Strangers

Have you ever been in love with someone?

I think that I have. I think that I am.

But when you’re only sixteen, saying you’re in love feels stupid. It’s like the words don’t fit in your mouth correctly. They feel awkward, even in your brain.

Is it possible to become addicted to another human being?

He’s like a pack of cigarettes tucked into my back pocket. Absentmindedly, I pull him out, take out a little piece of him. Like the sound of my name in his mouth. Like the smell that hung on his clothes. Like the way his eyes smiled when he said something wicked. Like the way his breath felt against my ear. Like the countless knowing glances that were exchanged. Like the sound of him singing under his breath. Like the song "Kristy, Are You Doing OK?" by The Offspring.

And I light it up and let it burn in my mind. It calms me down. It brings a small, bittersweet grin to my face. It takes me away.

And it eats away at the inside of me.

Sometimes I wonder if I ever even knew him, because I certainly don’t anymore.

I remember what it was like to have a crush on him.

Mouthing the words of "Kristy, Are You Doing OK?" as it blasted from his computer, meeting my gaze as I did the same. Nowadays, those chords make my throat tingle, the same sort of lump that forms when you're frantically searching for something that you have lost.

Telling me he hated my "I ♥ NY" t-shirt, because it was so cliché, and I told him that's why I liked it.

Smiling to myself when he told me his girlfriend had dumped him, but replying with, "Oh, really? Why?" like I was actually concerned.

Watching him walk into shop class, fresh from an extended period of Chemistry class, which he despised, and asking smugly, "How was Chem?" Him letting out a scoff and replying with, "Long," he paused, gave me one of his wicked, admittedly roguish grins, "…and hard." I rolled my eyes and laughed in spite of myself.

Scrolling through the unorganized list of songs on his Blackberry, familiar titles catching my eye on the cracked screen. One headphone each, hushed conversation, there was only two people in the world.

Something like jealousy burning just behind his green eyes when he saw me laughing at something Jordan said, comfortable by his side, sharing food with him, listening to Protest The Hero. His obvious attempts at making me jealous too, and the way they always worked. Oh, how we pissed each other off.

Him falling into step beside me as we left class, talking and laughing until we found ourselves on the other side of the school, where I was supposed to be, but far from where his next class was. He laughed incredulously, and asked "What am I doing?" And I didn't know what he was doing, but I liked it.

Brushing sawdust off my shoes and peeling Elmer's glue from my fingers during Geometry class, a thousand miles away. Or more accurately, merely a class period earlier.

My voice saying his name fearlessly, watching him turn and watch me as I confessed my feelings for him. The way he turned me down, quick and painless. My hands shaking in my lap. My eyes wet from subconsciously refusing to blink. And the way that moment disappeared from his mind afterwords, like it never even happened.

I remember what it was like to wake up every morning and think to myself, "Maybe today is the day that I’ll win his heart." I remember what it was like to smile only because I was with him. I remember feeling so full, so content by his side, and all of the bad things in my life suddenly didn’t exist anymore.

And then, out of nowhere, he became one of those bad things.

Summer was an eternity. The days moved by sluggishly. Boredom reigned on all levels. Summer was the beginning of the end, and I spent every day hoping that it wouldn’t be. When it came to a close, I breezed through the doors of the school and back into a life I think I came to love before those three slow months brought everything to a screeching halt. And there I was again. Waiting for it all to start again, right where it left off.

How foolish.

"Hey, Floyd," I said breezily, as I slid into the seat behind him in my first period math class.

"Hey," he replied.

The amount of times we have spoken since that day could probably be counted on my fingers. It’s been months. And the last time I checked, I had only ten fingers.

The air outside is now brisk and empty, the kind of cold air that it hurts to breathe in. The leaves have long fallen from the trees and plastered themselves to the ground, leaving the branches to shiver in the wind. Every house shines with Christmas decorations, some artfully placed, some tacky as hell.

What happened? When did we forget how to dance on the line between friendship and more-than-friendship? Silence fills the once charged atmosphere between us. When did we become different? Did I change? Did he? He didn't seem to be different. Same flannel and jeans uniform, same witty sarcasm and talking just to hear his own voice, same curly hair and fiery eyes, doodling in notebooks, head in his hand. There was a tension in the air between us, unanswered questions.

Why isn't he talking to me?

Does she still like me?

Is he playing hard to get?

Is she ignoring me?

Or does he just not care anymore?

But after a while, even the tension went away.

And we have become nothing.

I wish I knew why.

I wish I knew the reasons why every day in study hall, he will sit less than ten feet away from me, but he will not say a word to me. He won’t even look at me anymore. I’ve become translucent. Am I even alive anymore? Or do I just go through the motions? Why do I need him like this?

I miss sitting on my Nana’s porch swing until dark, listening to the All-American Rejects and just dreaming about all of the things that couldawouldashoulda happened, and the things that I had my fingers crossed on to happen when I saw him again. A quirky fairytale, the result of mashing together a dreamer and a cynic who switched roles so much it was like they were playing musical chairs. Who played which part? I wanted it so badly. And sitting there on that porch swing, it seemed possible.

But this isn’t a good feeling anymore. This is hell. This is a loss of inspiration. This is crying my eyes out with only Metallica to comfort me. This is wanting to move on, but for some reason, it’s impossible. This is hating his guts. This is wanting to beat his brains in just as much as I want to hold him.

Is this love?

If it is, I want no part in it.

Too Easy To Forget

It was only six days ago, a Tuesday.

"Are you ready to take this?" the French teacher asked me, referring to a quiz. I had missed school on Monday due to a random case of the flu, but the content of the quiz was things I had already learned.

"Yeah," I said in response, nodding.

"No," Floyd said, turning around. "When asked that question, you always say no." I rolled my eyes.

"No, Floyd, you always say no," I replied, and he laughed, turning back around.

"If anyone needs any help, raise you hand," the teacher sighed. She always seemed frustrated, but if you had to teach a room that was mostly obnoxious freshmen girls, wouldn’t you be frustrated too? Floyd raised his hand immediately.

"What do you need help with, Floyd?" she asked, her voice flat, like she was just expecting that smart-ass comment and she didn’t know whether to acknowledge it.

"Yeah, um, what are the answers to numbers…one, two, three, four—" She cut him off, smiling despite the obvious setup. I think that the French teacher wanted to like Floyd, but found it very hard to.

"Get back to work," she said simply, and walked away to help someone else.

"Floyd," I hissed, and he looked over his shoulder at me. "What’s the date?"

"The twenty-fourth," he replied and before I could write the numbers down on my paper, I stopped short, something in my brain opening up, letting a few memories spill out.

April 24. Sometimes, we just remember certain dates and their meanings, sometimes we don’t.

April 24 had been Kimberly’s birthday. As far as I know, April 24 is still Kimberly’s birthday.

In middle school, in fifth or sixth grade, a new girl had moved to our school, a girl named Kimberly. She was tiny, not even five feet tall, and probably not even a hundred pounds. Her hair was cropped short, almost like a boy’s. Her eyes were light in color, either blue or green, I can’t remember now. Her teeth were slightly crooked, and she always looked happy when she smiled.

Kimberly bonded quickly with my twin sister, Yuuki, who was always welcoming and friendly to new people at school, but I hadn’t really gotten the chance to get to know her until we were both in seventh grade. We had bonded over things we both enjoyed, like drawing, ghost stories, writing short stories, and reading. By that time, Kimberly had become one of the most bullied girls in my grade, not-so-affectionately nicknamed "Farmer John," because she had made the "mistake" of wearing bib-overalls to school. But despite all of it, she had trusted me. She told me things that still haunt me, like the way her parents abused and mistreated her, and how they accused her of being insane because she had told them that she thought she saw ghosts in her home. That was another thing. Kimberly was a strong believer in the supernatural, and she believed that she was very capable of seeing the dead. She saw apparitions in her home, and even claimed to see them at school, in the middle school bathrooms. (For the record, those bathrooms were definitely haunted.) She also shared something with me that I regret keeping a secret: her depression. Though she retorted vicious comments back at her bullies fearlessly, every word still hurt her. She had admitted to cutting. I remember the day she had told me about it. We had been in one of those bathrooms, the one where people hummed that weren’t actually there, the air was always cold and shadows hid in bathroom stalls. Kimberly had thought it was a girl who haunted the room. She had been so positive that it scared me.

While we were in there talking, she had admitted to cutting. There really was something strange about that bathroom, because all of her secrets seemed to come out while we were in there.

"What do you do it with?" I had asked curiously. The subject of cutting had recently been introduced into my life, probably when we had discussed depression in health class, and I had never expected to become affiliated with someone who was actually depressed.

If only I had been able to see my future, I would’ve been even more surprised by how many of my other friends admitted to their depression. And how it easy it was to fall into that pit myself.

Anyway, that is when Kimberly pulled something from her pocket. It was the end of a pencil, the metal part that holds the eraser. But the eraser wasn’t in it, and the open hole had been pressed closed, making the end straight and sharp. My eyes had widened at the sight, and widened even further when I had caught sight of the proof that she wasn’t lying to me.

An angry looking cut on the inside of her tiny wrist.

I didn’t try to stop her. I knew and kept it a secret. What would happen to her if someone else knew?

I had tried hard not to think she was crazy. Even when she talked about the girl that haunted the third floor bathroom. Even when she said that she "kind of liked the taste of blood," her eyes wild and her face smiling. Even when I saw the cut on her wrist that she had stopped from healing many times. The secrets she had told me remained secret, and to the rest of the world she was just an annoying, bad-tempered, defenseless little girl. But to me, she was a walking disaster, the first one I had encountered, but definitely not the last.

And one day, Kimberly was gone.

Some people said that she was dead. Some people said that she had moved to a different school to run from her bullies. Some said she had gone insane and was getting mental help. Some said she had tried to hang herself with a belt.

I’ve considered asking her older sister, who still attends my high school, about her. But asking a girl who I’ve never talked to about such a touchy subject just didn’t seem right.

Only a few weeks ago, I had been at CVS with Yuuki and my mother, and I had caught sight of Kimberly’s sister’s wavy blonde hair and long brown roots, almost like mine had looked before I had dyed my hair back to its natural color. She was with a heavy, dark-haired woman who wore a t-shirt and shorts, and had a stretchy black supporting band around her knee. The woman had said hello to my mother, and as we stood behind them in the pharmacy line, I had thought about Kimberly again. This was her mother, the woman who had accused her of being insane, who had apparently abused her. And her she was, in a pharmacy, picking up a prescription. I couldn’t help but wonder if she was picking up anti-depressants for Kimberly.

If I saw Kimberly tomorrow, would I even recognize her? Would she recognize me? Would she say anything? Will she think of my sister and I on May ninth, me and Yuuki’s birthday, like I thought of her on April twenty-fourth?

I haven’t seen Kimberly in almost four years, and she was almost too easy to forget.