Author's Note:
Hi there! This isn't nearly the first story I've written, but it's the first one I've ever published online. It's kind of inspired by the tv show Pushing Daisies. :)
Chapter One
“Hey, Ally!” someone called from behind me as I locked my car in the school parking lot. I turned to see Howard jogging towards me, his brown hair flopping all over his forehead and his glasses so classically askew. He tripped over his feet and fell into my arms, already open for a hug.
“Howard!” I squeezed him tight before letting him go and stepping back. He’d grown out his hair a bit over the summer, letting it fall onto his forehead, and he’d seem to grow impossibly taller and thinner. “How was London?”
“Great,” he grinned, bouncing on his heels. “The professional writers they brought into the seminars were a little too pretentious for me, and it rained a lot, but otherwise it was great!”
“Did you find any British girls?” I teased. He laughed.
“Not likely,” he said. “They were all gorgeous, but I couldn’t touch any of them.” I nodded in understanding.
“How was home?” he asked me, smirking.
“Boring as always,” I rolled my eyes and headed towards the school building that loomed in front of us. He walked beside me as we chatted idly about the things we had done that summer, which was mostly him talking about the writing camp he’d attended in England while I’d sat at home, devoid of my best friend and any plans at all.
“They had a few professors, and there was a little Chinese lady who I’m sure had some great things to say but I fell asleep during her lecture—” Howard was saying, but I quickly cut him off as I saw someone across the hall as soon as he opened the doors.
“Wait!” I pushed him in front of me and cowered behind him. A look of confusion crossed his face, but then he saw the boy standing in front of an open locker and realization dawned on his face.
“Seriously?” he turned around to face me. “You still like him?”
“Two months doesn’t change eight years,” I turned and strode quickly down the right side hallway while trying desperately to push my hair so that it blocked a view of my face, away from the blonde boy standing at his locker.
“Avoiding someone isn’t exactly the way to get them to love you back,” Howard ran to catch up with me.
“What am I supposed to do, risk him touching me?” I pulled out my schedule and checked for my locker number. “Oh thank god, I’m upstairs.”
“Maybe…” Howard paused, punched his hand with his other fist nervously. “Maybe you should let him touch you.” I whirled around to retaliate, and he held up his hands. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, let me finish. If you let him touch you… maybe you could let it go.”
“And give up hope?” My voice shook a little. I hated that.
“It’s been eight years, Ally,” Howard said, climbing up the staircase. “Maybe it’s time to accept that he’s not going to fall in love with you. I mean, it’s not like he doesn’t know, right?”
“I can’t give up hope,” I shook my head violently, unable and unwilling to let that idea that had tormented me for years after I had realized that I had been naïve to think he’d like me enter my head again. “I can’t ever give up that hope. Do you get that?”
“It’d give you a chance to move on,” Howard whispered.
“I can’t give up hope,” I tried to inject as much confidence and finality as I could into the statement, and then ran ahead of him, leaving him behind.
It started when I was eight years old.
I sat in my little first grade classroom at my worn wooden desk on the first day of school, anxiously awaiting the arrival of the rest of my classmates. Little me had already set out her pink pencil case on the desk, two freshly sharpened pencils aligned with the edge of the desk on the left. I had my notebook open and my backpack under my desk and I was ready to go. The only thing left was to make some friends.
“Hey, Ally,” someone said from behind me. I smiled, relieved to see Howard, his glasses a little askew and the tie his mother had made him wear that morning already loose and messy from his constant tugging.
“Hi Howard,” I replied as he sat in the desk next to me. We then descended into silence, each wallowing in our own petty, eight-year-old worries.
Slowly the class filled up with students, friends I barely remembered from kindergarten shyly waving hello, kids I didn’t recognize sliding into chairs. Eventually, someone took the desk in front of me.
He was tall for an eight year old, skinny as anything, with straight straw blond hair in a fringe that nearly touched his eyes. He had a crisp button up shirt on, and light up shoes with Velcro straps.
It was love at first sight.
My parents warned me, of course. Love is as dangerous as any chemical in the chemistry lab. It’s wonderful when someone loves you back. Magical. Fantastic. Any other cheesy adjective you can think of.
But when someone doesn’t love you back? Oh, it’s hell.
The unloved live in fear that the person their heart desires will touch them. Because if unrequited love is met with contact, the person you love can never, ever, love you back.
They tried to explain it to us in science class. The chemicals, the antibodies, the whole lot of it. If they don’t feel the same way about you and your skin touches, there is no possibility. They will never fall in love with you.
People swerve around each other in hallways. It’s common courtesy not to touch, just in case. Especially if you know someone likes you. You let them be, for your sake as much as theirs. Who are you to know who you’ll love in the future? It’s terrifying that you might rob yourself of that opportunity. Be very careful who you touch. Especially if you love them.
I’ve seen girls run past crying from accidental touches more times than I can count, boys with tears in their eyes, little kids teasing each other and making each other sob by touching people they know who like them, chasing all the girls around the classroom to see who flinches away.
I was determined never to touch him. Not until he loved me, anyway.
But he didn’t love me. And that’s what hurt the most.
