Every Little Thing

01

God, I wish he loved me back.

I wish he could just see me the way I see him, him with his perfect hair and eyes and dimples and laugh and basically perfect everything. I wish he could just turn around one day and recognize me and confess his suppressed feelings for me and then we could ride off into the sunset. I wish he could at least laugh at my jokes, or smile at me when I enter a room, or do something―anything―that might hint towards a future. An "us".

But, of course, none of that ever happens. I doubt it ever will. Because there's not an "us". There's a me and there's a him, but there won't ever be an "us". Kind of like how you see the sun in the daytime and the moon at night and you know that they each have their seperate times, the time in which they're allowed to live and exist, but it's never exactly at the same moment.

That's me and him. All the wrong places, all the wrong timing. The wrong words, the wrong introductions, the wrong situations. Wrongwrongwrongwrong.

The word's practically tattooed across my heart. Everything I do, everything I say, somehow it's all just irrevocably wrong.

I used to think that the worst thing possible is to lose someone you love. But I was wrong. The worst thing is losing someone who wasn't yours to begin with.

________

"La douleur exquise," I say to Georgina Zhang, my long-time best friend and partner-in-crime, one afternoon in French class. She casts a sideways glance, eyes narrowed.

"What?"

"La douleur exquise." I say again, slower this time. "It's the French phrase for loving someone who doesn't love you back. It literally translates to the greatest pain."

Georgina rolls her eyes at me with a scoff. "You're so melodramatic."

"I prefer the term hopeless romantic," I reply, and she raises her dark brows in an air of superiority.

"Well, that's not exactly true, now is it?" She asks, a teasing smile twitching the corners of her lips. "Because a hopeless romantic would have already confessed her undying love for a certain someone."

She practically sings the last two words, and it takes everything I have not to groan.

"Grow up," I say, trying my hardest to sound exasperated, but she just lifts a shoulder innocently.

"I never said who," she points out. "I implied. You inferred."

"Nice vocabulary," I deadpan. "Did you actually pick up a dictionary today?"

Georgie sticks her tongue out at me, a gesture that I am all too quick to return, before falling back into silence. I watch the teacher, Mrs. Manhime, write French words on the blackboard in chalk, looping the letters to look even more complicated than they really are, and scan the sea of confused faces all around me until I find his.

Instantly, my heart jumps, as if I've been startled by something. But that's impossible, because I was aware of his presence the entire time, so it shouldn't surprise me that he's sitting right there. I notice the pencil rolling between his forefinger and thumb has tiny marks around the edge, and I know he's been chewing it in concentration. Initially, I thought it was a gross and unnecessary habit, but somehow, it doesn't bother me anymore.

Absolutely nothing about him bothers me. Not the way he constantly runs his hands through his hair, as if that will keep it from flopping over his forehead (spoiler alert: it doesn't), not the way he laughs loudly at everything, in every situation. Not the way gets in arguments way too quickly, or the way he's not afraid to ball a fist in protection of himself. Nothing bothers me about him, because I know that it's the imperfections that make us human.

If he were perfect, he'd be boring.

All these things I've come to know about him, and I doubt he even knows my name.

"Evelyn." Georgina's voice is a hiss that causes me to freeze, whipping around to face her. I ignore the look of realization that blooms in her eyes, and the snarky little smile that overtakes her features, but then she says, "Pay attention. Ms. Manhime keeps looking over at you."

I meet the teacher's stern gaze with a little nod of affirmation. Yes, of course I'm listening. Definitely not admiring some guy. Definitely not thinking about the fact that he's literally only three seats behind me. Definitely not wondering if he's looking at me right now. Nope. I am completely focused on this French lesson. I'm as French as a baguette in this moment, Mrs. Manhime, so please stop staring daggers at me and continue on with this interesting and definitely not boring lecture.

After the internal monologues have been exchanged, she seems pleased enough, and turns back to the board, pointing out different conjugations of different verbs, and how the French accent their words, and on and on and on...

I wait a solid five minutes until I allow myself to peek over at him again, and when I do, I see that he is bent over his notebook, glancing up at the board and then writing down the words accordingly. Dammit. If I weren't so interested in him, maybe I could do the same.

Oh, well.

La douleur exquise, I think to myself, and I realize that it really is the greatest pain of them all.