The Girl On The Roof

Crushing Hard

I was seeing Jane less and less over the past few weeks. Each night instead of walking home with her, I'd find myself alongside Hazel, going to work on our project. We never actually got to the project, though. The only time we did any real work was the first night. Instead, we'd talk.

At first Hazel had been closed off to me, but after a week or two... she was still closed off. The only difference was that now she was willing to listen.

We didn't start out by saying hey, let's start therapy sessions! No, it came in trickles, starting from when I told her the origin of my full name and she was sympathetic, to when I let loose a complaint about Luke. It wasn't much, but it was enough for me. If only I knew more about her.

We were in English class on a rainy Monday, the perfect setting to want to fall asleep and stay that way forever. Jane was in the desk next to mine, as per usual, and was doodling in her notebook. I was staring off into space.

Then I noticed something. It was probably nothing, but out of the corner of my eye I could see a little heart on her paper. Upon closer (and discreet) examination, it was revealed to me that there were many hearts, or heart shaped balloons, all held in the hand of a girl who was unmistakably Jane. She was truly an incredible artist. Hazel, as she'd recently told me, could only draw moons ("and those are just little circles," she'd said). Jane looked like she was trying to give the balloons to someone, but the receiver was not shown on the paper.

I wanted to ask her about it, but we hadn't been speaking for a while and I didn't really know how to start a conversation. Was "who's supposed to be getting those balloons in your drawing and by the way I'm sorry for not talking to you in the past couple of weeks even though we've been best friends all our lives" okay? I didn't know, so I didn't ask.

After school, Hazel and I made our way to my house. The English project was due next week (Mrs. Berkely was boring, but she did give a lot of time for assignments), and we'd barely started. At the end of our first meeting we agreed to abandon the whole tri-fold board thing and decided to use a poster instead, so we were back to square one.

As we walked, I began to talk to Hazel about Jane. She'd been acting kind of strange around me lately, I explained, and told her about the drawing I'd seen that day.

"She likes you," Hazel said simply, not taking a moment to even process the information.

I stopped in the middle of the road, saw a car coming and decided that my standing still was not the best idea, then ran to catch up to her. "Wait, what do you mean she likes me?" I asked hurriedly.

Hazel kept her eyes ahead of her. "I mean exactly that. She likes you. Wants to date. Wants the nasty. Unless she's asexual, cause then that's your problem."

I stared at her, but she still wouldn't look at me. "Do you think I should talk to her?" I forced out, swallowing hard.

"That depends," she said, and finally turned her head to me. "Do you like her?"

"I don't. I do." I sighed and shook my head, stopping. "I..."

"Can't make up your mind." She nodded slightly, then stopped and stepped up onto the grass. "Listen, you've been friends for a long time, or so I'm told. You've got to talk to her. Something so childish as this isn't worth screwing up a life long friendship."

I tried hard to think about her advice, and not about how strange it was that Hazel Meringuer was helping me with a relationship problem. Less than three weeks ago she was calling me stalker and snapping at me every time I took an extra few seconds to make the writing neat on our project.

Hazel put a hand on my shoulder, and I was reminded of Jane doing the same about Hazel. "Go to her," Hazel said dramatically, then pushed me in the direction of Jane's house. Not too hard that the impact would break my ribs, but hard enough to remind me that she could.

"What about our project?" I asked desperately. I needed an excuse to stay away from Jane. I didn't know what to do.

"You really thought we were going to do the project? You're cute." Hazel smiled and shook her head, then turned in the direction of her house. "Good luck," she said over her shoulder as she walked away, leaving me alone in my fear.

What to do, what to do, what to do...

I found myself walking up the steps to Jane's front door, saw my fist raising to knock. I didn't want to. This was going to be brutal. I couldn't date Jane. I knew that. It would never happen. Shouldn't ever happen. It kind of reminded me of incest, which would not be great for starting a relationship.

I sighed and stepped back after having rapped my knuckles against the door. A few seconds had passed before Jane opened the door. "Umm, hi," she said, crossing her arms as she leaned against the frame. "What's up? You talking to me again?"

I found myself at a loss for words, something that was rare because I always had something to say—or rather, complain about. "I—"

"Please don't tell me you're here because you forgot something here months ago and now you want to give it to your new girlfriend."

"What? Girlfriend? I just—she's just a friend, and I—"

Jane sighed and shook her head. "Just tell me why you're here, because the past few weeks of you ignoring me have been the worst ones of my life. I'd like to get back to them."

"Well, I just..." I took a deep breath. "I saw your drawing in English today," I blurted out. Uh oh.

Jane's eyebrows shot up, and only someone who's known her for years could tell that she had stiffened considerably. "What? What drawing?" She asked, and glanced inside for a second before returning her gaze to me.

"The one of you giving heart balloons to me—I mean to someone, I couldn't see who." Oh my god, I was going to die right then and there.

"Wait." Jane stepped outside and shut the door behind her. I was painfully aware of how close we were. "You think that that drawing was about you?"

"Well, yeah, I mean I'm the only guy you talk to, and—"

"And how would you know that?"

"I just—"

"No, you know what?" She put her hands up and shut her eyes, took a deep breath, then forced herself to look at me. "You have been leaving me behind for weeks. And now you come up to me, telling me I'm supposed to have a crush on you? Well, guess what, Marty, I don't. And I won't, not now, not ever. And you want to know why? Because I'm gay. And congratulations, you're the first to know." She shook her head and went back inside, slamming the door behind her.

And leaving me to feel like the biggest jerk on the planet.