The Way I Loved You

Chapter Two

I HADN'T PLANNED to meet you.

And there you were, right in front of your locker, grabbing the books you needed for your next class, which was English, and I would not have been here if I had not also left my copy of Othello in my locker.

You had not seen me and even if you did, you did not show it. Of course, you would not after all the pain I made you bear. It was hard not to look at me and not glare, after what I did. You always eyed me and I would always feel a little inside. Before, when I was with you, I always felt I could soar and touch the sky, but now, the idea of flying seems impractical as no human could fly when they weren't born with wings.

Only birds flew, and maybe in movies, where there were fairies who flew and still had human characteristics. They had seemed real when I was younger when they were impossible to ever exist, but as a child, I ate it all up.

I used to think I could fly. I mean I did when I was with you, and you thought of me as the best person in the whole world, and I was not someone you hated and didn't want to see. Once upon a time, Ashton, you couldn't wait to see me, and I would feel the same way.

Our longing for each other did not mean you loved me and were cheating on Hailey, your girlfriend, we were just impatient to see one another after you had spent your entire day with Hailey, probably wandering around the mall because Hailey was a materialistic girl, and could not survive without advancing her wardrobe, like she didn't have enough clothes already.

After you had dropped her off at her house after kissing her goodbye, you quickly came over to my house where I had slightly over-burnt our caramel popcorn just as we liked, and I got us our canned Coca-Cola and straw - that was only for me because I loved drinking my soda that way, and also because one time I had cut my lip while trying to drink from a canned soda, and after being horrified by that incident, I decided to use a straw to drink. I got used to it, and with any type of drink, I sipped it with a straw.

I also always got us another bowl filled with salted crackers and another bowl that contained cheddar cheese. There was also a pack of gummy worms and a bag of Doritos - these were items that successfully made the best movie night, especially Ashton and Lauren's movie night.

I would have already logged into Netflix and would have picked out the film I wanted to watch, which at the end of the day, we would eventually watch, because you could never decide on what to watch, and always scrolled away on multiple films claiming they were too cliche or too depressing.

When you would finally come around and rung the doorbell. Out of excitement, I might have run too fast to open the door, when fortunately reality slams through me, and makes me wait a while behind the door. I always pretended to look nonchalant like it did not mean the world that you were here, even though I had probably seen you a few hours ago, and we would always end the day in my living room once again, with our lazy bum perched on the couch as we tried to complete the series we had been watching for a whole month now.

Since you had been devoted to Hailey and promised not to toss any girl out of your life anymore like they didn't matter, you spent most of your time with her, while I spent the remaining hours of the day with you.

Soon, after I had seen you, my poor heart would pound wildly in my chest while I tried to coldly accept you in my house.

Some days you would pout to get me to forgive you because you knew it had always worked right from when we were kids and wanted to have your way, and sometimes it went a little like this:

You would chuckle at me because you know why I was acting mad—okay pretending that I was mad at you. I should have been but I was in love with you and you didn't know that. You would try to explain, and always it would be about your girlfriend like I did not know, and I would have to accept your reason because you were only being a good boyfriend to your girlfriend, while you weren't a good best friend to me.