I fell for a guy whom I knew for a year. We had the same Bio class and at first I thought he was creepy. He used to stare at me thinking I didn't notice. I used to think it was because he noticed I was handicapped, what with my roller backpack and back brace, so I slightly resented him for blatantly staring. You could only imagine what I felt when we were put in seats near each other thus forcing us to be in the same lab team. Eventually we became “friends,” though he always annoyed me purposefully.

Soon our bitter-sweet relationship became a popular entertainment to our thirty-something classmates, though I didn't know this until one of the girls asked me outside the classroom one day. The teacher was late again, so we all waited outside in the shade of the building's roof. He was with me, no surprise, yapping about whatever was on his mind. One thing led to another and we ended up exchanging clever insults with each other until a female voice intercepted our conversation.

"Are you two dating?"

The question in itself was a bit insulting to me. Me date him? The thought was ridiculous!

In that instant, a dozen or so classmates around us turned their attention to us. "No!" I had replied without hesitation, disbelief and horror raising the sound of my voice. "We're just friends!"

Besides, I had thought to myself, I already like someone else. It was a pathetic excuse; the boy I liked then wasn't even acquainted with me.

"You two would look good together!" a boy chimed in.

"Yeah! Your personalities fit, too!" another added.

But still, we shot down each and every comment.

The next year, everyone subtly more mature, he and I found ourselves in different classes. Perhaps he hoped we'd have at least one class together, for he'd always greet me quickly in the hallways when we'd pass each other. A few weeks into the year, though, he somehow slithered his way into my circle of friends during lunch and break and started to hang out with us everyday. I didn't really care. He changed; I noticed. His personality more courteous and caring toward me, his once irritating features virtually gone. I soon grew fond of him and perhaps he caught on, for he confessed to me his admiration to me on the day before Winter Break after giving me a gold chain panda necklace (my favorite animal).

You’d think things would go uphill from there. Such a sweet tale! Friends turned into lovers, predictions come true, ships taking sail, but no. Things didn't go uphill at all. If anything, it went straight across an empty field and into a ditch. We had one date, but friends surrounded us since both of us were hiding the relationship from our parents. We didn’t hold hands or hugged or kissed. Simply sat in the dark. It was our first and last date.

After break, we continued to meet in our circle of friends, but things seemed different. A pendulum of discomfort and awkwardness hung over us. “What should I say? What should I do?” Barely did we talk to each other until one day, he wasn't there at all anymore.

It was my birthday, exactly ten days before Valentine’s Day. He didn't show up and so I thought he was sick. But why did I see his back in the hallway? Next day, absent. Day after, absent. The whole week, he was gone until finally on the day before Valentine’s, he showed up.

"My Birthday was nine days ago, you know," I had told him with the best cheerful tone I could muster up. A plastic smile stuck to my face, but he wouldn't look at me.

He told me he was sorry. Laughed a bit. And then… “I can’t see you anymore. I don’t think I can come here anymore.”

Confused and hurt, “Why?” I had asked. I wondered if his parents found out, but that wasn't the case.

"Studies," he had said as an excuse.

Studies? I had wondered, but my brain nor my heart could handle what had happened. Instead, I kept my act up. Smiles aglow but my eyes steered down to the floor. I kept repeating,”It’s okay” over and over again to drown out whatever else he had to say, to convince myself that it really was okay, but I knew that deep down inside it was not. It was not okay for him to leave. It was not okay for him to have sneaked his way in to my heart. It was not okay for him to make me the broken one.

Why? Why was I the broken one? He who I had resented in the beginning, who had gradually earned my respect and compassion, was the one walking away leaving me broken. Was there something wrong with me? Was I not cute enough? I had been known to be cute in an innocent way. Did I talk too little? I've always had a habit of responding but not being able to start conversations. Did I gain too much weight? Mother always told me I was fat. Were there other girls? I always saw him talking comfortably with other people, though the girls stood out in my mind.

Jealousy, anger, sadness, and confusion clogged up my mind. I couldn't thing straight at all as my emotions spun around in a hypnotic circle of madness, rendering me unable to do anything but repeat my mantra of lies: "It's okay." And then he left.

A turn of his body, a step with his foot, a final gaze with his head. The gears in his legs started up and soon after he left after leaving behind the hateful word, "Goodbye." I couldn't help but wonder if his heart was as bruised and beaten up as mine. Surprisingly, my friends didn't hear it crash to the floor and shatter though they were but a mere few feet away.



There are those who fear death, those who fear falling, those who fear darkness, those who fear clowns. The world is vast and seemingly endless, full of things we find both delightful and frightening. I myself soon found that I'm full of many fears as well. The most recent one: falling in love.

It may sound ridiculous, but it made perfect sense to me. My first and last relationship had left so many things shattered, broken, and bruised; not just my feelings, mind you, but also our friendship.

About a month had passed since our last confrontation. Before, we had been close friends. "Frienemies" perhaps, but friends nonetheless. But after what had happened, after he had shot me with an invisible gun, we became nothing but fragments and pieces drifting away from each other in the middle of a big, vast ocean.

Did I seem different to my friends, I had wondered. All I thought about was his face and what we could've been, could've done, could've shared together. But why? Why, I wondered, was he stuck in my mind? I resented him, yes, for he was the one that killed me, but soon I also began to resent myself, becoming paranoid and blaming the fault all on me.

What if it was my fault he left? What if it was because of me he was forced to pull the trigger? What if I never find someone to love again? What if I do find someone to love again? Would I shatter whatever friendship we have again as well? Would great friends become total strangers again? What if? What if?

Everyday, I saw him pass me in the hallway averting my gaze and everyday, my emotions would overwhelm me. Oh how I wished he'd disappear. It is shameful of me, but I even wished him total unhappiness for all of eternity. Why should he be happy after breaking me? Me of all people? May he never fall in love again! May he face rejection from every girl he turns to! May he look up at my name in shining light in the future and face sorrow!

Still, this was a battle of endurance and it was obvious to myself that I was losing. I saw my own pain and knew that it hurt, meanwhile outside my mind I found him smiling, laughing, happy with companions (a lot of which were girls; of course this stood out fresh in my mind). But why, oh god, must the feelings remain in my body? Feelings of anger, of resentment, of fear?

Strongly did I blame him for injecting this fear of love into me. Before, I had always been excited to fall in love. I wanted so badly to have my life be just like the stories of princesses and their noble knights. It was my one innocent dream I clung to since I was a little girl barely able to comprehend the world. But now, such exciting dreams and adventures became nightmares and far-fetch'd fancies in the blink of an eye.

These prancing feelings and swirling emotions were almost enough to make me cry, but only once did I ever do so, for that would be a sign of weakness. I, the daughter of my family whose surname means "noble," knew better than to break my honor and reveal such emotions and weaknesses so clearly. Conceal and act, conceal and act. Everyday is a circus act full of deceit and illusions. Make a slip, and the world comes crashing down. Complements to I, the performer, for the audience never found my hidden secret.

It's the end for me, isn't it? "Such a broken, pathetic girl! Afraid to fall in love; afraid to break a bone or two. Her life is surely at its end!"

Ah, but the story has just begun, my friends. Thus ends the prelude, and soon comes a new beginning of an unfinished story.