I climbed up the steps in the Coliseum. Every day, I made this climb to the top of the huge room. I sat there, pretended to listen to ten minutes of singing, which was usually poor, fifteen minutes of some rambling by a school official, and five minutes of Dr. Boring, excuse me, Barnard ranting about how we don’t pay attention.

Only one thing made it bearable. Okay, two. I occasionally got food from Emily.

Speaking of…

“Hi!” Emily said. Her hair was in a braid down her back; it was red-brown and enormously long. She was wearing black, with her Dacron backpack. That is, the backpack holding her computer, Dacron. As opposed to the backpack that holds her other stuff. She has two.

“Is Kendra coming?” I asked. Kendra was mostly Emily’s friend. Generally, we got along, but she often did something to annoy me, like her incessant asking “How are you?”

I realize that doesn’t exactly sound particularly annoying, but it is. Trust me.

“Yeah, she’ll be up in a minute. She’s talking to Ruth.” Emily plopped down beside me. I sighed internally.

Ruth is Kendra’s “twin”. They hadn’t met until this year at college, and Ruth came from the other side of the country from Kendra. But they were eerily similar in appearance, and very quickly picked up on each other’s habits, even finishing each others’ sentences.

“What about Chris?” Emily asked.

My heart jumped. I glanced around quickly. “I don’t know, haven’t talked to him,” I said smoothly, though my insides were anything but.

Chris would be the reason I enjoy Chapel. He’s definitely the hottest man ever to walk the face of the earth. His face is perfect, with big lips (he plays trumpet like a madman) and big dark eyes. His hair is black, and his skin is completely freckle-free. His arms seriously look like someone pumped them full of air. But it’s all muscle. And his whole body is like that. He’s not tall, but he definitely fills himself out.

Since the beginning of the year, I’ve wanted to get with him. I quickly found myself falling for him emotionally, too. He’s a music minor, so we can talk about music. He’s a video game freak, like myself. We both marched drum corps, him Bluecoats and me Crossmen. He’s incredibly smart, easily as smart as me, so there’s none of what I got with all of my high school friends.

In short, he’s perfect.

And in the last two weeks…he’s almost been sending me signals. I’ve lost count of the number of times we’ve made eye contact and just looked at each other. We’re not quite gazing into each others’ eyes, but it’s close. And he always gets this goofy grin, which is just so adorable.

And he keeps touching me. Always accidental…seeming. He slid his hand on top of mine as we descended the stairs in Chapel yesterday. He pats my arm sometimes. I had to stop suddenly because of people in front of me, and he got all up in my space.

It’s almost painful, the way we’re dancing around each other. I sent him an anonymous note on Facebook, but he never replied. I told the corps this summer that I was gay, so Evan, the drum major at ACU, theoretically knows. If Chris asks him…who knows what could happen?

Yeah, I just spent five paragraphs drooling over a guy with a girlfriend. That part brings me up short every time. And he talks about how much he loves her…a lot.

Alas.

Two months later…

December. The week before finals. I wasn’t exactly stressed about them, but I wasn’t blowing them off, either. I was definitely going to pass everything. My jury piece, the solo I have to play to prove I deserve to be a music major, was fine. One spot gives me a little trouble, but it’s more of a perfectionist thing than a problem. My theory test was going to be a breeze, my non-music classes weren’t even holding exams.

Something else was driving me crazy.

The night before Thanksgiving break started, Emily, Chris, and I went rollerblading. We got halfway around the running path on campus when Chris decided we should explore. So we cut through campus, skating by the tennis courts and Cullen Auditorium. He wasted some time doing some skating tricks. He’s one of those people that are annoyingly good at everything. I know that I’m one too, but I’m not good at anything physical; I master academic and musical things with ease, but it took me a week to be able to skate more than a few feet without falling. I’m only barely able to skate the entire running path, and I still fall a lot.

Chris, on the other hand, is grace as a person. He never falls, ever, unless he’s doing some ridiculous jump or something, and he usually lands even those.

Emily split off from us, saying she needed to go to the library.

“I have some stuff to do, too,” I said. I desperately wanted to be alone with Chris, but there was a voice in my head telling me it could never end well.

He brings his girlfriend up every now and then, and every time he does, I feel my entire body droop. I’m pretty sure he hasn’t noticed, but my face freezes and my posture completely loses any kind of integrity. I can always get control over myself really quickly, but part of me wants him to notice, to see that hearing about Jacquelin makes me want to either cry or shoot something. So far, that part hasn’t won out.

“Well, we can skate back to your dorm. It’s on the way,” he said. I had to agree.

I let him get ahead of me on the path. Naturally. It gave me a way to check him out without him seeing. I sighed, not quietly.

He shot a look back at me. I smiled. A reckless part of my brain interfered and tried to make it a “sexy” smile. I’m pretty sure it ended up as a goofy “I’m a retard” smile, because Chris laughed and turned back around.

As we reached Moody Coliseum, I noticed the sidewalk sloped to make a drainage ditch, leading to a drain under a small bridge. I stopped, trying to find a way to skate around it. There was no way I could get through that without falling, and I wanted to minimize my embarrassment around Chris.

Naturally, he started half-piping in the ditch. It was wide enough to go up and down and gather decent speed, though not enough to do any kind of jump. He did some kind of spin on the ground a couple of times, then stopped and looked at me.

“You try!” he said, smiling.

“No way,” I replied. “I’m not skating in there.”

“Come on, Eric, it’s easy,” he said, skating over to me. “Look, you just keep your knees bent and let your weight pull you back. Watch.”

He pushed off, and coasted down the slope and back up. He didn’t make any more thrusts, but let his momentum reverse and carry him back to where I stood.

“Try it!”

“No way,” I repeated.

“Come on, you can do it,” Chris said. I shook my head.

Then he played his trump card.

Not only is he absolutely sexy, he’s absolutely adorable. He has the ability to make the most irresistible puppy-dog eyes, and I’m no match for that. He used that ability now.

“Oh, fine,” I said. I pushed off, faster than I’d hoped, and fell flat on my face. He didn’t laugh. He did help me up. Where our hands touched, he left a burning sensation on my skin.

“Try again,” he said. He worked at some kind of gym back where he lived, so he’s used to coaching people through physical things. I sighed again, though this time it wasn’t in appreciation of true beauty, but in appreciation of certain gravity.

And, once again, I fell on my face. He still didn’t laugh, and I loved him all the more for it.

Oh, did I not mention that? Yeah, I’m definitely falling for him. I think about him at random times, and not just about sex. I say not just. Sex is a really huge part of my thought process at any given point in time. I have fantasies about us going on dates, seeing moves, eating dinner together. I have no idea how much of it is that I’m on my own and able to make this choice, and how much of it is actual feeling for him, but I know I’ve only felt anything close to this before once, and when I told that guy about it, I was hurt. Really hurt.

I never want to hurt Chris, and I never never want him to hurt me. If I have to live with never being able to touch or hold him, it’s better than living and knowing that every time he looks at me or hears my name he shudders with disgust.

With that depressing thought, and the new bruise on my shoulder, I refused again to try and skate through the ditch.

“Eric, just because you couldn’t do it twice doesn’t mean –”

“It’s not that!” I yelled.

I have no idea where my anger came from, but it was instant and total. It was also gone in a moment. When I saw the shock on Chris’s face, fear filled my heart.

So I ran.

Or skated, as the case may be.

I shot down the sidewalk toward my car. I had left my real shoes in the back of the car, and I wanted to go up to my room and cry.

“Eric, wait!” I heard him call. He was following me. The fear in my heart mixed with a deep ache, a sharp pang of longing. He really cared about me.

Since he was exponentially better at skating than me, he caught me really quickly. I didn’t slow down as I reached my car, but hit it full speed. It’s the safest way to stop, and I’d rather cushion the impact I know is coming with my arms than have to react to the harder, rougher, sharper ground.

“Eric, what’s wrong? You seem really pissed!”

“I am,” I said. My mouth just shot off without any kind of permission.

“Why?” Chris asked.

I couldn’t say anything. All I could do was look at him, dumbfounded. His expression was no longer that of a teacher helping a student, but a friend seriously concerned about another friend.

Tears filled my eyes, and I looked down at the ground. I wrenched my skates off, and tried to put on my shoes with trembling fingers.

“Eric, what’s wrong?” Chris asked, touching my shoulder.

I jerked away from him. I couldn’t take him touching me, too. Not while he used that voice…that voice that clearly said “I want to make it better…”

What I wish had happened…

“You, that’s what’s wrong!” I snapped, my voice harsh with unwept tears. The world to be spinning around me, as it always did when my emotions got worked up. “You’re so smooth, and graceful, and nice, and caring, and beautiful…”

I clapped my hand to my mouth.

Chris’s expression changed. His eyes widened, and his mouth hung open.

My shoes were mostly on. I stood up and slammed the door of my car shut, and ran toward my dorm.

“Wait! Wait!”

I froze.

He was still talking to me.

His hand touched my shoulder. I spun around, but this time didn’t try to break free.

“Eric…I…”

He now only looked confused. Not angry, not disgusted. He wasn’t going to demand I never speak to him again.

Was he…was he going to…?

His hand was burning through the cloth of my shirt.

“Why are you telling me?” he finally said.

I closed my eyes. “I…I think I love you, Chris,” I mumbled.

I didn’t open my eyes. I didn’t want to see him.

When I felt his arms wrap around me, though, I couldn’t help but look, startled. He was hugging me, his own eyes tightly shut.

“I had no idea…” he was mumbling. I hesitantly put my own arms around him.

We didn’t kiss, or have wild hot sex, or anything. I didn’t want to. The moment was too perfect, too real. We stood there, the sky darkening, the air cooling. No one interrupted us, and I was happy.

What happened…

“I can’t explain it to you,” I snapped, my voice harsh with unwept tears.

“Why not?” he asked. “Eric, whatever I did, tell me and I’ll stop!”

Why did he have to care so much? If he knew, he’d never speak to me again.

Damn my self-control.

“I can’t explain to you,” I repeated. My shoes were on. I stood up, and slammed the door of my car. I began to walk toward my dorm with as much haste as possible.

“Eric, what did I do? You can tell me, I’ll understand!”

I whirled around, glaring. He took a step back, and fear flashed across his face for a brief moment.

“Yeah, you’d understand,” I growled. “You would understand. You’d understand far too well. Just leave it, if you know what’s good for you.”

I spun around again, and walked calmly into my dorm, and up to my room. I walked into my room, calmly closed the door, and made sure my roommate wasn’t in.

Then I cried into my pillow for an hour.

It’s been three weeks, and he hasn’t said anything since. I know he’s not saying anything because he doesn’t want to hurt me again. He doesn’t realize that it’s his silence that hurts more than his words ever could.

I wish so much that I was as brave as I imagined myself. But my damned imagination is too good and presenting me with what could go wrong. I’ve convinced myself he could never love me. And I know he can’t. I’m right.

That’s why it hurts so much.