Today I wear my hair down and let my bangs tease the lids of my eyes because I think she will like it. I wonder if she will call me pretty like she did last time, and my heart flutters at the thought. Twisting in front of the mirror, my white polo shirt loosely fits around my torso and the cinched waist of my pleated khaki skirt does nothing to flatter my shape, and I am momentarily dismayed. So, I focus on my bangs and the browns of my eyes, shaking my head slightly, tousling the wisps of hair falling into my eyes. I don’t smile. I am too afraid to smile, simply for the fact that it may not last long. My hands run down the straight folds of my skirt in a slow and calming motion. Yet, my thoughts are consumed with her and the text she sent me just moments ago. Doubts swirl like tinsels in a wind storm, and I am amazed that the turmoil inside has not managed to claw its way to the surface of my visage.

 Finding my eyes in the mirror again I sing silent serenities, repeating two lines, everything’s going to be okay, this is what you wanted, right? Each syllable echoes relentlessly as I grab my phone and wrap my fingers around the 4.7 ounces that now feels like the weight of the world resting in my palm.

I’ve always wanted someone to tell me they loved me. To express in one way or another that their life could not go on without me, and we would live happily ever after. Now that it’s happened, I find myself on the other side of what I thought love would be like. Confusion has become my bed fellow, and instead of held hands and small smiles, I hold secrets compressed so tightly between my palms I hope they’ll disappear.

My phone is glued to my hand as I sit in class debating my response. Reciprocity and defiance rest on the tips of fingers as I question my resolve to be rational. Rationality tells me that love cannot exist between us, but as I sit in my English class with the sun shining through pristine windows, I feel my resolve disintegrating into a darkness I feel inclined to accept. In some way, a part of myself doesn’t seem to mind that today I might tell a girl I love her. The other part of me screams in denial, writhes in shame, and yet the way I feel remains a factor I cannot seem to separate from myself in a way that will unwrite the words I begin to send. I think I might be in love with you too.

The words leave me, and I feel a release while simultaneously digesting the anchor that arrests itself in the pit of my stomach. It seems all I’ve worked so hard to be--a good girl who loves God and does all the right things—is no longer me because one question lingers in my mind. What if I don’t change? What if the feelings I claim to have never end up going away, and I decide that this is the life I want to live?

One would think that after exclaiming love for another, the weight of it would not be so laden with something I can only describe as mix of misguided excitement and guilt. I no longer feel like myself: lightweight and okay. Emotions make themselves an umbrella over my head, and as I sit in my English class with windows open to a bright blue and cloudless sky, nothing looks clearer, and the grass does not gleam brighter than yesterday. I slink downward in my desk; the cold metal shocks the flesh of my thighs, and I regret choosing to wear a skirt today. I regret looking at my phone and wonder how my day would have turned out if she hadn’t told me she loves me.

© Antavia Mason 2020