The tune of the song fills my head at every turn, a constant backdrop to everything, the lyrics run through my skull on repeat, and I’m losing my mind.
When I wake up, it’s there. When I get dressed, it lingers. On the bus, it mutes the engine and the conversation around me.
If it’s you, only you, maybe I can be me, only me.
Alexander, for the first time I’m flying.
Endlessly, endlessly. My fingers itch to just play it, again and again, and it feels like I’ve been singing it constantly whenever Mom’s been at work.
The only thing that might calm the whirlwind in my skull is seeing the man himself, but we got back on a Tuesday. I don’t have theater on Tuesdays and I don’t use Mr. D’plume’s piano Tuesday mornings either, so the first time I’ll be able to see Lex is if we meet at lunch.
Morning classes take ages.
I didn’t hear a word from him all break. I kept hoping he might text or call or just plain appear, something. Make up any excuse to see me, but he didn’t. He didn’t, so I tried to pretend that was okay. I tried to pretend I wasn’t replaying his “loveconfession” over and over as truth in my head when I know it’s not.
Lex is a flirt. That’s just how he acts. It has nothing to do with me, and the whole story he wove about loving me was nothing more than an essential element to his act.
It served nothing but purpose and to haunt me forever after.
Did you mean those words you said when you weren’t talking to me?
Will love never cross our lips in reality?
Is it always an act?
Will it never be true?
If I told you I fell, would you just ask, “For who?”
I rub my temple and take a deep breath, eyes on the clock. Finally, time inches on by, freeing me from class. I rush to the cafe, sit in the corner, open my lunch, and wait for Lex to come in with Jason and a bag of fast food.
But he doesn’t show up.
~*~
I don’t know what I’m doing. Lex didn’t appear at lunch. It makes no sense for me to be lingering in the parking lot, waiting for him to appear now, when I don’t even know what car of his he has today. When I don’t even know if he was here today at all.
Maybe he’s sick.
I almost hope he is.
Biting my lip, I twirl one braid between my fingers and try not to think what would have kept him from finding me if he had been here.
Was our break this time too long? What if he’s over whatever this was? What if he’s bored of me or I was out of sight, out of mind for too long?
Am I really going to stand here in the cold until I have to catch my bus? Is that really the kind of person I am?
I blow some warmth against my fingers and scan the chilled,dark world around me. The sun goes down so early these days.
A car beeps, and I jump, turning my attention toward the one that has flashed its lights and started up automatically. One of Lex’s cars does that, right?
A lone silhouette comes from the direction of Grazioso Hall, and I recognize it before it steps into the headlights.
“Lex!” I call before I can think.
He pauses, his eyes focusing on me across the way.
My heart thumps.
