It Clicked*

please leave a review to help me improve -Jo*** Crib

                It clicked. In that exact second I realized it. And I hurt. A lot. I realized I held you up so high in my own head, that you became a key person in my life. You barely even talked to me. But, in my head, you might have felt something. But at that exact second, I knew. Just looking at the open red triangle mocking me, it said “read 4 hours ago”.

                I stared at that illuminated screen like I just got news my mom died. I even had the same little water droplets on the top third of my screen. It refracted on my cheap illumination, creating a colorful, yet dull rainbow. It looked like someone trying to cover the tallies they slashed into their arms with bright pink or deep blue. They say cut left to right for attention and up and down for results. I’ve rarely seen you with a short-sleeve shirt. It makes me wonder if you’re going through that familiar grey.

                Maybe you just want the attention. I know you eat lunch alone. I know you go to parties late at night. I know your dad died a few years ago. You haven’t been the same since. I went to that part of the funeral where you walk around, hug the family, and see the deceased a last time. I just showed up in a superhero tee and red cargo shorts. I wasn’t coming originally. But my friend had to see you. He had a weird obsession with you. I never told him about my feelings of you.

                When I entered, I felt everyone stare at me. I felt ostracized. They were appalled by the clown who entered wearing those bright colors. You’re supposed to wear black at a funeral. I guess to feel more sad. But when I came to you, you said you were glad to see me. That made my heart rush. It built a barrier around my self-conscious. I no longer felt judged. I felt comfortable. I felt wanted: something I’ve never really felt before.

                But now, watching my own tear drops look at me with pity, all I felt was lost. It just clicked. You did all that out of pity. You felt bad for me. You couldn’t say no to me. You were there when I was growing up. We shared some of the classes as kids. You saw my loneliness at a young age. You saw my dependent self forced to be isolated by the cool kids at school. You saw me start to take up for myself. You saw me get in all those fights, and watch as everyone else would blame me for it. You saw it all. But most importantly, you saw me in the first grade stand up in the middle of lunch and yelled that I love you, and now you just wanted to let me know. Or maybe you don’t remember anything. Maybe you just saw me as an annoying person who liked to talk to you too much.

                But looking at that screen, half blind from the oceans streaming from my eyes, it clicked. At that exact moment, I knew that I had played our lives in my mind as a soon-to-be love story. I fantasized about us some nights going on dates, watching old movies, and just staring into nothingness just to try to understand anything. But now I know this story is about an onlooker. I’m the only thing behind the screen. I’m trapped, stuck looking through. And to you, I’m not real. And after you looked at my picture, I was fixing to be gone from your life. You locked your screen, it went black, and then it clicked. And I was gone.