To Love or Be Loved

01| the girl who doesn't speak

"Unrequited love is the infinite curse of a lonely heart." -Christina Westover

It sucks loving someone who doesn't love you back. It sucks even more when everyone says there's no way you could love someone you don't know. But you do love them and you do know them.

I know Carter James. I know he wants to be an astronaut and not a pro football player. I know despite his aspirations, space scares the hell out of him. I know he has nightmares from that night still. I know he doesn't like the smell of campfires because it makes his heart hurt.

But Carter doesn't know that it was me that night. He doesn't know I know all the pieces of his heart she never will. He doesn't even know my name.

"Addison," a soft voice said beside me. I blinked twice, swallowing the lump in my throat, and looked over. Olivia Chambers stood next to me, her long brown hair falling into her hazel eyes. She looked tired but beautifully dressed in tight jeans, a crop top, and high heeled boots.

I cleared my throat as if doing so would clear my mind. It didn't. "Liv. Morning. Your hair looks nice today."

"Thanks," she said. She searched my face for something but frowned when she couldn't find it. "Thinking of Carter again?"

I shrugged and brought my attention to my locker. It was messy and filled with crumpled pieces of paper, pencils, and textbooks. I dug around the inside of my bag until I found the bottle of water I haphazardly threw in on my way out of the house. The cold water sliding down my throat soothed me a little, but not enough to make the dull ache of my heart go away.

"You were."

"No one said it was unhealthy to think of the boy you've been crushing on for years," I said, tossing the bottle back in my locker. "It's only unhealthy to build a shrine of him, and I haven't yet."

This made Liv laugh, and for the millionth time during our four year friendship, I noticed how pretty she was. Her brown eyes lit up every time her full lips stretched into a smile to show off her pearly whites.

She continued babbling on about how I was only a step away from cutting off a lock of his hair and carrying it around with me. I forced a smile every once in awhile when I felt it was necessary, but I wasn't really paying attention. It was hard to when my entire body was so acutely aware of how close Carter was. He and his girlfriend had moved from where they were previously standing by her locker to his locker. His locker was across the hallway from mine, and though he couldn't hear what Liv was saying about him, I was incredibly afraid that he could.

A hand lightly brushed down my arm, and I focused my attention who the hand belonged to. Micah Reynolds stood beside me, his soft green eyes staring into mine. It was hard when he looked at me like that because I was certain he was reading everything about me.

Olivia must have noticed I wasn't giving her all my attention because she directed her commentary to Micah. His full attention wasn't on her either, but he had always been good giving everyone equal attention. He nodded his head at her, flashed her a smile, and even said something to cause her shoulders to shake as she laughed.

As they joked, I gathered all my things for my first class. Surprisingly, I felt tense. As if he could sense it, Micah wrapped his arm around me and looped his fingers through the side belt loop of my pants. It was something he'd always done since we were little to calm me down, and it worked now.

They continued talking as we walked down the hallway together, though I still didn't contribute to the conversation. Soon, Liv parted ways with us and disappeared into the theater where she'd spend three hours of the day practicing for the upcoming play she was the lead in.