A Poet's Secret

Chapter 3

To me, love is the way I feel when she smiles at me. Full teeth no shame in her joy

Love to me, is the electricity I feel every time she touches me

Love to me, is her infallibility in bringing me happiness

And this should be normal

It's not though

I shouldn't feel this type of love for my best friend

Of course, she's transparent with me because we've known each other for years

Of course, she's comfortable with touching and teasing me in ways to her, that seem completely innocent

Of course, of fucking course she says 'I love you' to me with no hesitation, with no second thought because yes you should love your friends but my definition of love towards her is absurdly un-platonic because I love her

I love her how I want to love my boyfriend

I love her how I want my father to love my mother

I love her how I think the ocean loves the edge of the sky because no matter which beach you visit, the ocean and sky always meet

I need her like I need oxygen

And she loves me but not like I want her to

Never like I want her to

Love to me means her blissful blindness to my heated looks and jealous scoffs when she's with someone new

Love to me means her.

•┈┈┈••✦ ♡ ✦••┈┈┈•

The period goes by and we learn about stanzas and sonnets and I barely pay attention because what I wrote on that page is burnt into my brain. Every single letter and every single word and I hate it, I hate it with passion but it's all true and that's the worst part of it.

I hate the fact that I want to see Ezra so he can make me forget again. So that he can fix my broken heart with his unbelievably overflowing one like he's been doing for two years. Thankfully the bell puts me out of my misery when it rings. I'm already so done with today and it's only the first period, I see Ezra in fourth. Sighing, I pack my bag and start to head out but stupid Mr. Rios signals me to wait.

"Mcklein I'm gonna need you to come in for 10 minutes during lunch for being late"

What the hell?!

"But I was only like 3 minutes late!" I  argue

"It's on my rubric either detention or deal with it," he says as he wipes the lesson off the chalkboard

I sigh "Fine" and then I stomp out of his classroom.

•┈┈┈••✦ ♡ ✦••┈┈┈•

Finally, finally, when it gets to lunch I  dip out of my honors Chemistry class (because AP Chem would be suicide), meet Ezra in front of his class, and pull him into a burning kiss as soon as I  see him. He follows my lead, wraps just one of his arms around my waist, and kisses me stupid. I've had a shitty day, thinking about things that I do my best and usually succeed at ignoring but Ezra is always there to make me forget and I love him for that.

Laughing, he pulls away from the kiss.

"What is up with you today?" He eyes me smiling

"Nothing, I just miss you," I say, stepping off my tippy toes.

I'm not short at all for my age. I'm pretty lengthy but so is Ezra. He is just the perfect height to make me feel small even though I'm really not.

We make our usual way to our lockers which are adjacent to each other and Sierra joins us, lips stained with red lipstick.

"What's up losers"

"Hey" I respond, Ezra's talking to a friend at his locker

"Did you even go to any classes today or did you just have your tongue down Jenny all day?"

She gasps feigning shock, both hands clenching her chest. "You think I'm a whore??"

"Do you hear this accusation, Ezra? Zora thinks all I  do is kiss girls" she scoffs

Ezra joins us as we walk to the cafeteria

"Is that not all you do?" he says jokingly

"For your information Zora, I  went to my second, third, and half of my fourth period today," she says proudly

As we're eating our lunch, senior board is on the speakers talking about senior sunrise. Sierra has invited Jenny to our table and is flirting with her shamelessly. Not that she should be ashamed but lunchtime is supposed to be our time and Jenny isn't part of our group. Thankfully some cheerleader informed Jenny that she was needed for a pep rally on the quad and she left. Though her teammate looked extremely annoyed that Jenny was missing her red lipstick.

"You guys are so lucky you get to do senior stuff together," I say poking at my food,

"I don't think it's really that big of a deal. They're just doing all this because they need money for prom" Ezra said

"Yeah you should be glad you get an extra year to save because our pockets are gonna be hurting by the time all the events are through" Sierra added

"I guess this is why they say trios never last" I sigh feigning disappointment

"You guys are gonna go off and be best friends and go to college parties together and forget all about me" I  wipe a nonexistent tear off

Sierra looks me in the eye somewhat seriously despite my humorous tone "Zora, I  will never forget you okay?"

"...okay"

Ezra clears his throat uncomfortably "Maybe we should just tell everyone that we're polyamorous so if senior board says no to all 3 of us going to the senior stuff together, we can expose them as pol-" he thinks for a while "is it poly- phobic??"

"I think it's just homophobic Ezra" Sierra laughs