She was so happy. A moment of joy ran through my hollow body, but only for a moment. Everything else came flooding back. All the loving remarks, the kisses, and the connection: the moment where your love is looking straight into your eyes with the most joyful expression and all you can do is sulk.  Because I’m sad of course, sad because she’s happy.

It was a brisk spring morning. Where winter was still lingering behind the bare trees, yet the ground was moist and sprouting life again. I didn’t know what was going to happen. I use to think I knew what every hour out of everyday would hold for me. That was until I met a girl. Not only a girl, but the smartest, most beautiful girl I had ever dreamed of knowing. She was just sitting there, one seat away staring at me. I lost all words, but she still stared. 

“Did you do your homework? I did mine, it was really easy, I hope I did it right, but then again, I don’t really care. Ha, I thought this class would be more difficult, but I was wrong. I get so bored in this class, do you? I really want to enjoy college but it's just difficult when you have to sit for hours and really do most of the learning on your own, it's quite lonely,” June spoke. I noticed she never breathed when she spoke, only afterwards, she would take a big sigh and relax, almost as if she was building enough energy for her next monologue. 

“I thought the homework was easy,” I replied. I shrugged my shoulders with indifference, trying to shrug away my attraction. She nodded silently then slide back in her chair, earnestly reading. I thought maybe that would be the first and last time we spoke. I was completely uninteresting and just from one minute with this girl, June, one minute and I knew her whole world was filled with excitement and fascinating chapters.  She was already bored with me. But then she spoke again. This time is was after English class, as I was walking down the hall. I felt a presence, she was just gliding along, looking at me.

“I wonder if the cafeteria still has those grilled cheeses. Are you going to the cafeteria?” She spoke.  I pondered that question because I wasn’t going to the cafeteria, but suddenly I was compelled to go. I shook my head positively. She smiled.

And so we ate together, in the community college’s newest addition, and barely spoke. Just stared and just thought. She had this thing where she would look like she was thinking deeply, which she was and then spout the most random intellectual conclusions. It was cute, she was cute.  And sometimes she would let me speak, and she would just sit there listening intently, unaware of the fact that her gaze into my eyes was the most exhilarating yet frightening experience. She was unaware or pretending to be so of many things about me, but mostly that every day she sat one seat away from me, I grew more and more infatuated with her. 

Hang out. I had been pondering that phrase for three months. Ever since I met June those words were constantly on the tip of my tongue. The only thing that was stopping me from trying to develop a deeper relationship was my inferiority. Every word she spoke was purposeful and every little expression shown a new side of this complex beauty, and I was just this one-dimensional fellow, trying to be someone better, but failing. She saw right through me, I knew it. But one day she spoke words that made me hope again.

“You know what’s odd? Even though I’ve only known you a couple months, I consider you a good friend. Even though sometimes we just sit in silence in each other’s company, and we’re both afraid of speaking too much, we still enjoy each other’s company, and sometimes I find myself missing you,” June spoke.  She had been thinking for a while beforehand, we sat in our usual spot in the cafeteria. Nothing in our relationship was exciting, we did the mundane college-thing, and yet she was right. In each other’s company there was a comfort that was not fabricated by just myself. I smiled.

“Miss me?” 

“Yes, it’s odd. Or maybe I just miss our potential.”

“How can you miss potential?”

“I have no idea, I just feel sad sometimes wishing we had always been friends, wishing that I could walk to your house and hang out. But we’re just new friends, and this is just a temporary class, so who knows where we’ll be next month. Therefore the potential that’s between us is really just a passing note,” June answered. 

“Yeah,” I gasped. Everything made sense, and I refused to accept that this amazing girl was actually infatuated with me, rather I felt sorry for myself because she was right. 

“Ha, and now you know I’m dramatic,” she spoke. Her eyes were bright. 

“You just feel things that other people refuse to feel. You’re the best kind of dramatic there is,” I said. She laughed. “And nothing has to end.”

“But, some things are better in the moment.” 

Those words struck me instantly as a goodbye note. I knew she had never meant to prolong our friendship. Rather be so kind that when she did leave with a flick of the wrist, I would still consider her the nicest and most considerate girl. But she was not, she was just manipulating me. And suddenly I felt smart, and I smiled. But she was still serious. 

“What’s amusing?” 

“What?” I spoke. I looked up and she was eyeing me suspiciously. 

“You grinned.”

“That’s because I realized something. Something about you, and I actually couldn’t be happier that this semester is ending, that way I can move on with… whatever it is that I do.”

“So we went from missing each other to you-“

“Never mind, of course I’ll miss you. I liked you considerably, but you didn’t like me.”

“Of course I did. But you’re on to something; maybe I am relieved as well for this semester to end and we go on with…whatever it is that we do. Because I didn’t actually commit to liking you as much as I say, rather I used you.”

“Yeah..what?”

“But this will end and it won’t matter, nothing matters because we forget.”

“So you want to forget about these three months?”

“Why not, I already have so much to remember,” she spoke.

And so despite the previous feelings of attachment, I left that day feeling free. Feeling as though everything that I had built up and expected didn’t matter anymore and I could move on with my life, apart from this crush. I was happy for a whole day. But the next morning I felt sad again. I don’t know if it was because I really wanted to be liked, or if it was that I really liked June, but I do know I was sad, angry, frustrated with the cycles of my life. This went on for several days. Summer break was consumed with work and sorrow, and occasionally a moment of the old life. Old life was a good life, less complicated, way less emotional.  But then I heard the beep. It was something that would cause my heart to jump, and my stomach to feel hollow. 

I know now. 

I read the text, repeatedly. Kind of creeped out, mostly just frightened. 

What?

I waited for fifteen minutes. Click, click. June.

I’ve realized that I really did like you, despite everything

Everything? Everything about me that she shouldn’t like? As my imagination grew more and more rambunctious she wrote again.

I mean, I didn’t want to like you because I had this ideal man in my mind, but not talking to you or seeing you is hard, and I guess I do like you despite my high expectations.

I felt insulted, but then happy. And then I smiled. I smiled for the whole day. It was a blissful week, we spent every day together. It was like starting over again, and yet we had this underlining basis of a friendship. And so this was the true beginning of our relationship. It really isn’t interesting, the bulk of our dating. It doesn’t get interesting until it goes wrong. It, being our relationship, June manages to find something more, while I’ve decided to settle for the best. 

I walked in to the café. It was what I did every Wednesday morning, awaiting me was June, drinking her tea and writing an email to her faraway best friend.  

“I’m not leaving,” she spoke.  I scooted in closer to the table ignoring her question. 

“So, I decided to become a dentist.”

“Hello, I said something.”

“Yes, you’re not leaving.. I’m glad?” I spoke. I suddenly questioned myself, and took the time to look into her eyes. She looked mischievous.

“I’m not leaving, I’m not leaving, but I want to. And this is a problem,” she spoke. She looked at me, closed her laptop and grasped my hand.

“Where do you want to go? You know there’s lots of other dentist’s schools out there.” 

“I don’t want to go to dentist school, you do. I want to fly,” June said. I thought about her words, confused by the cliché wording and new I could only discover more. 

“Like a bird?”

“No I want to fly in an airplane, I want to travel to a faraway place, and meet new people. I want to experience beauty from across the world. Off into China or Africa, or maybe Australia.” 

“Ok.”

“Ok? That’s all?”

“Ok, I’ll come with you.”

“No.”

“So you want to leave me?” 

“I just want to leave on my own. Experience life independently.” 

“But you’re not.”

“No, because love is stronger than any other desire,” she spoke. I let go of her hand, wrong move. But I just couldn’t comprehend the depth of her words. I couldn’t even feel anything but confusion. 

“Wow,” June spoke. She seemed fractured. 

“I don’t want you to go,” I spoke. I said this slowly and with meaning, but it didn’t even compare to her words. 

“That’s not enough.”

“Two weeks.”

“What?”

“Give me two weeks to process, and I promise you I’ll have enough for you,” I said. I tried to make sense, but I was surrounded by my obscure thoughts.

“Alright. Two weeks.”

I thought about that conversation obsessively, and I talked to my invisible friend. I realized more and more every day that I would have to make a hard decision. I knew, wholeheartedly that I loved June, but I also knew that I was not good enough for her. Maybe in a few years I could become the man she wants, but now I am just a boy. It hurt more than I thought it would, but I knew I had to make the hardest and least selfish decision of my life. I had to let her go. My invisible friend agreed. 

So I sat by the fountain, feeling the little sprits of water on the back of my neck, and remembering every romantic moment with this June. And I wanted to drown myself. She appeared across the road, standing in her blue knee high socks and black skirt, and she was distracted. This is the moment in most tragedies where the beauty gets hit by a bus, but not this time. So she crossed the street successfully, and stared at me the whole time. I got used to her intense gaze, almost took it for granted, but having not seen her in two weeks, caused everything to seem so new again and I fell back into this intense attraction for her. But I tried to use my mind. 

“I’m letting you go,” I spoke. It was only four minutes after she sat down. 

“You are? That’s the conclusion?”

“Yes.”

“Why can’t you say any more?” She spoke. June gave me a broken hearted look. I stared at the nobs on my knees. 

“I realized that I love you.”

“Really?”

“But I want you to go. Travel, be free from the confines of men…me.” 

“I’ve already bought my ticket. But I wish you had wished me to stay,” she spoke. Leaning forward, she kissed my forehead. And that was it. The last time I saw her for an entire year. 

And there she was, a year later, with a wide grin on her face.

But there was no grin on mine. It was more of a perplexed straight lip. She looked more beautiful than I had ever seen her, and so much more unattainable.