Silently I enter my stone cold, empty apartment as the city lights glow throughout the windows. A small zoon from a passing car flashes throughout the small of my living room, a honk following shortly as I gaze around my surroundings. Small echoes of footsteps emit from the hallway, and then I hear the elevator doors open up until they close again. And then Tiffany leaves just like that.

I just got home and didn’t even bother taking off my shoes or jacket, my mind still somewhere else. So instead I lean on my door, before slowly sliding down onto the wooden floor, feeling the chilly air throughout the apartment. But even then I still feel warm inside, my heart still beating a little faster than before. What is this feeling?

I like to think that it’s a joke, probably an illusion that Cupid put on me or something equally as crazy. But still I feel the tingling onto my lips; my insides are warm and my head a little cloudy. And as I look up onto the ceiling I let out a small smile for myself, silently tapping onto the floor with my feet. There’s no such thing as forever, but her eyes keep shaking me up… what’s happening to me?
 

**

Tiffany isn’t back in school until Tuesday, and even though we spoke through text messages we hadn’t really met each other face to face since that day. So when I entered the classroom and saw her sitting there, pink nails and schoolbag, I suddenly didn’t know what to do.

My steps halt a little, my head spinning and I wonder what I’m supposed to say… Nothing was clear to me and I still didn’t know what that kiss meant. I knew for a fact that it was mutual, but did it mean something more or was it a “caught in the moment” action? I’ve heard about similar situations but I never experienced it myself, but one thing that makes it clear is that I honestly wanted it; I probably just didn’t know it then.

Then a scary thought hits me: what if really just was an experiment? Of course Tiffany never told me about her preferences, I’m not going to ask her either, but could it all just be something she wanted to try? Did it even mean anything to her at all? I wonder if she thought about it at least once during the weekend.  With slow steps I carefully approach her by the desk, staying calm on the outside but honestly freaking out on the inside. The closer I get to her the more I become afraid that something might happen; that I might push the wrong buttons.

Tiffany’s eyes are casted down on her book, lips pressed together in concentration as her small fingers play with the pen in her hands. She doesn’t look up until I finally reach the desk beside her and take a seat. When she does look up at me with curious eyes, however, she lets out a small smile and places her pen onto the book. “Hey Jess,” Tiffany greets and probably to everybody else it seems normal, but in my eyes she looks a little bit more… shy? I can’t place my finger on it, but that’s what I believe.

I greet her back with a faint smile as well, but even through my seemingly normal expression I feel the awkwardness seep right through me. I want to act cool and try to hide those abnormal feelings as if it didn’t affect me at all. But for some reason it just seems to pour out through my actions, something I wish I could stop.
 

“So… how was your weekend?” Tiffany asks a while later, her eyes still cast on me as she speaks. I swallow a little before grabbing my notebook and writing a message. I wanted to say something more of the lines “thinking too much, why did we even kiss?” but I don’t.
 

“Nothing much happened… Do you feel better?”

Tiffany nods to answer the question, albeit a little dejectedly. “Yeah, I suppose,” she says while looking away and letting her voice fade. I look at her for a while, trying to figure out what was on her mind. It’s hard to read her eyes right now, and it makes me feel cautious around her. I don’t want to mess things up in case we’re not thinking about the same thing, but still I wonder… Did she want me to mention what happened that Friday?

“Listen, Jess, about that…” Tiffany starts and I feel my heart speed up again, my breath hitch, but before she can even continue the door opens up and the teacher enters the classroom. Silently I sigh as Tiffany closes , then turning away to face the black board again. My eyes linger on her side profile a couple of seconds before I turn away again.

Wow, this isn’t going to be easy I suppose.

The rest of the day results in nothing more than that; Tiffany and I only shared two classes and we never got the time to talk, or at least not about that. And even during lunch I didn’t dare look after her, the crippling anxiousness inside of me creeping up through my veins. I suppose she felt the same way about it.

I stand by my locker staring blankly inside of the four small walls. My head is caught up with a hundred thoughts, but they have no meaning. There’s no answer to my questions or doubts and I want this to stop and I want everything to go back to normal, but how? Then I slowly grab my phone before typing Tiffany a message; it was now or never.

“Can you meet me by the football field after school?”
 

Again my heart beats faster as I hesitatingly tap the send button, not bothering to wait for a reply as I tuck it inside my pocket and close the locker.

The wind is colder than before as I stand on top of the wooden bleachers, walking around by myself. I tug my jacket a little closer as I wait, thinking about basically everything as my eyes are casted upon the sky. It’s unusually blue and clear, the sun hanging a little low but still there.

Small footsteps echo throughout the old wood and slowly I stop before looking down and towards the person in front of me. Tiffany’s hands are placed inside of her pockets, scarf gently tucked around her neck. Absentmindedly I reach out to straighten the scarf up, not missing the way her eyes look at me, but I learn to ignore it. “Is this about what happened on Friday?” Tiffany asks when I retreat my hands again, her head cocked a little to the side. Her eyes seem a little uncertain, almost as if she’s afraid, and I wonder if she has been thinking about the same thing.

“I’m just wondering what it meant to you.” I give her the note with somewhat shaky hands, and a couple of seconds pass with Tiffany seemingly in thought before looking up at me again. “I…” she stammers a little, voice shaky as she speaks. Patiently I wait for her to reply, but after a while she stays still, until a frustrated groan suddenly escapes her lips. I jump a little by the sudden noise, a little confused. “Ah…What’s wrong with me?”

Curiously I look at her as she sits down on the tribune, her head facing her shoes. Timidly I sit down beside her, yet I give her space so I don’t intrude her. Tiffany seems to be in a lot of thought, and only then do I realize that she must have thought about the same things, but maybe in a different light? “This wasn’t supposed to happen,” Tiffany says instead of replying to my question, and the words cause my stomach to churn into uncomfortable knots, the instant fear of regret and rejection coursing throughout me. “I wasn’t supposed to do this.”

I feel a slight sting into my throat, a small pang in my chest following shortly as I feel lower than I did before. Did she really regret it that bad? “I’m sorry.” I found myself writing to her, sending her the note timidly. Silently she looks up at me after I give her the note, her eyes bearing that unreadable gaze. “You have nothing to be sorry about.”

Then she carefully tugs on a loose thread on her sweater with a guilty look. I didn’t understand what she meant by it, but I don’t say anything more and wait for her to speak again. “Jess, the thing is that I really, really like you… but not as a friend.” Tiffany’s voice sounds a little different, but I don’t care too much about it as the context in her sentence hits me. Does she actually like me?

But then again, why does she feel so sorry for saying it?

“Although I do like you, the thing is…” then she takes a deep breath before continuing, her eyes still avoiding mine. “It’s just that I wasn’t supposed to like you… at least not like that.” My heart skips a beat there as I still look at her confused, wondering what was on her mind. I want to ask why, I wonder why but I can’t get myself to write anything anymore, and instead I simply wait for Tiffany to elaborate.  But in this setting, right now I was only reminded of one thing.
 

“Wow, she must pity you.”

And then I wonder if that’s what Tiffany meant, that she wasn’t supposed to care that much about me, and then I feel myself break down a little inside. But I don’t let my façade fall, at least not now. “It’s a long story Jess, a really long story but…” Tiffany suddenly exhales before finally drifting her gaze towards me, her eyes a little glossy and lost. “When I first got here I didn’t really want to get too close to anyone. I’d think to myself that I’d get some friends, but they wouldn’t really mean anything in the end. That was my plan, but when I met you, well you just seemed different and honestly, I wanted to know you better,”

She inhales and exhales again before looking down at the ground, kicking a random pebble on the stand below before speaking again. “And then I started feeling different around you, and first I just thought it was curiosity but when I figured out it wasn’t, I didn’t know what to do anymore.”

In a small state of shock my fingers grasp onto the small notebook on my lap, my heart beating faster but this time for a different reason. A part of me felt as if a small weight was lifted off my shoulders, but then again I worried. Why was she acting like this? “In the end it probably doesn’t matter what I say, it won’t change anything, not us or.... me, but I like you, and now you know.” Tiffany says before looking up at me, her eyes still a little shiny and almost pleading in some sorts. “And yes, I meant to kiss you that night.”

I feel happy for the fact that she actually likes me and that the feeling is mutual, but along with that a surge of fear and doubt hits me; traits that have never really disappeared. What could this lead to anyway?  Would it really change everything and lead to an awkward we’ll never be the same again faze, or will it lead to something better… more?

Even if I liked the thought of something more, I reminded myself that nothing lasts forever, and that set me off in a train of thoughts I didn’t want, but knew were true. And at the same time I saw something behind that gaze, as if she wasn’t telling me something but I didn’t know what.

“Do you have that sketch I gave you?” I ask. Confused she looks at me, but still rummages through her bag until she finds the said object. As we sit there, I silently take the paper and start writing beneath the small heart.
 

“We all try to act strong, but in the end we’re actually pretty fragile. Basically what I’m trying to say is that we have something like a paper heart. And whatever you’re going through just know that I’m here, right?”

Silently wondering what she’s thinking of at the moment, I study her reaction. As I look at her stunned expression I let out a soft sigh before returning to my paper. Then I proceed to write in my notebook again. “And I think like you too, but honestly I’m a bit scared… I’ve never been with anyone at all.”

Then a long pause summons us as Tiffany takes the words in, the time ticking by as I glance up at the enormous clock by the field. Two seconds, three seconds, four seconds… “Jess,” Tiffany finally calls out, causing my eyes to drift towards her gaze again. And just like that, a small smile forms onto her face; almost reassuring me that maybe, just maybe everything could be different this time.

“I’ll be here for you, you know that right?” she starts before wrapping an arm around me, pulling me closer and for some reason it reminds me of the day when I ran out here crying. Tiffany was there even then. That familiar feeling of warmth enters my body again as I nod slightly, and again Tiffany smiles towards me. “It’s okay to be afraid, and do you wanna know a secret?” Tiffany asks and curiously I look up at her, before she slightly leans closer to me. “I’m afraid as well,” she slightly whispers, and then slowly leans on my shoulder. Unconsciously I start drawing random circles on her back as we sit there, the cold wind brushing against us.
 

It’s good to hear that I’m not the only one, that Tiffany also feels a little afraid. And the fact that she actually likes me, that she’s confessed to me, still lingers in my mind and makes me smile.  But even though my head is swarmed with happiness, there is still this lingering doubt and uncertainty. And as I look at her again I silently whisper to myself, voice a faint but yet hoping. I slowly speak but my words get caught by the wind and never land on her ears, as Tiffany still doesn’t look away.

“Tiffany… Please be gentle.”