First & Then

A thousand electric cars could run on how you feel when you know that the person you like likes you back. It feels incredible. Like it shouldn't be possible. Of all the happy coincidences to ever exist, it's one of the happiest.

When you love something, you can't be happy all the time, can you? Like, that's why you love it. It makes you feel all kinds of things, not just happy. It can hurt, it can make you fucking mad, but... it makes you feel something, you know?

As far as I was concerned, physical education was evil. You take a bunch of teenagers, make them strip down in front of each other in a locker room, have them don hideous matching uniforms, and then measure their worth based on their ability to chuck balls at a net, into a hoop, or at each other. It was just. Evil.

Close your eyes, real tight, and then count to three hundred. That’s all you have to do. You just count to three hundred, and when you open your eyes, five minutes will have passed. And even if it hurts or things are shitty or you don’t know what to do, you just made it through five whole minutes. And when it feels like you can’t go on, you just close your eyes and do it again. That’s all you need. Just five minutes at a time.

I pulled out my phone and thought about calling someone, but who was there to call? And what would I even say? It was just the kind of unpleasant surprise you had to share with someone, but I didn’t have anybody to share it with.

I had also never realized before that I loved him, but I did. And his pain was my pain, and it hurt, but it also felt good in a strange way, knowing that we could share in it together.

But there was something in his eyes at times that I would almost swear said something more. Some deeper sort of regard.

Labor Day is really the last sweet taste of summer. One final pardon before all your Mondays become Mondays again.

Wait,” he said, and he had his hand outstretched toward me, fingertips just brushing the sleeve of my sweatshirt, gently rooting me to the spot. I wanted to shrug him off, but at the same time, I wanted to fall against him and bury my face in his shoulder. I wanted to commiserate about what had just happened, and make sure he was okay, and discuss how Stanton really is psychotic. I did none of the above.

The idea that it doesn't matter what over people think about you gets thrown around a lot in high school, and in many instances it's true. But I do care what certain people think of me.

It could have been avoided. This couch misery spiral, this … loss … I could’ve avoided the bulk of it simply by doing more. I could’ve given a shit...