The handsome boy smiled at her when he boarded the bus. It made her heart do funny, funny things inside her chest because no one that handsome, ever, had done anything as nice as that to her before.

They made eye contact for a few seconds. Her breath drew short. A million things flashed through her mind.

His smile was a toothy, fully-fledged smile that lit up his whole face. His eyes crinkled and consequently disappeared behind his overly long fringe that covered too much of his forehead.

She bit her lip and looked away, fidgeting nervously with her hair.

There was a general consensus that a gesture of such friendliness had underlying meanings. Maybe he smiled because he liked the look of her. Maybe he was feeling happy. Maybe he wanted to be her friend. Maybe he wanted to be more than friends.

But she had taught herself a long, long time ago not to think too much of it. Of anything, really. False hope was even more painful than rejection because it was all inside your mind. Pain was better dealt with when you didn’t think about it.

He scanned his bus card and chose a seat close behind her. She bowed her head, too afraid to look up, but saw his feet moving past. Sporting a pair of plain, all-black Vans, she bit her lip because, in her opinion, they were the most perfect shoes to exist.

The fact that he was sitting behind her made her feel uncomfortable and self-conscious all the way until her stop. She was afraid she would trip, fall or do something that would make him laugh at her. She unconsciously focused on him for the whole bus ride, deciding against playing games on her phone or breathing, really, in case he looked over her shoulder from the seat behind and judged her.

It was another lesson she learnt the hard way. All the handsome guys she had ever encountered in her life were rude, arrogant and obnoxious. They acted like they had no time for her when she tried to make friends. So, she stopped. She stopped trying. She stopped over-thinking and over-hoping. It seemed that a guy who was nice and handsome at the same time no longer existed.

The bus arrived at her stop. She had mixed feelings; she wanted to alight quickly so she was free from being aware of him, but at the same time she didn’t want to get off because it meant she would never see him again.

Really, it was a no-brainer.

She stepped off the bus and slowed to place her bus card back into her wallet. Someone brushed accidently against her, and she looked up. It was that guy, walking briskly ahead of her into her university. Did he attend here too? She felt confused for the second time today, and it was only 10am.

She shook it off and walked toward her class that started in half an hour. The campus was large. She would probably definitely never see him again.

But she did. He was walking ahead of her by about twenty metres, so naturally, she kept an eye on him.

What did that smile mean? Was he being friendly, or did he mean something else? Why did someone smile so brightly, so early in the morning? Why did he smile specifically at her? Did he..possibly like her?

Once again, despite her strict command not to, her brain was slowly over-analysing something that probably didn’t even make him blink. And, by doing so, she was planting more false hope into her head. Into her heart. It would only be torn down later in the cruelest way possible. And she knew it. It was explicitly what she was trying to protect herself from. But yet here she was, doing it again.

She smiled to herself unknowingly. 

“Hey!” He said. Her head snapped up. 

The guy from the bus greeted a girl that was walking in the opposite direction, toward him. She smiled at him in an overly friendly way. From her observations, the girl knew that this particular girl wanted to be more than friends.

Were people that hard to read? No, they weren’t really. Your face displays emotions no matter how hard you try to hide it.

Instinct sized the girl up. She was prettier, skinnier, taller and had nicer hair than she did.

Slowly, self-doubt and worthlessness stepped into her perfect world where he smiled at her because he liked her and crushed it in one second. 

And just like that, her hopes came crashing down too. Built up during a twenty minute bus ride, and ruined by one word and one smile.

Why would he want to even be friends with me if he can choose to be friends with someone that looks like her? Even I wouldn’t want to be friends with me, she thought sadly as she sped up and walked past them. They were still conversing about a party they attended last weekend, completely and utterly unaware that he had injured her heart in the span of twenty minutes.

It was silly to get affected by something so silly. And it was all her fault. But it was all she had ever known.

She felt pretty bad and worthless for the whole day. She hated him, yet none of it was his fault. He only smiled at her - a friendly gesture. Once again she had taken something and twisted it into something so unrealistic and so impossible that she was basically living inside her own mind.

She wanted to escape this prison. She wanted it more than anything else in the world. But no one could pull her out. No one would. Because no one knew.