Fifteen Days

Absence really does make the heart grow fonder, doesn't it?

Random medical issues and long spring breaks kept me missing him, and truths that stung like papercuts kept me second-guessing his imperfect perfection, things that made Superman look less and less like a hero.

After a few days of feeling hopelessly stupid, I let it go. Whether they’re true or not, words are simply words. Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone is human. No matter what they tell me about him, no matter how much they tell me to run away or be careful or that he’s not worth my time, I’ll let the words go in one ear and straight out the other.

It sounds foolish, I know. But Floyd’s reputation doesn’t scare me.

Fifteen days of being without him, and I went through a period of missing him, a period of not missing him, a period of hating him, a period of loving him again, and a period of my feelings strengthening, not ready to collapse for the sake of others. They may only be trying to protect me, but I think I can protect myself just fine.

On what would've been day sixteen, I saw him walk into the cafeteria from the corner of my eye, and I felt my stomach fill with butterflies. A smile spread across my face without me instructing it to, and I was so excited that I could've burst right there on the spot. I was so happy! Every bad thing that I’d heard about him drained from my brain. I was literally being brainwashed, thrown back into the day-to-day adventures of falling in love with him that I had missed so greatly.

All I had to see was that flash of black leather jacket from the corner of my eye, and I knew that luck would be on my side on Friday the 13th of April.

Why does luck always have to be on my side when it shouldn’t be, and vice versa?

Oh well. I didn’t mind.

My naïve, fast-paced heart was back on track.

Life went back to normal, the normal I had almost forgotten. The normal that I thought would never be the same after I found out those things about him. But we were just us again. I was just comfortable and drunken-happy and he was just oblivious, and I’m wondering if that’s still a good thing.

During the day, I was also thrown back into the constant mood swings of being with Floyd. The pangs of jealousy when he talked to other girls, the bits of anger when he said something rude, the ecstatic smile (Why try to hide it?) when he started conversation, the pinch of depression whenever his secrets pulled at my brain as it tried to make its way up to Cloud Nine with the rest of me.

My doubts follow me everywhere, even up to Cloud Nine. But something still lingers in my brain, no matter what moods I’m swinging between, and that something is hope. When hope is lost, it is always restored.

Maybe telling Floyd how I feel isn’t a good idea.

But.

On this supposedly "unlucky" day, we had been sitting together in French class, when he had turned around to talk to me. Not many words were said, but he kept meeting my gaze. It was quiet and intentional and every time I looked away, I forced myself to look back, and his eyes were there to meet mine every time. There was something unreadable in his eyes, and now I know what it was.

It was the hope.

The thing that makes it all seem less impossible.