There’s this girl at school. I’ve sort of got a thing for her. I guess you could say I want her to be my “girlfriend,” but I don’t know how to go about it. Asking her out, that is. It would be a very risky thing to do, on my part. In theory, it shouldn’t be that hard. She’s always around. She seems very approachable. But I can’t bring myself to take that extra step, to make the plunge.

I’m a coward that way.

Anyway, I compose songs for her that I’ll never sing. And I write poems for her that I’ll never recite. And I basically pine away and waste my days wondering and dreaming.

And her name is Maria, and she’s perfect.

Sometimes I pretend that we’re together, she and I. I’ve got this lovely little scenario in my head, the first time we met. The first time we kissed. The first time we fucked. The time I took her hand in mine under the bright lights of the City and said, “Maria, Maria, marry me.” There were no obstacles, there was nothing in our way. Just rightness.

I’m sort of romantic that way.

The problem is, we could never be, she and I. Even if by some miracle I worked up enough courage to actually talk to her. It would never work out. What would people say? What would they think? …And then I wonder, does it matter? If it’s just me, and her, and us, does what they have to say really matter?

Of course it does. It always will. It would ruin both our lives.

So, I try to concentrate on those hazy Monday mornings when the students walk into my class, sometimes with eager looks on their faces, waiting for me to make the next move. I have to try not to look at her more than necessary, and try not to overlook her atrocious spelling that has become somewhat endearing over the past year. I have to remember who I am, and who she is, and keep these feelings to myself.

But, every now and again, when she lags behind the others after class, or pops into the classroom to retrieve a book, I wonder for a fleeting moment if that smile or that glance could one day be the answer, the “Yes,” I so desperately need. Sometimes I whisper under my breath, half hoping that she hears, Maria, Maria, marry me.