Building Bridges

When you find yourself rapidly falling for someone, nothing else matters. Seriously! I could bomb a Geometry quiz, gain five pounds, get into disputes with my friends, and have a pounding headache all in one day, but as long as I get to spend time with him, who cares?

Everything is still a big question, an empty space that I can easily fill up with dreams and possibilities. He hasn't crushed my dreams yet. I know it's probably inevitable, but I guess it's fine to just keep smiling. Maybe when he breaks my heart, I'll be able to remember being happy like this, and be able to look back on it and know that he didn't always make me miserable. But who says he has to break my heart anyway? (Fate, possibly)

I never, ever would have suspected falling for Floyd. But it’s funny how things just…happen. I have faith in this. I don't know why, but I do. I get my hopes up very high, and today, it feels like nothing can crush them.  

Is Floyd the perfect solution to a problem I've been trying to solve for far too long? It's like I've been doing all of this difficult algebra, head in my hand, tears clouding my vision, eraser worn down. But it turns out that it was a multiple choice question all along! All I had to do was plug in the different choices, and see which one works. I'm not settling for "C" because that's what everyone says you should do, I'm confidently circling the answer that I know is right. But what if this backfires? What if I fail the test?

Gazes meet like two links on a chain, gripping onto each other for only a few seconds before they break again. His eyes are like windows to the inside of his brain, and every once in a while, I catch a glimpse of thoughts floating around aimlessly, just behind my own thoughts, glistening softly there. A reflection, because I see myself in him.

Slowly, I memorize him. I memorize every expression on his face. I memorize the way his voice sounds depending on his mood. I memorize the way his hands feel when they brush up against mine. I memorize the way he smells. He has a nice smell, a sort of rugged mix of cologne, sweat and wintergreen tobacco. Is it weird to say that the way someone smells can soothe you? Just breathing him in, knowing he's close enough to smell, is enough to put me at ease. I am comfortable by his side. Whenever I walk next to him, I picture us holding hands. I picture the way peoples' eyes would fall on our linked fingers, I picture the way their eyebrows would raise or their grins would widen. He’d be a great boyfriend. No, I take that back. He would be perfect for me. I would be the sweet, pushover girl that would soften his sharp tongue and tough exterior, and he would be the sarcastic, fearless, witty guy that would toughen me up and push me to say what I really mean to people who deserve it. He would make me fearless. So what if everyone would hate me the way they hate him? At least I'd still have one person on my side. And that's all I need.

I love listening to him talk to people, the way he always makes them laugh without even trying. I love how we spend forty-five minutes of every day together, just building our bridge. It’s a corny metaphor (my forte), but while we build that bridge, we also build another bridge, one that is invisible, but still very real. We’re slowly, carefully building a bridge that goes from friends to good friends and maybe (hopefully) beyond. He doesn’t even realize he’s doing it. He just does it subconsciously, carefully attaching the little bits and pieces that I give him. I’m the one with the blueprint, the one who is strategically planning it all out, and he’s just winging it, oblivious to my plans, and we’re both just letting it all fall into place, a bridge strong enough to get us to the other side. Hopefully, by the time we get to the other side, we’ll be holding hands.