Everything I Never Say ✓

[ seventeen ]

Seventeen

× × ×

The first time I saw you — even though it wasn't the first time, not really— you were standing by the TV stand, chatting with Hadley's mother.

It was a glimpse, just a glimpse, that these eyes of mine caught. A flash of dark, dark hair. Still overgrown at the sides, at the crown, everywhere, everywhere. Still dancing along your forehead and occasionally flirting with your brows.

I looked away, then. I had to.

That was all that I could do, you see. All I could satisfy myself with was tiny glimpses, the briefest of seconds, stolen glances of whichever part of you my eyes landed on first — never your entirety. Never you as a whole.

The second time I saw you — even though it wasn't the second time, not really— you were holding Bash in a headlock, your knuckles rubbing the top of his head rather aggressively. Another glimpse. A blurred peripheral view of your form just a few feet away from mine.

The third time I saw you — even though it wasn't the third time, not really— I didn't actually see you. Because I felt, for a heart-stopping moment, your eyes on me. Felt. But I never saw. I never looked back at you, never met your eyes. I just pretended to be engrossed in whatever Bash was showing me on his phone. I didn't see the screen, didn't see Bash's hands and lips moving, didn't see nothing because I was too busy feeling everything, everything, everything.

And then your eyes averted their gaze, releasing my lungs and my heart and oh, it felt nice to be able to breathe again.

We were having dinner when you first spoke to me — even though it wasn't the first time, not really. We had ditched the dining table, left the parents there, while I, Hadley and her siblings, and you settled into the sofas in the living room instead.

"These are really good," you mumbled appreciatively while biting into a cheese-and-bacon roll. "Did you guys make these, or order them?"

"Made," Hadley grinned. "Amazing, huh?"

I smiled to myself and slipped a forkful of lasagna into my mouth. I make the best cheese-and-bacon rolls, Daniel. And suddenly, in that moment, I wished I was the one who made them instead — there was this silly urge to have you taste something I was quite good at making.

"Debbie," you suddenly said, and I suddenly stopped chewing, my heart breaking and not racing at the mention of my name from your lips, in your voice.

I coughed, pretending to choke a little and leaned forward, bending my head the slightest bit, to fetch my glass of coke on the coffee table. I remember nodding my head while I sipped, gesturing for you to go on without waiting for me to meet your eyes. That couldn't happen, Daniel. That couldn't.

"Don't you also like baking?" You asked, genuine curiosity in your tone. "I remember you always buying those colourful beginner's baking books." You chuckled at the end and I wanted to cry, I think. Tears of happiness, of course. There was this unexplainable sense of pure bliss, this rush of serene joy that just washed over me at your words.

You remembered, Daniel. You remembered something that I didn't even think about anymore and I—

I... I don't know. I couldn't explain the feeling. Years later, and I still can't.

I laughed lightly, still not daring to meet your eyes, and placed the glass back down, turning my attention to the plate in my hands instead. "Yeah," I nodded, watching my hand pick up the fork and pierce into a chunk of lasagna. "Yeah, I still like to bake every once in a while."