Untouchable

Pink Bows

"These fragments I have shored against my ruins" — T.S. Elliot, The Waste Land and Other Poems

It only just hit me then, but I may never forget what happened during my final year at S. I may never forget what happened with Oli.

Eating lunch with him felt like a fever dream. As I've said many times before, he comes running over to our table and stands next to the bench I sit on. He'd say hi to the rest of the table before saying hi to me and usually would ask Brooklynn for food first. She had the best snacks out of all of us. That lunch was different though. I packed myself spam and rice with seaweed, with the intent of sharing, so when lunch came and he saw what I had, he asked if he could have some. And I said yes. Only ten minutes passed, but he already ate half of it. "Charlie, can you make me lunch someday?" he asked me, but him saying someday made it feel like he'd stay with me longer. He might not have thought about it, but it was like he planned to be with me, even after I left him. 

"Oh," I smiled, "sure!". A simple hug came after. Nothing was special, it was just like a quick peck on the lips before you had to go to work.

Before going to school in the morning, I put a pair of pink, clip-on bows in my pocket that I stole from my sister. What I hoped, was that he'd see I had them, and I'd ask if I could put it in his hair. So I did exactly that. I acted like I didn't know what the bows were doing in my pocket, and he took it from my hand and put it in his hair. "Awww, you look so," I paused, but audibly it was a cough, "silly!". I was about to call him cute.

He walked away with the bow in his hair and went to talk to a girl. Of course, he went to talk to a girl. Her name was Kate. Truthfully, there wasn't any reason for me to be jealous of her. It's not as if he liked her, but I wasn't even sure he didn't like anyone. I didn't know if he liked anyone because I never asked. I sort of screamed internally but I also made a big mistake. Loudly, I said, "I swear if he gives that bow to Kate!" and was looking over at him. I don't understand why I made it so obvious. It could've just been my imagination but I thought I saw them look back at me and my friends for a second. Oliver stopped talking to her and started to walk back to us. 

"Here Charlie," he unclipped the bow and placed it in my hand, "bring it to drama!" He walked away, waving his hand in the air.

School finally ended and drama awaited. I began to walk to the auditorium alongside Brooklynn and Nia, talking about classwork and how stupid the English teacher sounded earlier in class. We approached the familiar double doors and entered while getting a couple of greetings from the cast. Oli spots us and runs over. "Hi guys!!" he says, but not with a genuine smile. Could my friends tell he was being weirder than usual? The only thing that went through my mind was "Is he okay?". Nevertheless, he walked beside us to the wall where we usually place our backpacks down. It was already February, and I had one more month until my whole world felt like it would crash. "Did you bring the bows?" a familiar voice asks me. I snap out of my trance and see Oli looking at me intently.

 "Yeah, I did," I said to him. 

He looked into my eyes and told me, "Put it in my hair for me!". I looked at him. Looking back, it wasn't a very intimate thing. It was just friends being friends. So I took the bow from my pocket and slowly clipped up his hair. I made sure to not accidentally scratch his head with the clip and that no hair got caught in the mechanism. "Do you have any snackies?" he asked me and Brooklynn. "Snackies"? He just said "snackies"? Maybe I did find him adorable, but this, this was getting too crazy. We began to walk to the center of the gym when he screamed, "Charlie!!! Let me put a bow in your hair too!!" Are you joking? I definitely wasn't hallucinating. Oli wanted to wear matching bows. With me? I hesitantly agreed and handed him the bow. He came closer and reached up to clip my bangs out of my face. "There. All done," he patted the top of my head and ran to sit down, "Charlie, come sit next to me!" There was no sun in the auditorium, but my face felt sunburnt anyway. 

 Rehearsal continued as usual, but it was the end that shocked me. I wasn't needed up on the stage, so I sat next to my backpack on the wall. Patiently, I waited for it to end. When the director finally said it was time to go, Oli loudly rejoiced and jumped off the stage. I promise I'm not exaggerating this, nor am I making things up. He was running to his backpack when he passed me. I looked up at him, while he looked at me. And in a split second, his mouth formed a smile, and we had the world to ourselves. It was like someone played footage and slowed it down perfectly at the right moment. This was the boy I was in love with. Perfectly flawed in every way, beautiful and strange. But love was weird too. Why did I like him in the first place? It baffled me, and struck me to my core. He was the one I hoped for, the one I dreamed about. How did I get to caring this much?

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