tell that at that moment, she’s really, truly there, and not floating somewhere in space, though her heart probably thinks otherwise.

She finds falling scary, and absolutely hates the vulnerable feeling of it, but she thinks that if it’s with someone who likes you back, it’s okay. It’s good, even.

-

Month – July Year – 2023

After 'Change'

He’s back from his month of vacation, where they disjointedly texted across half of the globe, day clashing with night.

They joke together, send photos of everyday things. He doesn't ever tell her he loves her. She did, though only three times exactly, and in short text slang.

He texts her the moment he lands. It’s two fifty-seven in the morning. She sees the text when she wakes up for water, at eight-oh-five. The numbers are engraved into her mind - she couldn’t forget them if she wished. She texts him a reply. He answers almost instantly: “can i call u” and she gets a call.

“Hhhi.” He’s audibly groggy.

“You okay?” She asks, worried. “What’s wrong? Did you need something?”

“...Nnno.” He answers slowly.

“Well, why’d you call me then?” She laughs, albeit quietly.

“Jus’ wanted ’t hear... your voice.” He says after a pause, his own voice coated with sleepiness. She knows he sounds like that every morning, anyway.

“Oh.” She mumbles, shocked but not shocked, touched to her core, and it feels like every nerve in her body is smoldering, on fire.

They both sit in silence for five minutes, before she gathers the courage to say something, anything. “Did you want me to talk, then?”

“S’okay. You don’ hafta.”

She smiles into the phone speaker, exhaling softly- like he can see her face.

She swears he’s smiling into the speaker, too.

They meet up for sushi with friends and get bubble tea a day later. It’s everyone in their friend group, but just them at the same time.

But he sits on the other side of the booth.

But he doesn’t rest his head on her shoulder.

But he smiles less. At her.

But he meets eyes with her hesitantly, and instead of holding the contact like they usually do, he breaks it. A record of (based on average) twenty seconds earlier than usual.

But who’s keeping count?

She leaves a week later for her vacation, having only seen him once; leaves halfway across the globe, too.

-

Month – August Year – 2023

She’s back from her month of vacation, a strictly minimal tech affair as mandated by her parents, and he’s still at home, doing who knows what. They texted once the entire month.

They don’t meet up.

Practice for their sport starts soon, two weeks before another semester of college begins, only she’s quitting that coming year, and he’s not.

It’ll be hot out there, on the concrete and the grass, under the shade of the trees and under the burning sun.

Their: because they are a duet, one half of the other: she only feels fully complete doing this, that, anything, if it is with him. Always: when it comes time to compete, when it comes time to pack up, when it comes time to practice a specific skill, when it comes time to walk down to the lockers, when it comes time to walk to class, to lunch, to the buses that take them back "home", but they are each other’s home.

Are. Were.

It’ll be cool inside, on the yoga mat and the white leather couch, under the teal covers of her bed and in her books and novels.

She hasn’t texted him. She texted him when she landed, and didn’t get the urge to call. He responded, but she didn’t. Oddly enough, it was freeing, not having to. She liked the feeling of being free- it was addicting, and quickly became something she craved- and decided to hold on to it for just a little longer. A little longer. Every single day. Just a little longer.

He hasn’t texted her. At all.

She hasn’t cried. At all.

She cried back in May, when he told her he liked her back after breaking up with his girlfriend- that was a reason why he broke up with his girlfriend- and she was scared and uncertain and it felt like the world was breaking when in reality it was her heart that was breaking, because she knew deep inside that it wasn’t real and it would never, ever be something real.

So she doesn’t cry anymore, not now; no, not now, no, not ever, not over this.

She’s glad, in a way, that she doesn’t cry. It isn’t worth it, in some respects. In others, it is. But she’s mostly glad.

She doesn’t know if he ever loved her, so she simply gives him closure. A last text, a last everything, a last whatever.

He gives her nothing in return; nothing for her last act of love, if it can be called that now, towards him.

It’s closure enough for her to move on, move on faster than she thought was possible. She doesn’t really talk about it with friends, nor does she have the chance to see him often - it’s mostly forgotten, until she sees him randomly in the hallways or on the sidewalks, and has to blink back a flinch. Because seeing him - a part of herself, something that was once so vital and instrumental in her life - and having no reaction - is hard. Something that was a love, another life.

It was a love she could never forget, though, so she immortalizes it in words. In the form of eternal emotion, eternal feeling, that she lives and breathes, that shines in her eyes and flows through her voice, that sparks in her bones and sings in her blood.