• When I was young, I wondered what would hurt most.  Getting burned by a fire, or waking up from surgery and getting stitches ripped out from me. I remember thinking how all the most painful things, are physical.  When I was a child, I never would’ve thought having my heart broken would be the most painful experience, that apathy would be the most painful wound.

      The first thing my eyes were drawn to in the group of my supposedly new classmates was the boy sitting across from me.  He was skinny and hunched over in his chair...no, I take that back.  He wasn’t even sitting in his chair; he was crawling along on the floor.  It’s the first day of 6th grade and already weird things were happening.
      I didn’t like him; or was it that I didn’t want to like him because he acted unlike anyone I’ve ever met, I wasn’t sure.  Either way, this boy was mysterious to me; his movements, the way he talked. I couldn’t take my eyes off him, and it made me happy when I realized he was watching me too.
    After the opening activities we had time to socialize.  It was awkward, nobody knew me, but everyone knew each other.  I decided that examining my nails was the best thing to do until I could escape.  I kept this up until I decided that sadly there wasn’t anything interesting about them.  I looked up to see that to my horror, only 2 minutes had passed.  I started to fiddle with my brightly colored attire, feeling more out of place than before.
    As I leveled my eyesight to straight ahead of me, I saw the boy staring at me.  He got up, came up to me and held out his hand. “Hi.  My name is Cameron.”  He stared at me with eyes so serene, almost emotionless that I swore he was joking.  “What’s yours?”  He asked, still holding out his hand to me, expecting a reply.  I squinted my eyes and replied. “Melissa.” grasping his hand anyway. 

    It was the first day of 9th grade, of high school. I took a breath, pulled over the hood on my black sweatshirt, pulled down the sleeves so they covered even my fingers.  But then at that moment I couldn’t decide if I wanted the sleeves pushed up or down.  I wondered which one he would prefer.  At last I decided to keep the sleeves down over my fingers.  When I walked over to a table with the rest of my friends, a great disappointment swelled up in me to realize that my boyfriend wasn’t there.
    “Hey, Betsy, do you know...” but before I could finish, I felt someone grab me.  “Oh my God!” I shrieked, then seeing the face the person, I squealed and gave him a hug, my black sweatshirt blending in with his own black attire.  “Cameron!  You’re here!” I cried.  “I missed you.” I murmured into his neck, breathing him in and savoring his sweet smell. I quickly kissed him before I looked up.
    His blue eyes sent shivers down me.  I fingered a strand of his hair, which was long and needed a trim.  It framed his face until the ends where it curled in all different directions, the dark brown contrasting with the deep blue in his eyes.
    I thought back to middle school.  I remember how falling in love with him was so easy, how natural bonding with him came.  I remember how desperate I was to keep him near me during the summer, and how in 8th grade I realized our dream would end at high school.  And of course, I remembered how I cried with happy relief when he told me he got into ISB just so we could stay together.
    I stared at Cameron and I realized how precious feelings keep people together over time.  Our hands laced together, he led me down the hallway, our future.  I remember how I thought all I wanted was him, and no one else mattered.

    Already I’ve decided 10th grade was going to be miserable. I pulled on the hood of my sweatshirt, pulled down the sleeves so they covered my fingers.  “On second thought” I murmured and pulled down the hood and let my hair hang down in front of my face instead.  I walked down the isle of the bus, saying thank you to the driver. When my feet touched the ground, an overwhelming numbness filled me.
    I walked through the doors of the school, everything suddenly looked quite foreign, but very familiar.  Walking through these doors again was like picking up an old habit, it came naturally. I realized yet again that the supposed “love of my life” wasn’t coming back.  I couldn’t tell what hurt more. The fact that he wasn’t here or that nobody cared.  More so, I was frustrated that I had from February to stitch myself together and move on. Yet sometimes I still can’t hear his name without wanting to rip out the seams around my heart.
    Returning home, I shut myself away in my room and lay on my bed.  At that moment I wondered how much more pain was needed before I could get the courage to pull myself out of the shell he made me create when he said adieu.  My tears came, flooding my face onto my pillow.  It was ironic that the pillow on which my emotions landed on was in the shape of a heart.
    The feelings that poured out of me would never produce hatred towards him, only towards myself.  It was so frustrating that I could fall into love so easily, yet it’s so hard to crawl back out of the memories. It was moments like these that I could care less what happened as long as I got out of this heartache.  It was moments like these when I know real pain is always mental.