It’s hard to get over him. Even random Chinese restaurants in the Princeton Shopping Center—which you’ve never been to—say that with fortune cookies telling you, “Sometimes love shows a re-run.” You immediately think of him because the way you thought of him was the closest thing you’ve ever felt to love, isn’t it? You thought of him every day, applied him to every fantasy, and everyone knew it.

You know how he thinks about you. He thinks you’re obsessed with him because that’s the way you were in fifth grade and sixth grade and seventh grade. In eighth grade, you finally stopped. You cut off any connection from you to him, but he probably thinks you still like him.

You told everyone you didn’t like him in seventh grade, but it was obviously you did because you were jealous when he started dating your best friend. You and your best friend don’t talk anymore, but it’s okay because she was just like you. She copied everything you did. When you started to like random indie bands, she would amazingly like them also. When you got into Honors classes, she got into the only Honors class you didn’t get into—English, which was totally absurd because that’s the only thing you thought you had. Then when you started writing, she tried to achieve the same thing. It bothered you. She could take your crush, your music, anything, but she COULD NOT take the one thing that labeled you. You were the only kid in that middle school that wrote, and that was what you were labeled as. She could be smarter, indie-er, more loving, but she couldn’t take that or else you’d just be that little girl in the background that had nothing.

Still, even though you said what you hated MOST was that she took your writing niche, it bothered you that they were dating. Sure, they hid it from you most of the time—whenever you passed by them in the halls, they’d disentangle themselves from each other and try to pass it off as normal—but you felt an itch in your chest when you passed by him.

You say that you hate him, but you don’t hate him. He’s changed—sure, he’s changed. He used to be a wallflower—like you—but now he’s out there, joking around with his friends, yelling across the halls, and usually, you hate that, but you can’t help but like him, even though you’re trying to deny it.

You’re gonna give him space. You’re going to avoid him, and hope he realizes that you’re over him, so that you can actually take the first step to getting over him. You’ve never liked anyone else but him. There have been flitting, little infatuations, but you’ve never actually liked someone as much as you liked him. You even think you’re asexual, but you shake that thought out of your head because you get attracted to people.

The only comfort you have is the future. When you’re older, you’re going to be going to—I don’t know—Rutgers, and there might be a chance that he’s going there because anyone from your town goes to that college. But even if he’s there, you’re going to be surrounded by others—other guys—and you’ll try to find one out of them that you like, and maybe you’ll feel him watching you—you don’t know how he’s going to react because you don’t want to think about him.

Or maybe you’re going to be prominent author, and he’s a doctor or a lawyer or basketball player or whatever. You’re going to be in the newspaper, and he picks it up, looks at it, and you don’t know his reaction, but you want him to be thinking, “I know her.” And you want his heart to sink—because of sadness? rejection? oh?

Or maybe you feel this way because you’re lonely.