and when your heart knows,
it knows, there's no explaining it.

recap of chapter sixteen: more quality time with carson and eilish. he scares her with delgado the frog (stolen from a dissection class), and they stay at school together until six pm. carson wants to say something, but it never happened happens.

S E V E N T E E N

H U R T

"STOP TELLING ME YOU'RE OKAY."

We were okay five hours ago. I don't believe it, no part of me wants to acknowledge this harsh reality. I look up to see the Carson Miller. Familliar eyes and warm voice, only now he is a total stranger.

Don't get me wrong, I yearn for everyday, every second I am with Carson. The world I'd known as a tangle of complicated pythagorean theorems now completes itself like a jigsaw puzzle. I don't know what happens next. With him, with us. Questions lie at the back of my head but I'm thankful for every moment I have with him. As cheesy as it sounds, his presence itself is enough for all my doubt to disappear.

"Hey! You smile more than before. Are you the real Eilish?" teases Carson. Eight am sunlight gleams around the window of the science lab.

"Whatever. I need to get my homework done, help me!" I say quickly.

Carson does not help me this time, not at all. He dictates the answer for each item, regarding the fact that I still know absoloutely nothing about the topic.

"You'll finish as valedictorian, who cares about a small math assignment?" I smack a notebook on his head, demanding that he teach me.

"I won't finish as valedictorian! I'm smart, but I'm not that smart,"

He agrees, starting to close his textbook lazily. "I wanna play Fortnite, I don't want math," he whines.

Whenever I leave the science lab, I feel a heavy boulder riding my back. The striking feign of reality constantly hits me like a pain in the stomach. Carson is there, of course, he even smiles every time he sees me, yet we're two different people living two separate lives.

"So do you know what parallel lines mean?" he asked, a distant math lesson long ago.

"Lines that are always at the same distance on one plane, yet they never intersect, never touch,"

Perhaps that's all we'll ever be? Parallel lines, on one place but never touching. Friends, but never anything more than that boundary.

I never thought things would come across this far, that the scavenge of my fragile heart would reach this point. That I'd feel things that are this deep.

Seated on a table next to the window, I play with my food while watching Carson and his friends play basketball. They stop after a few minutes, sweaty and tired.

Carson changes his clothes first then enters, walking with a couple of boys. They approcah the vending machine as I eavesdrop on their conversation.

I wish I didn't hear what came next. I could've left, ran far away and never look back. Pretend that nothing happened and go to the science lab like I'd always do.

"She's right there, dude! Go sit next to her,"

I peek from the corner of my eyes, Carson smiling weakly. A fake one.

"Should I?" he asks clumsily while laughing.

"It's Maisy! You like her, don't you?"

Carson grabs a can of pepsi while their voices boom amidst the room.

My heart jumped off a cliff the moment I met him. At the back of my head, I'd always known that the fall is inevitable. That all things that jump will crash no matter how hard they change destiny. And now, I've done exactly that. I reach the rocky, pebbled ground of darkness and I am bruised with marks and scratches from the impact.

It's Maisy! You like her, don't you?

"Yeah, but.  . ."

Carson is pushed against the table of girls, and he is smiling happily. His friend leaves him, and Maisy. . . being Maisy, starts snickering.

"You're eating our food!" she teases jokingly.

"No, I'm not! I just spilled your juice, that's all,"

Maisy chuckles, and Carson already makes small talk when they make room for him against the table. I see her features light up amusedly, the chestnut brown frills bouncing against her every smile, and the slash of cherry red lipstick adding color to her light caramel skin.

They look good, I think amusedly.

He isn't mine to begin with. I don't have the right to feel this.

So time passes. And it does real quickly. Instead of the usual 3:30 sessions we had without Everett, he arrives at 4:30.

This will all go away, I reassure myself. What I'm feeling right now is nothing but temporary.

He doesn't speak when he enters, only brings out his phone and opens a game of Fortnite. A trickle of irepressible hurt pierecs my every nerve.

But there is still a wall behind the bullets, a wall protecting the center of my heart.

"You're late," I say quietly, skimming through the television for a good song to play.

I accidentally press on Mixed Signals by Ruth B. I try exiting it, but the remote's battery is dead.

I don't know what road we're on
I don't know what we're heading towards

"Hey, can you turn down the music? I'm trying to talk to someone here," he says.

But I know my heart is all yours

"Try fixing the music yourself, battery's not working," I respond.

"Then turn it off, I'm talking to Maisy," he says.

I literally falter on my steps, grabbing to the table before I lose my balance all too quickly. For the first time, my head spins round and I need to blink to assure myself that I'm breathing. A trickle of liquid bubbles in my eyes, and I want to tell at myself. I want to scream and shout and tear things apart.

Mixed signals, mixed signals
They're killing me

I should've known. . . should've known from that very moment he'd stolen my song lyrics. He isn't worth it, and I've grown weary against time for falling into an inescapable trap of infatuation. I've been stupid! So goddamned naive and idiotic! All this time wasted on intricate woven unrequitement.

I give him an uneasy look, try not to care, but he isn't looking at me, he's smiling at his phone.

I don't know what you are,
But I know what I need.

I don't shut it off for some reason. Let it glide along the air like broken records, like forgotten, concealed memories of bitter yersterdays.

Carson chuckles. "She's awesome," He's smiling brightly, like the stars are embedded to the sunshine and no canon of darkness could ever put out this everlying flame of brightness.

And it hurts. I prefer he'd roll his eyes or answer bitterly, but Carson isn't programmed like that. He's always smiling. Maybe if he'd were angrier, it'd be easier to repress these emotions. His casual reaction towards my feigning anxiety wounds me.

"Everett's calling, needs some help at home," I lie, easy as slipping a fancy glittered mask for a masquerade ball.

Then my legs carry me away. They burn and ache and tire but that only gives me more strength. Carson's voice echoes behind me, but I hear nothing.

I rush to my car, never looking back, never turning around so I can spare myself the right to cry, the right to feel what I want to feel. This is a sickeningly demented nightmare, one that I never want to repeat.