Harboring Heartbreak

I don't know why I find him attractive. There isn't anything striking about his appearance. He's actually quite ordinary. He has a round face, light brown hair, brown eyes, and a really goofy grin. We aren't exactly friends. He has always been apart of the cool group and I'm the weird girl no one dares approach. But there was just one day where he made a joke in class, and I turned and he smiled at me. He acknowledged me. Now I had never found him very attractive before. I hadn't really noticed him before, to be honest, but there was something about the way that he looked at me that made me think I wanted to be his friend.

But I'm a very awkward person and could never just text someone out of the blue and hold a good conversation with them. There are always a million questions that run through my mind. What if he doesn't want to talk? What if he doesn't want to talk to me? What if he has a predisposed opinion of me? What if he remembers that really awkward and dumb thing I did in third grade? And so many more. But one day he posted a really funny thing on his snapchat story and I texted him concerning that. And that was the beginning of a tiny flirtationship.

We continued like that for four months, and then one day I was feeling particularly down and accidentally sent him a snap meant for my friend who was helping me with self harm issues. I felt so embarrassed. Why did I have to show him my broken parts? It was really tearing me up. I was certain he wouldn't like me. But that night he texted me and was like, "Dude if you really feel like that, I'm here to listen," and I would like to say that I am a tough nut to crack, that I have walls of steel; but in all actuality, I'm not strong, hence the self harm. I broke and confided some in him. And over the next few weeks of speaking, I began to open up and tell him thanks. I didn't even tell my friends. He essentially became like a best friend to me.

We continued like this for three or four more months, then one night, while I was watching Harry Potter, he texted me first. That had never happened in the duration of our flirtationship. I freaked out for like five minutes before opening it to see 'Hey,' to which I replied, 'hey.' He asked me what I was doing, and we started discussing random things the whole while I thought I might have a heart attack. Then he asked if I wanted to go stargazing that night—mind you, when he asked it was around midnight. I told him I was unsure, because my parents were still awake. He was a perfect gentleman about it, saying if I didn't want to go I didn't have to, and if I was uncomfortable he understood. I talked to my sister who I share a room with, and she told me it was my decision, so I told him to meet me at my corner in ten minutes.

I slipped on a hoodie, some jeggings, and a pair of converse. And headed out the door. I walked to the tip of my yard and started down the street, and I saw him at the corner. We met halfway and walked to his yard.

We found a comfortable spot on the lawn to lie down, and we looked at the stars trying to find constellations before we both realized neither of us knew any constellations. We discussed school and told some jokes. Then he asked me if I was doing OK. I said yeah. I don't really like to talk about my self and my problems, because I feel like it burdens people.

But as I stated before, I'm weak, and soon I found myself telling him everything. I confided in him about my struggles with my parents, with school, with myself. And he listened. I realised I had been speaking about myself for sometime, and said, "I'm being selfish, enough about me. What about you?"

"You know me," he said, "I'm sunshine and rainbows."

This made me smile.

I checked the time and realized I had been for a lot longer than I had expected to be, and my sister was most likely having an aneurysm. I told him I had to go and he said he'd walk me. We stood up, and he wrapped his arms around me, and me being 5' 2" had my face buried in his chest. We broke and began to walk out of his yard in each other's arms.

"Wanna kiss?" he asked. At this I got flustered, and started to stutter. So he just turned away, and we kept walking. We made small talk all the way to the top of my yard, hugged again, and then he sent me on my way. I blew him a kiss, but he wasn't watching to catch it.

When I got home, my sister was out of sorts, and demanded to know every detail, which I spent the next half hour to 45 minutes explaining. After, I took out my phone to set an alarm and he had texted me again. He was making sure I was okay and hadn't gotten caught sneaking back in. I told him I was OK, and he wished me a good night. Needless to say I was giddy all night and didn't fall asleep until two hours before I had to get up for school.

The next day I couldn't stop smiling, and we kept making eye contact. That whole week was magical. Every time we made eye contact, butterflies were released in my stomach.

Then he just ignored me, and started treating me like shit. He wouldn't respond to my texts, and I found out a month ago that he now has a girlfriend.

I know I should let him go and move on and not let it consume me, but when you open yourself up to someone like that, you can't just get over it. I'm a person who overthinks and dwells on the past, so it haunts me every day. It wasn't until he began to ignore me that I realized that I really liked him. And maybe he liked me back. I guess I'll never know.

I know it's stupid, and very un-feminist of me to be depressed over a boy, but it's who I am, and it's probably who I'll always be.