Because YOLO

Maybe it isn't my awkward demeanor. Maybe it isn't my low maintenance hair or my laziness with makeup. Maybe it isn't my bigger build. Maybe it isn't the way I dress. Maybe it isn't because I don't say much.

Maybe it's because I think too much. Maybe people aren't attracted to me because I think too much.

I was miserably putting up with a sex-based discussion going on around me over a lunch I was barely touching, seething over the fact that there must be something pathetic or undesirable about me if I don't have the littlest, most innocent thing to contribute in any conversations that take a turn toward romantic and sexual relationships.

And it got me thinking.

If so many different types of people end up in that whirlwind or temporary bliss us teenagers label as "in a relationship" due to Facebook teaching us such terminology, then maybe I haven't stumbled upon romance for a reason other than being undesirable.

To put it bluntly,

maybe I'm a pussy.

I have a tendency to do this thing called "overanalyzing" where I take a situation, and I make a nice, long list of all the possible things that could go wrong. I convince myself that every decision I make, especially dealing with love, should be done in a manner that gracefully avoids pain. I am devoted to my comfort zones. So what if that comfort zone is the warm, welcoming seat of the rocking chair that we call worry, that gives me something to do but never takes me anywhere? At least I'm comfortable, right?

But life shouldn't be about avoiding anything outside of your comfort zone, should it? What exactly does that accomplish? And a better question: why the hell do I do it so much?

Pining away for Floyd is a comfort zone. That whole scenario. The unrequited love thing. It's become home to me. It's the reason why I sometimes avert my eyes when I see him looking at me, the reason why he isn't the only one avoiding conversation.

Maybe Floyd didn't drift away. Maybe I pushed him.

But why? Why would I do that? Because I'm scared? Scared that he'll want me?

That really doesn't make much sense to me either. But there is something about a romantic/sexual relationship that terrifies me. Imagine that! Me, the girl whose mouth is practically a broken record entitled "I Will Die Alone", is afraid to have a boyfriend.

I guess that could be understandable. Maybe. I mean, everyone is afraid of the unknown, and I am no different. I am afraid to go to college, to live on my own. I am afraid to take my SATs next month. I am afraid to speak my mind. I am afraid of getting my license. I am afraid of having children when I'm older. I am afraid to die. And at the root of it all, I am afraid of change. I am the very embodiment of fear, which I'd say stems from that whole "overanalyzing" thing.

And from that also stems my fear of having a boyfriend.

Sure, those fairytale-esque daydreams that often plague my common sense seem pretty appealing. But real relationships aren't something ripped straight out of a rom-com, and perhaps that is what scares me. The possibility of my first relationship falling short of perfect.

But no one's relationships are perfect. The things in our lives that aren't perfect are the things that become mistakes that shape us, and stories to tell, and memories to look back on and laugh or cry. If a person lives their life gracefully avoiding any situation that could cause them discomfort, can that person honestly say that they are living?

I don't think so.

Maybe living with my guard up is what has made me so impervious to love, so reluctant to give it and receive it. And not just love, I have become impervious to everything that my self-inflicted misery cannot feed off of.

Why do I choose to live this way? Forcing myself into the captivity of comfortable and wondering why I have become so cynical, so miserable, so sour, so torn apart by this constant tug-of-war between being happy and being comfortable?

It's like I'm a butterfly who has voluntarily flew into the net of an evil child named Doubt and let them plunk me in a jar, let them forget to poke some air holes in the top. It's like Doubt holds me in his grimy little hands, watching me and waiting for me to die just to feel the thrill of sucking the life out of yet another person. And from the inside of the jar, I watch everyone else hatching from their cocoons and fluttering about with beautiful wings, landing on flowers and sucking out the sweetness until there is none left, then careless flitting to another.

And I am completely capable of sucking the sweetness out of my life.

I've been so convinced that I'm still trapped in my cocoon, bitterly watching as everyone else and everyone else's lives evolve around me and waiting for my own chrysalis to burst open and release me with a one-way ticket to that contentment I envy so greatly.

But perhaps I've already shed my cocoon. Perhaps the only thing holding me back is the tauntingly clear walls of Doubt's jar, the walls I put up around myself.

Maybe I should take the hint from the inanity of pop culture and follow the mantra we've all learned to disdain: the acronym "YOLO."

Because you really do only live once.

Why waste that life letting Doubt hold you back?
 

In Your Eyes, I Lost My Place.

"Just look at David and laugh. He'll think you're talking about him," Floyd says to me quietly, smiling mischievously. He sits in front of me, turned in his chair, his elbow resting on my desk. David sits beside me, working diligently on his French assignment.

I smile back and nod. Floyd gestures for me to lean closer, so I do, and his lips are right beside my ear. He pauses for a moment, then cracks up a little before whispering, "Just laugh." And we both burst into perfectly staged laughter, staring at David. After a few more minutes of this, David is obviously annoyed with us.

"What?" he snaps, rolling his eyes.

"Nothing," we reply in unison. I want to tell him that it's a joke, and I'm only playing along because I like when Floyd whispers in my ear. But I don't. His annoyance wears off and he simply ignores us. The moment passes, but I still feel Floyd's breath on my ear, giving me chills.

Now, I can still feel it.

I can still feel myself bringing my hands up to my face on the bus home one day and smelling his scent there, and the way I smiled and breathed it in. I can still feel his eyes burning through mine, the way it made me buzz with electricity, the sparks that I hadn't even realized were flying. I can still hear him singing "Away From The Sun" with me in Shop class, and I can still feel our hands brushing together as we built our bridge. I can still remember the way we exchanged a glance after our bridge collapsed, a small smile on both of our faces. Oh well. The teacher had asked us if we worked well together, and he had replied with, "Of course. She did everything I told her to," but flashed me a smile to let me know he was joking. I can still hear the beginning of a song by The Offspring he had played for me in French class. "My friend's got a girlfriend and he hates that bitch, he tells me every day…" I had laughed out loud, then went through more songs he had saved on his Blackberry, pleased to find that many of them matched my own taste in music. I can still hear him rapping his fingers on his laptop to the beat of whatever song he was listening to, the sound sharp and loud like a snare drum. I can still feel his body beside mine, how I would think that only one touch would break an invisible wall between us, the last wall that still stood. One touch. If only it could be intentional.

He sits beside me, talking to Elaine at lunch. Bored while I wait for our row of tables to be called up, I pull out my computer. He watches, a smirk on his face, as I open my Super Mario Bros. game to pass the time. He meets my gaze silently, and he waits. After I begin playing, he hums the Mario theme song dramatically, and presses his fingers on top of mine, making it hard to control what I'm doing in the game. I laugh until there are tears in my eyes, but then he makes me fall into a hole, and with fake anger I growl, "Floyd! I hate you!" He sits back and laughs, and I'm sad to feel the warmth of his hands leave mine.

But now, all of those moments feel far away. I feel like I'm losing them. I feel like they're slipping away from me. I feel like he's slipping away from me, one little piece at a time. His fiery eyes, his breath against my ear, his hands brushing against mine, his brutal honesty always working in my favor. It isn't disappearing. It's just as if the intensity is fading. Now, I feel like we're just friends. Weren't we just friends before I told him how I felt? Nothing had seemed to change. But did it?

Is he drifting away, or am I pushing him away myself, out of the sadness his rejection left ringing in my head? That sadness that made me shake with sobs, as I listened to the same depressing songs on repeat until I had them memorized. The sadness is like a voice in my head, whispering, "You were right.  It's over now. He doesn't love you. He never will. No one will." It stings me when I see him treating other girls the way he had once treated me, and that voice whispers in my head, making it hard to smile back at him when he meets my gaze, making it hard to take his side. Making it hard to want to please him. I don't owe him anything.

I always thought that was all we were the entire time, just friends.

I never even noticed the sparks until they started to burn out.

Is this my fault?

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.

To Doubt.

Just hold on loosely, but don’t let go. If you cling too tightly, you’re gonna lose control.

"Anyone know who sings that?" my Shop teacher asks. It’s Friday, when he has his guess-the-artist game at the beginning of the period. I’m staring off into space because I’m thinking about when Floyd and I were listening to that same song yesterday, both singing along.

If he were here, he would probably know who sang the song. But as for me, I’m staring off into space and thinking about yesterday.

Our bridge is weak and popsicle sticks snap off as I inspect it. I glue them back on, then put it away. Floyd could deal with it on Monday. Or maybe I could fix it myself.

I go to lunch later and Michelle tells me that she is moving away from our lunch table, because she’s sick of putting up with Floyd. I pretend to be upset, but inside I am glad to be rid of the annoying amount of tension at our table these days.

We sit down to eat. I look at my cup of peaches and say, "I wish Floyd were here so he could give me peaches."

Elaine, who is one of his many ex-girlfriends, looks up at David and I and says, "Oh! He told me he wants to go out with me again." I blink. David starts to ask what she said, but she cuts him off. "I said no. I just…I don’t like him like that."

You see, I don’t care if Elaine likes Floyd. She could be obsessed with him for all I care.

It’s just the fact that he likes her.

In the car on the way home, I blurt it out to my mom, even though I told myself I wouldn’t tell anyone I was upset. Mom ignores me and tells me that she doesn’t want to hear my "whiner stories." I bite down on my lip and hold back tears. She starts a random conversation about how a fellow lunch lady she knew was working at my school, and she asked me if I saw her. She went on to describe her and everything and I seriously don’t know anything about the high school lunch ladies, except that they don’t give us enough food.

"How do you not notice anything? Are you that shallow?" Mom snaps.

"No, it’s just…let me think of a way to put this…" I trail off. "There was a moment when everyone else in the room disappeared," I say, and my voice cracks as I say it, tears threatening to make me sound like a blubbering idiot.

She goes on talking, punctuating my statement with a "Whatever", and I realize she has no idea what I mean and I don’t tell her.

I was so stupid, actually getting my hopes up. I always knew he still liked her, and just because my predictable life likes to torment me, here she is, telling us all about it.

I think about the bridge, and the way it’s falling apart on me now. I think about how that was our bridge, the one we were building to get to the other side holding hands. And now it’s falling apart. How fitting.

I don’t want to give up on him.

My pessimist side tells me I have to. My optimist side tells me to keep holding on. What should I do?

I asked myself a few days ago, "To doubt, or not to doubt?"

I think I will hold on... loosely. But I won't let go. But I won't hold on too tightly, because I will lose control.

I will drive myself crazy. I think I'm going to believe in this, but I will not rely on this.

And...

I will doubt.

To Doubt Or Not To Doubt?

"Did you know that only two percent of the population have green eyes?" Floyd asks.

"Oh. Wow," I say in response, and I look back down at my lunch, catching sight of the two cups of frozen peaches stacked on top of each other. I grin a little and then I realize he’s still looking at me.

"You have green eyes," I say, and it comes out half like a question and half matter-of-factly. I look up and look right into those eyes.

"Yeah," he says and we both don’t look away. "Well, they change color."

"They look kind of…grayish green," I reply. And I look away because if I look for too long, my brain will drain out until it’s empty. But I don’t look away in time because I turn into an idiot in five seconds flat. I mentally kick myself because something stupid fell out of my mouth instead of something clever, but he still laughs anyway.

Random things flash through my memory. (Why must I think so much?) The bridge. The day we talked aimlessly about so many different things. The peaches he just gave me a few minutes before. The exchanged glances. The proud feeling I get when I make him laugh. The way he never lets out his vicious side to attack me. The way I take his side and he takes mine. He is my Superman, and I am the damsel in distress. And here I am, patiently waiting for him to sweep my off of my feet and fly away.

The girl he was dating broke up with him on Saturday. Saturday…when I had that dream…Anyway, he told me this on Monday, and the whole thing didn’t even seem to affect him, which wasn’t surprising. What can I say? He’s Floyd. If his heart were broken, he would have a hard time showing it. I wish I were more like him sometimes.

It’s only Wednesday, but I’m just dying for him to sweep me off my feet already. We could be a silhouette in the sky. The stereotypical-nonstereotypical (if that makes sense?) happy couple, with a red cape trailing behind them as they fly higher and higher, up to where heartbreak and loneliness aren’t even an afterthought.

But for some reason, I doubt that he will.

To doubt or not to doubt?

That is the question...

Superman

"I still can’t believe she told you she hoped that you make someone commit suicide one day," I say in disbelief as we both draw absentmindedly, lines and triangles on a blue paper, beginnings of a Popsicle stick bridge. I draw a car driving on the bridge cheerfully. He draws an army tank chasing my oblivious car, on some sort of angry rampage.

I’m talking about a girl named Michelle who recently started sitting at our lunch table.

Michelle is practical, intelligent, talented in music, and a perfectionist. But, she is very opinionated, the type of person who will speak her mind anytime, anywhere, and as loudly as she can.

Floyd despises her for for it, because he's exactly the same way. The only difference is that their points of view stand on either side of the spectrum. Or Floyd just makes it seem that way to grind her gears. Funny how when you put two people like them together, all hell breaks loose. Well, it's not actually funny, if you catch my drift. Lunch went from a peaceful time of laughter and socializing to a time of tension and arguments. Floyd's one intention is to make Michelle so angry that she switches to a different lunch table. And if anyone's capable of that, it's him.

I hope you make someone commit suicide one day. 

Some may say she took it too far, even too far in Floyd’s terms, and with him, too far is way past the lines that shouldn’t be crossed.

"I know, right? Believe it or not, I’m actually the guy who stops people from killing themselves. I’m the guy who stops people from cutting their wrists," he says to me. I look up from the car and the tank and eye him curiously. Really? I keep watching him as he goes on. "My friends call me up, and they ask me to talk to these people I don't even know, talk them out of it. And I'm just sitting there on the phone, asking them about their lives, finding out what's wrong. That's all I do. I talk to them. I tell them to ask out that girl they think they don't have a chance with. Or whatever. Anything. And it always works."

I was speechless. How do you respond to that?

Is there really such thing as a superhero? Does God put them in the world to save the day? Because here is just another guy, the last person anyone would suspect of being a superhero, sitting beside me in shop class in a white t-shirt and jeans, moving his hands as he talks about saving the day. He's like Superman or something. He could save the whole world if he tried. Anyone could, but who actually would?

And now, today is Wednesday, but it doesn’t feel like a Wednesday. I had bounced around like a mental case from the bathroom to the bedroom and back again, brushing my teeth, applying mascara and hitting the volume button on my laptop. "Kryptonite" by 3 Doors Down.

If I go crazy, then would you still call me Superman? If I'm alive and well, will you be there, holding my hand? I'll keep you by my side with my superhuman might, kryptonite.

Superman. He's my hero.

Later that day, we are at lunch, impatiently waiting for our food. Floyd is making Lucy a playlist on Spotify because her taste in music is absolutely terrible. (Nicki Minaj? Gag me) His playlist is full of the bands he thinks that everyone should like just because he does. Then he says, "And now some 3 Doors Down." I look up and say something about how much I love them, I was just listening to them this morning, their album Away From The Sun is amazing, blah blah blah. He looks up from his computer and says, "'Kryptonite.' Hands down the best 3 Doors Down song." I bite my lip to keep myself from grinning like a freak. It's his song! He's talking about liking it! Why does that make me so happy?

Then, we are at lunch on Monday, digging into the food we had been been impatiently waiting for once more. David skipped school for the day, so our usual triangle of random conversations has dwindled down to only Floyd and I. David’s seat becomes mine and I don’t even miss him as Superman and I talk about music and movies and everything and nothing. Suddenly, two other lunch table occupants are trying to get his attention, and him being pulled from our conversation irks me a little. Their statement even more so.

"Hey Floyd! There’s someone we think you’d be really cute with," Elaine says. Brooke nods and so does Symphony. Matching grins all around, and suddenly, all of their eyes are burning into me. Why are they staring at me? I pick at my buttered noodles, faking nonchalance. Then Brooke, eyes still glued on me, says, "Yeah, really cute." I keep looking down at my tray of food and suck on the straw sticking out of my milk carton. This is kind of mortifying.

"I’m dating someone," Superman says.

Oh. How nice.

I pull a dollar out of my purse for green tea and sugar cookies, leave with my empty tray and pretend that those words meant nothing to me.
Come to think of it, those words did mean nothing to me. Like I give a flying fuck. I’ve seen how long his relationships last. Has he ever made it past two weeks?

Wait... Is this maybe-perfect-comic-book-romance-waiting-to-happen becoming sadly predictable? If Superman were to sweep me off my feet and fly me around the world, would he eventually just drop me into the ocean somewhere and find a new damsel in distress to save? Should I spare myself the pain and just admit I already started drowning a long time ago?

I almost told David about all of this today. Almost. How could I say "I like Floyd" when I don’t even know if that’s true? What does that even mean? "I like him"?

It’s all so confusing.  Do I love Superman, or don’t I?

Superman's disguise is not a man named Clark Kent. Superman's disguise is an anarchist. Superman's disguise wears ripped jeans, Metallica t-shirts, and green Converse sneakers. Superman's disguise plays football. Superman's disguise is a smart-ass. Superman's disguise is not something I fell in love with at first sight. What I fell in love with was Superman.

I don’t know what to feel. I don’t know what to do. I’m just kind of suffering quietly, terrified to tell anyone my secret in fear he will find out and everything will be ruined. I’m a girl with an internal conflict. I’m a damsel in distress.

Superman, save me.