It was late August. School had just started and I had been sitting on my own at a round table in the middle of the cafeteria. That morning, my good friend from middle school asked me to sit with her at lunch, she thought I looked—“lonely.” I figured maybe I could finally make some friends this year, and maybe now was my opportunity. I told her, “Maybe, you know I don’t do well with new faces.” Mars scoffed.

“You know I’m only trying to help you.” She fiddled with her hair, Mars was sincerely worried about me.

“I know.”

The bustle of the cafeteria startled me that day, it felt like a new place, like at any moment my life could be changed forever. I brushed off the thought—I was probably just being fake deep. I didn’t see Mars anywhere, she was probably talking to someone outside, Mars confused me like that, why would anyone wanna socialize on purpose? People began to focus on me, standing awkwardly in the middle of the chaos—my black t-shirt was covered in dog hair, and my long floral skirt was in desperate need of an iron.

One person caught my attention though, she stood out in the crowd. Her blue hair braided to the side – her black dress equally covered in animal fur. Despite the throngs of people around her, this girl’s aura spoke the loudest. In a bout of courage (or maybe just impulse) I started slowly stepping towards her.

Before I could make it two feet, Mars’ painted fingernails grabbed my shoulder. “Hey I see you’ve noticed River! He’s right over there,” She gestured to the mysterious girl, “he’s talked about you before, he said you guys met last year, but you thought he was fake deep.”

“To be honest I think everyone’s fake deep.” Mars chuckled and started pulling me towards River.

That day at lunch, I sat between Mars and another one of Mars’ friends, his name was D’monte and he had hair like a dinosaur. Across from me was River, and to River’s right was a girl named Raegan, we were best friends a few years ago, but when I came out as non-binary, Raegan said we couldn’t be friends anymore. On Rivers left was an empty seat, but Mars said I had to sit across from River. I thought Mars was trying to set us up.

Conversation was busy and loud between Mars, D’monte and Reagan, but River and I stared each other straight in the eyes for the entirety of the hour, not saying a single word. The bell rang, and Mars and her friends got up first, and before River looked away, Mars snapped a picture on her phone. She said its for when we get married.

“Well, since you two didn’t say a word to each other, River, this is Violet—they have no friends, please talk to them. For me” I turned red and glared at Mars.

“I have friends I just don’t talk to them” River smiled a smile that I will never forget, no matter how fake deep and cliche that sounds—it is the truth.

For the next few weeks I sat with Mars and her friends (including River). After that first day, River and I decided to stop being so gross and actually speak with each other, we were so similar, but also so different. I was into Bowie and the Strokes and I studied vintage fashion, he was into Walk the Moon and Neon Trees and he studied modern makeup. Despite our superficial differences, we both would call you out on your offensive “jokes” and we both had a passion for literature and we had the same sense of humor and we both cried – all the time.

Mars said we were a match made in heaven, and she was probably right – for the time being. On September ninth, 2014, I made a mixtape. It was grunge and edgy but it was a profession of my crush. Each song was specially picked, and put in a specific order to that I could spell out my profession with one letter from each song title. Very last on the track list, was “You and I” by Ingrid Michelson, this song would change my entire year.

The afternoon I gave River my mixtape, he called me, he said he wanted to get me flowers and that I was too cool for him and that he wanted to take me out. I cried, for a while.

That autumn was pretty good—we were attached at the hip, and all our teachers knew “They gay kids are in love”. The Pride Festival was in early October that year, and we went together, we sang to each other, and help hands in from of protestors, and we even held up the banner for one of the marches. It was a really great weekend.

For Halloween (or mutual favorite holiday) he would be Clyde and I would be Bonnie and we would go to this really big haunted house. Mars sent me screenshots of when he told her he wanted to take me there “They’ve never been to a haunted house before! I want to hold them when they get scared! I want to protect them!”

Two days before Halloween, River told me he wasn’t going to be Bonnie and Clyde with me and he wasn’t taking me to the haunted house. I was certain he didn’t like me anymore.

We never really made up after that, but it was really only an issue for me—I didn’t tell him I was upset. Soon after that, he told me he loved me. I thought he was taking things fast, but after some serious thought (and some serious journaling) I decided he meant the entire world to me, and I told him I loved him too.

November was wonderful—literally nothing bad happened, we planned to move to Iceland together, and he told me You and I (the last song on the mixtape) was “our song” and that it was “about us.” I started writing the lyrics on everything—”let’s get rich and buy our parents homes in the south of France, let’s get rich and give everybody nice sweaters and teach them how to dance, let’s get rich and build a house on a mountain making everybody look like ants, lets get rich, you and I, you and I.” He even came to Thanksgiving with my extended family, and he made my experience 100% less shitty.

In December, we were in love and open about it and gross about it. He bought me records for Christmas, and i bought him a vintage locket and a nice journal. All was well. Then, I had a party on New Year’s Eve.

Mars came, and so did my best friend at the time—Delilah—and River came. it was pretty great until about ten, Delilah got a text from one of our mutual friends—he was at a party down the street, we should go say hi—of curse we went, but our friend—Ethan – was at a party with people I hate, and in a house, next to my old best friend’s house. Her name was Rose, we were attached at the hip for a year, then she moved away for the summer and we lost touch. I wanted to go to her house and say “Happy New Year” and so I did, she didn’t answer the door for me, and i fell apart. I started crying and panicking and i figured she hated me. River lost his shit. He was being so sweet and trying to make me feel better, but he was so angry at Rose, and he wanted to go talk to her and talk shit and make her feel bad. I wouldn’t let him and he got mad at me. For the rest of the walk home, Delilah and Mars and River walked in front of me, and i was left alone, watching River’s blue hair bounce ahead of me, knowing he was angry.

He didn’t talk to me for the rest of the night, and at midnight he didn’t even look at me. When he left the next morning, he didn’t say goodbye.

Earlier in December, he asked me to go to a lock-in at his church with the youth group. I went to youth group meetings with him a lot—mostly because his mom made him go to them and he needed support, but also because religion is really interesting to me, and I like to hear the other side of faith (not just atheism’s perspective). The lock-in was on the first of January, and we’d go home the morning of the second. Since we “fought” on New Year’s Eve, I didn’t know if he still wanted me to go with him, so I called him around noon, and he acted like nothing had happened. Which is good for me, because then I could move on too. River told me that Mars was coming, but I could for sure come too. His mom picked me up at six, and we got Mars too, and then we headed to the church. The lock-in was pretty fun, Mars was being social and chatting it up with the others, River and I just sat on the floor and talked. At ten-ish, we started this game where you go collect little slips of paper from around the church, then you have to find a “base” in the church and drop off your slips, then you had to find “home” where you would go and sit and wait for the others to finish. Let me tell you, this game took FOREVER and Mars got to “home” before River and I did, once we got there though, it was packed. Most of the youth group had gotten there already and we were just waiting for a few more people. It was really dark in “home” but i think it was a kitchen or something I’m not sure. At 11:45-ish, I leaned over and kissed River. We had been dating for four months, and this was our first kiss.

His eyes got really wide and he kissed me back then immediately leaned over to Mars and was like “Holy fuck Mars!!” and a group of kids from the youth group glared at us.

Our relationship was great for a little bit – we kissed a lot – and I mean, A LOT – and nothing was bad – then, on January 13, River stopped talking to me. He sat somewhere else at lunch, and he, didn’t say hi at school, and he didn’t text me back – I was horrified. I didn’t hear from him for eleven days. Then, on January 24, 2015, Mars texts me and tells me to look on River’s tumblr. He had posted a poem, it basically said “I’m not your doormat, don’t manipulate me, its been too long, I need to open my eyes to the truth, blahblahblah” I cried for a long time before I had the stability to text River. I asked him what he hell was going on – and he said I had been lying to him for four months, and I didn’t love him, and he couldn’t do it anymore. W argued for a really really really long time, and I cried for a really really really long time, and then that was it.

I sat alone at lunch again, I got closer to Mars, I got sadder, it was hard for me to get out of bed in the morning, I got distanced from Delilah, my grades dropped, i fell apart. I didn’t have the courage to text him again until March. I was at a friend’s birthday party, telling the story of what happened, and my friend Katie told me to text him and say how hurt I was. I wasn’t gonna do it, but then I got sadistic. I thought “how much better would i feel if he felt bad for hurting me?” Which is a terrible thing to think, but i thought it anyway, and texted him. He told me to “stop crawling back Violet, you’re a lying, manipulative, bitch.” Then he blocked me.

I had to leave the party.

I was’t the same Violet after that. I don’t think I ever will be, but a few months later, in July, River texted me, he said he wanted to be in relationship with me again, and of course, I said I would, that I’d be happy to. We didn’t see each other at all, ‘cuz I was out of town, but we facetimed, and texted, and we talked a whole lot. He asked me if i wanted to go with him when he got his nose-pierced that Friday, I’d be back home then, so I said yes. That Friday, he didn’t reply to me once. At around 8:30, Mars texts me, she sends me screenshots of a conversation she had with River that day. He told Mars that he didn’t want to put up with a “clingy, lying, bitch” so I cried, then I called him. I told him I saw what he said to Mars, and he yelled at me, and then I cried some more, and then that was it. Before I hung up, I told him I loved him anyway.

A few more months pass, and I cry on September ninth, and I make some new friends, and its okay, I’m not great, i’m not the same Violet, but I’m more okay than I was in the spring. On the first day of Thanksgiving break, River texts me and invites me to go to a Bernie Sanders rally with him, i say absolutely because i want to be his friend at least. I bring my new friends, and Delilah with me, and he brings Mars. While we’re there, Delilah takes my new friends to the front of the crowd, and Mars, River and I stay back. Mars keeps whispering to River, and River is blushing and I love him.

When Bernie is talking about trans rights in America, River kisses me on the cheek and I bush and Mars laughs and River smiles. After the rally, River tells me that he knows he’s fucked up and he knows I’m hurt by him, and he knows “I probably don’t love [him]”—which is a lie—and he says he wants to date me again.

Of course, like an idiot, I say yes. Things are great for a few days, we meet up on Tuesday afternoon and play air hockey and kiss a lot, and its great, and we try to meet up on Wednesday but his dad won’t let him, and then, on Friday, he stops talking to me.

Obviously I panic, and then I call him Saturday morning, as not to seem “clingy.” He says he’s not emotionally stable enough to be in a relation ship and I say thats okay. I cry for a while and then thats it. No big fight, no yelling, just crying. Crying because I keep getting myself into this. I ask him if we can still just be friends, and he says sure, he’d love to. I ask him if I can still tell him I love him, he says “if it makes you happy, then do it.”

Then thats it for a while. We talk everyday, but just as friends. Since then he’s hung out with me twice. the first time we made out a little, then regretted it, the second time, we kissed for a picture. I didn’t see him on New Years Eve, but I called him, and nothing else really happened.

I still love him, and he says he still loves me, but we can’t pursue that love—it never really works out.

—By Milo L. 17, Atlanta, GA