Orthography

Rewind

"I feel kind of bad..." He claimed as he made his appearance at the doorway of the room.

She had been crouched down on the floor against the wall, reading around on her phone and entertaining herself. Additionally, she had a ginormous bowl of chips beside her that she had selfishly taken to fit her needs. Every now and then her fingers would reach for the snack and make its way to her mouth. Of course, she justified the act by saying it was compensation for having almost all the people she despised storm the house.

Looking up, she was caught a bit off guard as she looked into his alluring gaze. Breaking out of her trance she responded, "Huh? For what?"

He chuckled and entered, finding himself sitting down on a nearby chair. "We're a large group of loud, teenage boys practically raiding your house."

She squeezed her left arm across her torso as she kept her eyes fixated on the screen of her phone. She answered with a hesitant snicker, "Not my house... and it's fine as long as no one, uh, bothers me."

A heavy silence hung over as the girl self-consciously brought her exposed legs closer to herself. The boy rubbed the back of his neck, a nervous grin upon his lips. Why had the boy broken her peaceful solitude? Now the air had tensed and became uncomfortable.

"Remember that one..." He didn't know what tone he should have been taking, so the words came out nonchalant, "New Year's?"

At this she jolted a bit, her body nearly beginning to quake at the thought. "The one where you kissed me, right?" But she dared not to let the words slip out of her mouth.

Her silence was like a knife to his throat, evidently making a choking noise. He tried to hide it with a cough. "Well... is it weird that we haven't talked since then?"

This was one of the first times she felt the butterflies beat their wings so violently within her stomach. How could they possibly talk much at all after an event like that? He even misunderstood her feelings and he practically gave her to his brother like a toy he didn't want anymore. She couldn't believe that she had a place in his mind let alone his heart. The uneventful days that led up to the moment they were in made her lose her self-worth; he wasn't someone who would understand.

Yet she was on the verge of tears over him, "Can't you just go live your life like every other douchebag in the other room? I came here so I wouldn't be bothered. Remember?" Looking intently at the floor, the pounding of her heart in her ears kept her from noticing that he had slowly made it to his feet.

A frustrated noise left her throat, "What, you probably can't even understand proper English, can you? Well let me put it simply: Leave-"

It was all different. She was still infuriated and hurt. She lamely pounded her fist against his chest once as if telling him to stay back, but he wouldn't. It was a reenactment of what happened that New Year's, but her eyebrows were furrowed and her eyes were tightly shut as tears dampened the tops of her cheeks.

He had gotten that close without her knowledge, and then so far away in an instant. The place where his hands cradled her chin and his fingers played at the baby hairs that framed her face. He left the room. And maybe he knew that this caused another vein in her heart to burst and forced an aching in her chest. And maybe he knew that when he left her then, it hurt much more than just not conversing for a year. And maybe he knew that she loved him with a love that he could not reciprocate because it was so powerful.