Chemically Enhanced Fire

Floyd’s eyes are a fire that burns through everything but my heart. How can someone be so brutally honest, yet also not be able to recognize the truth when he sees it?

Maybe I’m better at hiding it than I think I am.

Near the middle of the school year, when the air had become bitter instead of balmy and the first snow had long passed, my crazy Chemistry teacher had conducted an experiment for the class, using different chemicals to light small fires. Each flame was a different color. Floyd’s eyes are like one of those chemically enhanced fires. Light green and icy gray and maybe even a little bit blue all at the same time. His gaze is like heat on my skin. I can always feel it before I see it. I always know when he is watching me, even where he is looking.

"Sneaking your music, I see." His voice yanks me from my thoughts and my eyes are greeted with that fiery gaze. Our French teacher, a tiny woman with a loud voice who was easily frustrated, had initiated a strict "No iPods or Laptops Out During Class" rule after realizing simply yelling at my unruly class wasn’t working. But obnoxious freshmen girls who played rap music in the middle of class and yelled their conversations for the entire class to hear weren’t going to keep from me from listening to Metallica in class, especially on rainy days like this.

Nice to know you were looking close enough.

I think the words to myself in response to Floyd’s comment, but reply only with a small smile and a nod. We usually talk more in French class, but that day, I felt a little jaded, my usual optimism worn down by the dreary weather. It’s funny how the weather seems to control my mood. When it rains, I'm miserable. When it's nice out, I am hopeful and smiling. When it's cold, I'm irritable and nasty.

He had probably picked up on the "leave me the hell alone" stamp on my forehead, complete with bold letters and a bleak expression. Not that that stamp ever really applied to him. Floyd’s random conversations and wicked sense of humor are always welcome.

But our lack of conversation didn’t bother me as much as I expected it to. There's never any pressure to make an effort with him. That’s how it always is with us. We're always laid back, always talking, whether it be with our words or with our eyes, whether it be about nothing or everything. There was once a time when I would remember every remotely sweet thing he ever said to me, everything that I said that made him laugh. But now, all of the times I spend with him blend together, like one big moment that never becomes a distant memory. What would I do if I let that happen? I'm so comfortable by Floyd's side that it makes me wonder if I belong there.

That wondering is what got me into this mess, isn't it?

It’s funny how easy it is to keep a secret. It’s funny how easy it is to laugh at his jokes when they aren’t even amusing. It’s funny how easy it is to be the funny, witty girl friend, but when his back is turned, the perfected exterior falls to pieces, transforming me into the adoring shadow that would give anything to be his girlfriend, to be one word instead of two, and be many more besides.

It’s become a daily routine, putting up the same front every morning and taking it down every afternoon. Smiling and meeting his gaze when he speaks to me, basking in the warmth of his eyes, pride buzzing beneath my skin when I feel it. Making an effort to laugh when he makes an effort to be funny, saying just the right things to make him approve of and adore me. But when he isn’t looking, the smile fades and my eyes follow him slowly and deliberately, memorizing and yearning. And I fall apart beneath the surface, scolding myself for being so hard to love, scolding myself for not being witty enough, not being pretty enough, not saying what I should have. And the cycle repeats itself, viciously turning me into the definition of anxiety.

A clock ticks in my mind. It reminds me that time is running out. I can only wait so long, before he fades back out of my life, and goes back to being the childhood acquaintance he had been before my sophomore year turned my life upside down.

The internal conflict that boils inside of me becomes a war. Anxiety vs. Hope. Optimism vs. Pessimism. The Impulsive Act vs. Saving Myself The Possible Pain And Jumping To Conclusions Instead. Assumptions vs. Reality, which one is which? The battles escalate, the fighters most likely driven insane by the ticking clock in my mind. Time is the real enemy, the enemy in every battle there is. It’s only purpose to make our lives seem a bit more organized, setting up a pretty backdrop behind our chaos, always a reminder.

And there’s only way to make it stop.

My stomach lurches every time I think about it. My throat dries up a little, my fingers feel tingly. It’s such an uncomfortable feeling, anxiety. Wishing for the best and expecting the worst.

Could I do it?

Could I tell Floyd how I feel about him?

Everything flashes through my brain, like it will be the end of my life. Will it?

A bridge named Giles Corey, the bridge he had chosen to build and destroy with me in Shop class "because I’m smart." Times when we had shared our food at lunch; me giving him cookies that he would eat in one bite, him plopping cups of sugary peaches on my tray because he knew how much I favored them. Our eyes meeting, how it still electrifies every part of me, yet I'm still so comfortable with him. Falling for his personality before his looks. Inside jokes. He always keeps me laughing, sometimes until my eyes fill with tears and I'm not thinking about how ridiculous my face looks or if I sound like a hyena. Him always copying my homework, one of the only people I have met who is unashamedly lazier than I am. My friends who see us together and tell me that they think he feels the same way, and the way I smile because they just might be right. How he takes my side when no one else has the audacity to do so, because when Superman is on your side, the truth always finds its way out and the victimizers become the victims. The bit of fear in the pit of my stomach, the fear of ruining everything and the fear of the opposite.

I think of this perfect thing, whatever it is, that we have.

Am I really going to risk it all on a confession?