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SIMON {entry} Unrequited Love

A/N: This story is one pulled from a life filled with love and love lost, more often than not ending in pain. This one is the one that made the most impact on me over time, and the ending isn't so bad. But it'd make a great Adele song!

Happy reading,

Jenn

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You see him the first time on a day at the end of August. It's sunny, and the weather is really nice. It's early morning, and your team just won a one of the silly outdoor contests. You're sitting on the grass, the sun in your eyes, until it's blocked out. Blocked out by someone with curly hair and sweatpants, he's laughing with his friends. The field around you is littered with music students, theatre students, art students... They're all here for the same reason you are. Only today's your birthday, and it's the first time that you see Simon.

You don't know his name for another six months.

When you do find out his name, you're sitting on the table in the computer lab, next to a friend who's fiddling with some lyrics while you run your lines for the next rehearsal. She's laughing about something, but your focus is entirely on the boy three seats down from you. Today he's got a green hoodie on, and you notice his eyes for the first time. They're green, mostly, and when his friend calls out his name, your heart jumps. Simon.

He plays guitar like an angel and he can float down the street like there isn't a damn thing in the world that bothers him. The sound of skateboard wheels on the corridor floor always gets your heart racing, but it doesn't seem like he ever notices. For the most part, you don't think he notices you at all. He doesn't even look up to not bump into you, just walks around you like you might have been a ghost. You feel like one, a lot of the time.

You're starting to feel tired by the end of your first year, and when one of your friends come running up to tell you that he's going to be leaving for a year, your heart breaks. You can feel it breaking in your chest, and when you walk out of school that last day before summer, you glance back. Only this time, he actually looks back at you. And smiles.

The summer that follows isn't anything to write home about. You have a popsicle with some guy by a playground. He's there with his sister, you're there with your cousins. It's nice, he's cute. But your heart is somewhere else. It's not until september that same year, when you meet Freddy online, that you start to let yourself think of someone else.

In december Freddy calls you from an In Flames concert. You know he's special by then. You know that you want to see him, to hold his hand and hear his voice, almost as bad as you want to forget all about Simon.

But he's still there, in the back of your mind, and every time you hear the sound of skateboard wheels you think of him.

You've made thing almost official with Freddy in march. You're planning to go up to meet him, everything is set, except a day and time. Both of you are excited, and it's like something inside of you is quivering. You get sick, and so you decide maybe coming up to meet Freddy is better to wait for the summer; he agrees, because he worries about you.

It's the first day with real sunshine, somewhere in the middle of April, and you're still recovering from being sick. You've got more make up on than you'd like to admit, just to look like the picture of health. You've lost weight, and you feel wrong. But something about the sunshine, something about that day. You're excited already when you get to school. Because your jeans aren't as loose as they were three weeks ago. Your cheeks not as pale as last week. Classes are good, and after lunch your sitting on a bench in the corridor, all alone, about to text Freddy when you hear it.

The door open at the far end, and the sound of a skateboard against the floor draws your attention. For the span of ten feet, he glides across the maroon floor, jumps off and grabs it. When he passes you, he's actually smiling, and you can't help but smile back.