Sweater Weather

Ophelia

I hung up on Jay. After I hung up, I broke down in tears. My lips were trembling. I covered my eyes with hands and put my head in my lap. Moans escaped my lips through the stifled sound of my hiccups. It's so hard to love someone who's in love with someone else. When he said he loved her, that hurt the most. In the middle of my emotional breakdown, I came to my senses. I wiped the tears from my eyes and blew my nose. "This is stupid. I'm not doing this. I am not going to cry over someone who clearly doesn't want me. I'm going to find someone who cares for me and loves me." The only question was who? I decided that I would think about it more in the morning and try and get some sleep.

. . .

The next day at school I tried to do my best to avoid Jay but it was harder than I thought. When I first got to school he spotted me and started walking towards me. I immediately went in the other direction. In class when he would try to mess with me, I would ignore him. I had to continue to tell myself that it was for my own good even though it pained me. I forced myself to focus on finding a boyfriend instead. I could ask someone to go out with me, hang out with them some more, then get in a relationship. Simple. I tried to find someone I would want to go on a date with but I couldn't find anyone so I gave up. At lunch we had an assembly for our trip to Bridgemere National Park. I looked for a space to sit on the bleachers. I spotted Theia. She was sitting next to her boyfriend, Jamie. There was one spot left next to her. I was almost there but then someone took the seat. I saw Theia mouth the word sorry and I mouthed "it's okay" back. I found the first seat that was available and I sat down. I noticed the person sitting next to me. His name was Matthew and he was on the track team. He wasn't captain but he was pretty good. Matthew looked at me and smiled. I grinned and he looked away. He's kinda cute. His hair looks really soft and it's so floofy! I laughed at the thought. I started to stare at Matthew's hair for a long time. His hair was so dark it was almost jet black. It was shaved on the sides and was swooped to the side. I need to stop staring at his hair. If he catches me he'll think I'm weird. That's what I told myself but I just couldn't. Stop. Staring. My eyes shifted their gaze to his expressive and beautifully deep brown eyes, his Nubian nose, his full lips. When I went to look up at Matthew's hair again I saw he was looking at me. I averted my eyes and focused on the assembly. You should have looked away when you had the chance. Now you're embarrassed and he thinks you're a total creep. At the assembly, they were talking about preparation for the trip, things we'll do, the ride there, and things like that. After what seemed like forever, the assembly was over. People were handing out permission slips while I exited the gym. I didn't take one because I was going to just get one from Mrs. Samuell's class later. When I was walking to my next class, Jay shouted my name.

"Ophelia!" He yelled. "Lia, wait up!" I started to walk faster but Jay caught up. "What's been going on, Lia? You've been avoiding me all day." I didn't respond. "Hello, earth to Phelia?"

He was waving his hand in my face like I was in a trance or something. Jay triggered me when he called me Phelia. At this point it seems like he's trying to piss me off. Maybe he thinks that I'd he makes me mad enough I'll snap and confess something. I smacked his hand away and said,

"Leave me alone."

I speed walked the rest of the way to class. Maybe I shouldn't have yelled at him. Jay was just trying to ask what was wrong. Another part of me that felt like I did the right thing. Who cares? I'm still mad at him. In class I forced myself not to look at Jay but it didn't seem like he was trying to get my attention or anything. That was good. I thought that he would be like that the whole time but I was wrong. He passed me a note. At first I tried to ignore it hoping that he would take it back but he didn't. I wanted to know what the note said so I opened it reluctantly. It read: