Two Hundred Words Go Unsaid

It's not okay, but you don't need to know that

"It's okay," he told me as he held me close.

No. Don't you get it, you wonderful idiot? It's not okay. Because of you, it's not okay. Because of me, it's not okay. I fell for you. You're an adult, and I am a mere child. Yeah, that quote, "Age is just a number?" Yeah, it's 'just a number' to the law that forbids guys of your age to care for girls of my age. I fear I'm falling even further for you, and everyone tells me that you care for me when all the signs point to neither of us ending up with the other. My father thought that my mother didn't care for him when they were seventeen, and he turned out to be wrong and has been happily married for 16 years. But this is different. You're going to go off and get married to some nice kind girl, and she's going to be completely worthy of you and I won't be able to act like anything but happy for you. You're going to go away and grow up while I'm still in high school. You're going to live your life, and I'm not going to be part of it, because I am still an unavailable child.

"Yeah," I nodded, my voice hoarse. "I'll be fine."

I pulled away and gave him a thin smile, silently begging for him to see the pain in my eyes; for him to somehow sense the rapid beating of my heart.

But he just gave me one more worried glance before muttering an "Okay" and walking down the hallway, not knowing all of the things I ached to tell him.