i do love you

Aiden

remember when i said i moved on? yeah. i did. once i came to this school because of personal issues after my breakup with cj, i met a girl. she looked a lot like cj, her eyes, her hair, her body figure.. but her personality wasn't anything like cj's.

anyway, one day, i'm chilling at my locker between classes with my lady on my arm and my best friend matt next to me and i see her. the first thing i see are her eyes. she's looking right at me, into my soul and for a second i think she's walking to me, to be bound into my arms. i almost reach out for her and call out her name, but i catch myself and i blink and she's gone.

i start to tremble and my lady, let's call her shannon, notices. she puts her hand on my face and our lips are inches away from each other. she stares into my eyes reassuringly and for a second i think she's cj so i say, "what are yo-" but she kisses me before i can finish and i'm thankful. i was going to say, what are you doing here? why are you here? you aren't supposed to be here. get out of my new life.

and you know what was worse? i wanted it to be cj. i wanted to feel her touch. i wanted to be inches away from her. i wanted it to be her. i wanted to yell at her and fight with her and wind up having an angry make out session with her in the janitor's closet. i wanted to love her.

a second later matt coughs, breaking me from my thoughts and shannon's lips and he nudges me and i groan and wink at shannon, kissing her on the cheek and pulling her into me for one last embrace before we go separate ways for a good 45 minutes.

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during class i tell matt that i saw cj and two people overhear and ask me about her. so i tell them. then i hear them talking to the two people in front of them and then i see someone get out their phone and then a second later i receive a message that said, "aiden bachelder and cj washburn came from the same school and they were a thing." i wanted to hurl because i saw other people look at their phones and then at me.

i smiled awkwardly and stood up, feeling sweat all over me. i wanted to scream, what have i done? in that moment but i couldn't seem to speak. my eyes instinctively scanned the room for cj's eyes. they had always calmed me for some reason but then i snapped back to reality and scratched the back of my head.

i broke down on the inside but remained calm to the public. i didn't show anyone that i was freaking out. matt was staring at me as if to say, "hey man, you alright?" so i nodded and he nodded and i took out my agenda, signed it to go to the bathroom and staggered to the front of the room to hand my teacher my agenda for a signature.

it had always been an instinct to run away from my problems. like i had fled from cj. i just couldn't let anyone know that. i had a reputation to keep.