We sit in her living room, alone, on her couch, with the awkwardness settling around our shoulders like a thick winter coat, and only the sound of ice cubes clinking together softly filled the nearly empty room. It was starting to suffocate me, the deadly mixture of complete silence and tension that made my heart thump wildly and uncontrollably inside of my chest and my body temperature to skyrocket in embarassment. Because I knew what all of this meant: the deafening roar of nothingness in my ears, the tight, white knuckled grip on her glass as she reaches her lips to the crystal rim, the way her eyes stay glued to anywhere but me. It mhits me hard, the realization, like a sharp blow to my head, and my hammering heart stops cold, and the warm blood rushing through my veins freezes into liquid ice. She finally must have heard all of the nasy rumours that had been swirling around me, a sandstorm of lies. She must have found a tiny kernel of truth in each of them, and fit the clues together of the puzzel of us. 'She must know the truth,' I think to myself with my eyes widening as she sips and stares at the blank TV screen in front of her, oblivious to what I'd just found out, 'She must know I love her.'

            When I let my gaze train on her for the first time, I felt my head clear of all thoughts and the warmth spread back through me like butter on tast. She is beautiful and she is wearing a simple outfit that consists of a sky blue button down shirt with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows, a pair of black jeans, and a pair of simple silve flats. And then I notice how her hand is shaking ever so slightly when she notices me gazing at her, her eyes darting around in a desperate search for escape. This next thought has always been there, buried deep inside of me, and I've always known it was true, but the depth of it hit me then: I realized right there how she is the sole person that makes all of the silent suffering worth it, how safe and comforted I feel when she's by my side, how she makes me feel heavy and anchored to the earth, and soring high above the clouds at the same time.How desperately I need her in my life, how I love her in every single way possible, how my heart literally beats for her love. Just then, she gulps down the last of her icy beverage, almost greedily, and swallows down hard. The girl steals a glance at me, then flashes the smallest smile I've ever seen in my direction; both so quick, I would have missed the actions if I hadn't been studying her as intently as I had been.