Page 35 of Haunt Me

What if she’s finally had enough of me?

What if that’s it? That was the last time I saw her and I wasted it? What if I blew my chance to tell her that she has become the most important part of my day? That meeting her has changed the chemistry in my brain.

On the fourth day, I lose my mind.

I have no number to call her, no social media handles. I didn’t even know her last name. And I haven’t asked for any of it, because she was always there. Until now.

I have felt the urge to text her in the morning when the sadness descends on my chest like a manacle, and during the nights whenkept composing stupid, meaningless songs in my head instead of sleeping. But I don’t have her number.

I mean I have friends, actual people in my real life I could text when I feel bad. I have a therapist. But I never text anyone; the grief is too much, and they don’t know how to handle it.

Except her. She knows how.

I have to physically fight the urge to start running and not stop until I reach the block where she lives. I don’t know what I would do once I got there. I might start randomly knocking on doors and asking random strangers if a beautiful, sad girl with glittering eyes lives there. I am that crazed with worry.

I can’t shake the feeling that washed over me when I found her. It seems that primal fear woke me up in the most brutal way. I keep seeing her like that, lying curled on the dirt, dying… and it’s as if I am looking at myself. As I fought to make her breathe again, I was fighting to makemyselfbreathe again too. I have decided that I will fight. I will live. I never want to be in that place again, half-dead. And I never want her to be either.

That decision is doubly hard to keep today, without her. When all I want to do is curl into myself on my bed, with the blinds down, and pretend that the entire day is a long, sleepless night. But I don’t.

I force myself into the library, into the gym, I force myself to take a shower. And another one in a few hours, just to wake myself up out of my depression.

Nothing works the same as being next to her does. It’s a physical need at this point. My chest is tight again and my head is swimming with darkness and emptiness. I had forgotten how it feels like to be without her for the whole day.

If only I had her number… No matter how little she is allowed to use her phone, at some point, she would have seen my text. She might even have answered it.

No. I need to control my thoughts.

I can’t push her—I will lose her if I do, and that’s the one thing I won’t allow. It’s already getting too intense, this thing between us, and I can’t risk losing her. I just can’t. I’ll lose what’s left of my mind.

So I keep going to the woods every day, hoping.

…

Two days later, when she’s under her tree again, I act like nothing’s happened.

No one will ever know what it costs me not to run over to her like a madman and drop to my knees in front of her, but somehow I don’t. I barely even say ‘hi’ to her. She is not smiling, but she is calm. There is color on her cheeks—a bit too much color.

She’s blushing hard, the red traveling down her neck with every step I take towards her. She doesn’t look up from her book.

Look at me, baby, I think at her.Look at me with those eyes.

She doesn’t. A shudder of pure need travels down my body, nearly buckling my legs. I mean, I have liked girls before, I have done things with them, I have felt things, but this… My body has never stood on attention like this before. I have never melted like this. It scares me that I am reacting with so much intensity to her, such longing, such… heat. And just by looking at her.

So I stop looking at her. Except I don’t.

We pick up right where we left off, and the days pass slowly and quickly, as the leaves die and fall around us, autumn giving way to a dead winter.

I fill out my applications, start sleeping a little at night, put on a bit of weight. Some days, I bring my textbooks with me. Some days, we swap and she listens to the symphonies on my phone and I try to read her book.

I bring food with me and she never refuses it. I eat with her, so that she won’t feel self-conscious, but the fact that she never once refuses the food gives me this tight feeling in my chest. I want to ask her if her dad is poor—although she did tell me he isn’t, but maybe she’s ashamed, so I don’t. I remember her warning about not pitying her, so I just bring more food.

We talk about how we grew up—well, I do. She doesn’t like to talk about herself.

“Growing up Chinese American has its challenges,” I tell her one day, “but I was lucky to have these parents who were nothing but supportive.Amlucky.”

“And those cheekbones don’t hurt,” she blurts out.

I stop breathing. “What did you say?”

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