Her.

You are scrolling through your phone when you see her face. It was an accident. You did not mean to push the select button in the corner of the screen. The photo shrinks back. It always takes a moment for her face to appear. This has happened several times in the weeks since your last message; a two-line sentence hinting at a time before. Other apps are full of messages and friends. It is a reminder that you only have one way to contact her, after all these years. This website, the oldest of accounts, only holds people from the past.

Two texts in four years are hardly anything to write home about. It is almost funny, that your phone selects her, out of all of them. It could have been in response to you returning to the texts, checking time and time again to see if she had replied. It had taken her two days. Undeniable proof that she did not feel the same, and never did. Some things aren’t meant to be. 

*

It was autumn, the start of the school year. In the summer you had spent too much time on the internet. You had been busy learning what desire felt like. You felt it again, in class, mind wandering to the girl beside you, heart desperate for her attention. Your mind shifted to an image of holding her hand in yours, resting your head on her shoulder. Kissing her. It felt like ice down the back of your shirt. The class, a circle of chairs, would have been able to see your reaction if they had known what to look for. You tried to look calm. You had not been listening to the music teacher. 

Your mind was filled with thoughts of 

her. 

You always clung to her any chance you got, a young child with more feelings than sense. It was the tenth year of your friendship, the truth just out of reach. You did not understand how to exist without her near. 

The uniform scratched at the back of your neck as you took a seat at the top of the bus, finding her waiting for you. The windows were covered in grey splatters of mud and dust. They always were. There was less grime on the top windows, which made it easier to look out at the villages below. There was a smell of wet dirt and school lunches persisting in the air. She was sitting beside the window, as always. You sat beside her, close enough to touch. The brown birthmark below her left eye was invisible until she turned her face towards you.  

And when she asked, half joking, if you still liked the boy who lived down the road you said “No.” because it was the truth. 

“Who do you like?” Her ponytail flicked at the sharp turn of her head. 

“Someone,” you told her. Heartbeats never felt like this before. “Guess.”

“Is he in your form?” She asked, turning her brown eyes to you. Hope blooms inside of your chest, swept up in the notion of a life that could be; dancing in a kitchen, long summers in a garden, and kisses on the beach. It feels like the only thing you have ever wanted.

“No,” you said, shuffling your shoes against the rubber floor of the bus.

She frowned in thought, a pretty pout forming on her face. “Is he on my side of the year?”

You hesitated. There was a boy you knew two seats in front. He seemed harmless.

“You’re not asking the right questions.” It was as close to the truth as you could manage. 

“An alien, a teacher?” she asked with wide eyes and a smile. Her skin was golden brown and you forgot to laugh at the right time. 

“No.” The words filled your head like a cup in the sea. “It’s not a boy.”

“It’s a girl?” Her voice is steady, as if this was expected. It’s a moment you’ll return to, the first time anyone knew. 

“Yeah.” 

A tree branch scratched at the window as the bus drove on. 

“Okay.” 

And it was okay. 

But at the end of that week, when you told her the truth, she said she wasn’t ready. It could have been that incessant kindness that seeped into everything she did, letting you down easy, or it could have been the truth. You hadn’t thought to ask, as adults, when the conversations were full of niceties and inquiries about the weather. 

*

She could have messaged. She never would have, not without you making the first move. The idea of her straightness had never passed your young mind, clouded with want. Denial, it must have been. She had never mentioned boys like that. What percentage of memory can you even trust?

It would be worse to bring it up again. You don’t want to know. Teenagers can be emotional at the best of times, not to mention when they think they have a chance. They think they’re in love, they’re 13, they don’t know anything. You don’t know anything. 

After how far you’ve come, it seems like a cruel joke for your phone to put her into your head again. The photo is candid, black and white. She is laughing. 

You hate her.