Mi Vida

It was the eleventh of September, twenty-seventeen.

A Monday, and I was seated in a droopy stance on the bus on my way to school.

We came to a screeching halt at the next stop for more kids to get on the ugly 'Krapf' labeled bus. It wasn't our school name, it was just there.

The swarm of about eight kids included the boy I was in a platonic relationship of sorts with.

His name was Nathaniel-Nate, and he had toe-head blonde hair that was constantly gelled back, and bright blue eyes. He was shorter than me, (standing at roughly 5' 3") but so were many people considering my staggering height of 5' 7" at being only recently fourteen.

We had been tip-toeing around each other for months now, texting most nights as if we were already together with passionate romantic messages, but when it came to speaking in person, we fell into awkward silence and glances, failed attempts at small talk.

What we did manage to get across in our texts, I'm not quite sure if it was ever really true.

We stated our devoted love for one another, but personally I don't think that's what I felt.

I don't think I know what love is just yet.

Things between us had gone so smoothly though, in what we did say and do, and they were going rather slowly as well, but that entire weekend we hadn't spoken once.

As he clambered past the seats of the bus, he mumbled a mouse volume apology to a student sitting in another seat that he accidentally hit with his backpack.

Then he didn't sit next to me.

Normally I would bypass this and think it as nothing, but after a bit, I grew worried that I had done something wrong, because he didn't look or speak to me once, and when we arrived at school, he didn't wait for me.

I sound like a clingy girlfriend right about now, and I'm sorry if you believe me to be that, but I'm not.

Please do understand, that being ignored by anyone can hurt.

So the day went on and I was left in confusion.

He wouldn't meet my eyes in the hall, and by coincidence I was behind him in the lunch line. For a little at least, before he went out of line to 'get something else' only to then go to the back of the line.

Avoidance, I understood, but why?

Fast forward to the end of the day, on the bus back to our haunted little town, he still wouldn't speak to me.

Since verbal words weren't our forte, I figured maybe a text would be better.

So I messaged him and asked if I had done anything wrong, and what was going on.

He replied that I did nothing wrong, and he felt like things were moving really fast. He claimed he wanted a break.

I agreed that I felt like things were going a bit fast-even though they weren't quite considering we weren't dating officially-but I did find the situation awkward and I felt like I was lying about loving him, which I probably was.

We promised to not stay strangers with each other, and that was that.

For three more days of school I was out sick with a sinus infection, and I was glad to be back that Friday because I'd be able to see my friends once again.

But the day that I thought was going to be happy turned to misery following the question I was asked in my second period class from one of his best friends.

"Did you hear about Nate?"

"No, What?"

"He has cancer..."