Fatma

One of the worst feelings is sitting next to someone whom you think about all of the time when they don’t know how much you like them. The feeling of pain and emptiness is like a hole through me—the cold is coming in and I feel blue and weak.

It’s a weird contrast: a person suppressing their love for someone who they’re sitting beside who is oblivious to how they feel. This is how I felt sitting next to the boy I like. The sunlight was projected onto him, so his eyes were a glowing, light brown. His voice is raspy, I can hear it in my head. But I don’t know what more I can do. I’m definitely not going to talk to him about how I feel, because he most likely won’t feel the same way. It’s my fault because I romanticize how he acts with me (he could accidentally brush past me but I see it as a declaration of his undying love for me). I really just need to calm down, but it’s hard when he takes over my thoughts.

When I’m trying to sleep, he’s in my head. When I’m doing my homework, he pops up in my imagination. It used to be fun to imagine stories about him, but now it’s getting annoying. I can’t concentrate on anything I do because I’m infatuated with him. And that’s not the part that makes me angry—he doesn’t always acknowledge me and some days he ignores me completely.

Every eyelash that falls out, every birthday candle I blow out, and every dandelion I pick, my wish is that he likes me. The problem is, I know he doesn’t think about me as much as I think about him. ♦