Where my Heart Lies

Gust of Change

"Jessica," he began tentatively, "there's something I need to tell you."

"Hmm? " Abruptly, Jessica turned her face towards Ryan. "Don't tell me-"

"I-" Ryan's heart sped up to match the pace of light itself. He could feel his cheek burning and turning red like a potato.

"-you... you found someone!? Didn't you!? AAHA!" Jessica clapped her hands and chirped. The usual light in her eyes shone even brighter. "I knew it." She let out a loud sigh. "Am I the only one to know about it?" She winked at Ryan.

At any other time, Ryan would have argued, demystified Jessica's misconception, only this time, he did not have the heart to. Pangs of guilt wrenched his gut as he looked at her with a tired expression, adorned with a weary smile. How could he ruin it all for her? For himself? For all the friendship they have had? And worse of all, how could he let her recall all the past before they were friends.

Jessica switched schools when she was in grade five. That was when she first knew Ryan. She was a little girl- loner, socially anxious, and tiny at ten years old. She was often bullied by almost her classmates at her previous school, which was verbal and physical, and so when that number of bullies reduced to a mere girl and few other boys, she thought it was heaven.

Of course, she had no idea what bullying was, at that age. And her parents were too busy to care.

Her crush on Ryan developed when she realized he paid attention to her. A lot, that is. He spared no possible effort from his end to try and make her more open to conversations, and comfortable with people. It was a simple little thing where he would approach her for conversations, which she was too scared to do herself, but kind gestures often amplify themselves in the heart of the receivers. The giver often forgets, the receiver- is bound lifelong.

Her feelings were raw, childish, carefree, and free of exchanges. She wanted nothing more than just be in his company at school, and when she would find herself a little too vacant, she would sit by the window side and dream, daydream. Of Ryan. Of every two-liner conversation he has had with her.

That was until grade eighth. 

That year, Ryan confessed to liking another girl. 

And that instant- it was all gone for little Jessica.

Years passed. And high school came.  

In all honesty, Jessica's heart was already over the little thing called 'first love'. She was focused on her studies more than ever, yet in a moment of confusion she decided to confess.

Knowing, she would be declined. Although she never proposed, she knew her emotions were only in her head. She had never had a full human length conversation with anyone at school, forget Ryan. Even if there might have been... possibilities, there were none.

Of course, she was declined.

Her budding heart, full of summer breeze, full of youth, knowing well what was to come, still shattered like fragile glass when it happened. Days and days her mood went off, she would cry and cry for hours, locking herself in a room, not saying a word to her mum, or dad. 

She hated herself. She hated Ryan. Herself, for she thought she was over him, and prepared. Herself, for ever confessing to him. Ryan, for simply coming into her life. For simply making him fall in love with her.

Love, I say is a vice darker than Hades' lust, Athena's jealousy.

It was this vice, that thrived inside Jessica for years, and it had now taken the shape of a parasite that sucked on her desire to be with Ryan, and her refusal to accept that very fact.