Lena Westley
August 12, 2015 5:38 AM
. . . Maybe it Didn't Have to Be by Lena Westley
“We have a philosophical vandal?” The boy’s words rang through her head again. After a very uncharacteristic backwards flop onto her bed, she tried her own hand at philosophy. It wasn’t the vandalism she was worried about, it wasn’t the gossip. Lena still had a very singular take on what was happening. Who cared about the perpetrator? Honestly, who cared about the gossip at all? People were too invested in other people.Except now she was too.
The only thing that had shaken her was the relevance of the so called “secret” on that corkboard. Not caring about its validity or intended recipient she thought about what a question mark in a heart meant for her right now. She tried to come up with something else, but one interpretation kept resurfacing. The one that had made her chest ache after thinking it downstairs.
That her feeling of “like/love” maybe needed reinvestigating.
She already missed his company despite it only having been a couple hours since last seeing him. She contemplated the sudden change in her quota for interaction with him, allowing for the insane but correct notion that she had deeper feelings for him than before.”What is wrong with me? How can I even think about such a thing?” There were some definite problems with liking said person. For one, there was no way he’d return her feelings. Knowing it would be futile to like him didn’t help in quashing her feelings but instead affected her already knotted stomach. For another she didn’t want to destroy the relationship the two had now. The expression why fix something that wasn’t broken came to mind and only disheartened her as she knew if she told him their relationship would change regardless of the direction it took. What they had was as far as it went. It couldn’t be improved upon.
‘Why him?’ she thought, practically pleading to her subconscious, whether for an answer or an appeal she didn’t know. ‘It’s doomed, it’s so pointless why even have the feeling?’ She couldn’t bring herself to imagine what he would think of this.
She’d had so few interactions with people originally that she thought it was just that talking to him was easier than most. It didn’t mean anything more than “I value you as a friend and comrade.” After branching out further, though, she found with him it was different than from anyone else. It meant more to her, it was somehow more interesting- but it didn’t even need to be. He could have been talking about having developed a fondness for fishing and she could consider it riveting conversation. He could have described fishing trips and she’d have found each one charming. Not that he would have. But she would have.
She’d once taken for granted seeing him every day but now she relished all her moments spent with him. She’d longed to be back at Sonora and not on the family trip this winter break specifically because she missed the moments they shared together here. It wasn’t just the moments, though, it was their bodies’ proximity, and the way she thought of the person himself that had completely changed.
She needed to be out of her head. Nothing sounded better than running to him and just being somewhere with him. It didn’t matter where- classes, the labyrinth, the library. Anywhere sounded good but she told herself she’d stay put. She wouldn’t track him down, she wouldn’t confess, she wouldn’t make a nuisance of herself. She would stay here. In bed. By herself. And worry.
After what seemed an endless amount of time tossing and turning anxiously, she put the shoes she’d discarded just a half hour earlier back on.
And she went to go find Aiden.
7
Lena Westley
. . . Maybe it Didn't Have to Be
279
Lena Westley
1
5