Everything I never Said

Falling for him

I wanted to disappear.

"Listen to me," she said, still smiling. "If you like somebody, just admit it. You don't have to behave like you're hiding evidence from the police."

"I don't like him."

"Okay."

"I'm serious."

"Of course."

"I am!"

She nodded solemnly.

"You're absolutely right. You don't like Sam. That's why you look at your phone every three minutes and suddenly become interested in life whenever somebody mentions his name."

I walked away.

She followed, laughing.

"I hate you," I muttered.

"No, you don't."

Unfortunately, she was right about that too.

Sam was sitting at the usual table when we arrived at the canteen.

There were three other people with him, including a girl I recognized from another class.

Her name was Vanessa.

She was pretty in the effortless way some girls seemed to be. She had a loud laugh, expressive eyes, and the kind of confidence that made people turn towards her whenever she entered a room.

I didn't dislike her.

I had no reason to.

That would have made everything easier, actually.

If Vanessa had been rude, arrogant, or unpleasant, I could have found a reason to dislike her. I could have told myself that Sam was only talking to her because he hadn't realized how irritating she was.

But she was nice.

And that was the problem.

"Finally!" one of the boys announced when he saw us. "The important people have arrived."

Tasha dropped into the empty chair beside him.

"Of course. You people should be grateful."

I laughed and took the seat opposite her.

Sam looked up.

His eyes met mine.

"There she is."

I raised an eyebrow.

"Who?"

"Moon girl."

I stared at him.

Then I remembered the conversation we'd had a few nights earlier.

He'd called me trouble. I'd called him annoying. We'd joked about me living on the moon.

A smile threatened to appear on my face.

I fought it.

"You're still talking about that?"

"Some things deserve to be remembered."

Vanessa looked between us.

"What's moon girl?"

"Nothing," I answered quickly.

Sam leaned back in his chair.

"She lives on the moon. Apparently, she's only visiting Earth."

Everyone laughed.

I threw a serviette at him.

He caught it and grinned.

For a moment, everything felt normal again.

Easy.

Familiar.

Then Vanessa leaned towards him.

"Sam, tell them what you told me yesterday."

He turned to her.

"Oh, that?"

"Yes!"

He laughed.

"You're not going to let that go, are you?"

"No. You promised!"

He shook his head, smiling.

I looked down at the food in front of me.

It was nothing.

People had conversations. Friends shared jokes. Girls laughed with boys every day without it meaning anything.

I knew that.

I wasn't his girlfriend.

I wasn't even sure I could call myself the girl he liked.

So why did I suddenly feel like an outsider sitting at a table I'd been part of for weeks?

"Isabelle?"

I looked up.

Tasha was watching me.

"You okay?"

"Yes."

She glanced at my untouched food.

"Are you sure?"

"I'm fine."

She didn't look convinced, but she let it go.

Across the table, Sam and Vanessa were still talking.

I tried to focus on the conversation happening beside me, but every now and then, my attention drifted back to them.

Vanessa touched his arm when she laughed.

Sam nudged her shoulder.

She stole a piece of food from his plate, and he complained that she was always taking his things.

She told him he was stingy.

He told her she was a thief.

They laughed again.

And I sat there, smiling whenever someone spoke directly to me, pretending that something inside my chest wasn't slowly becoming uncomfortable.

The worst part wasn't that Sam was talking to another girl.

The worst part was that I couldn't even be angry about it.

He hadn't done anything wrong.

He had never told me I was special.

He had never promised that the way he treated me was different from the way he treated everyone else.

Maybe this was simply who he was.

Maybe I had mistaken friendliness for something deeper because I wanted to believe that I meant more to him than I actually did.

That thought stayed with me throughout lunch.

By the time we stood up to leave, I had made a decision.

I was going to stop overthinking.

I was going to stop looking for meanings in every little thing he did.

And, most importantly, I was going to stop allowing a boy who wasn't mine to affect my mood.

It was a very good decision.

A mature decision.

A decision I managed to keep for approximately seven minutes.

Because just as we were leaving the canteen, Sam caught up with me.

"Isabelle."

I kept walking.

He matched my pace.

"Why are you walking like you're running away from somebody?"

"I'm walking normally."

"No, you're not."

"Sam, I am going to class."

"And I'm walking with you."

"Congratulations."

He laughed.

Then he moved in front of me, forcing me to stop.

"What did I do?"

I blinked.

"Excuse me?"

"What did I do to you?"

"Nothing."

"Then why are you acting like you want to throw me into traffic?"

I stared at him.

Despite everything, I almost laughed.

"You're so dramatic."

"And you're avoiding my question."

I looked away.

He was quiet for a moment.

Then his voice softened.

"Did I upset you?"

There it was again.

That irritating ability he had to make me feel seen when I was doing everything possible to hide.

I wanted to tell him the truth.

I wanted to say that I didn't like how jealous I'd felt watching him and Vanessa. That I hated myself for caring. That I was tired of trying to figure out whether the things he did mean anything.

But I couldn't.

Because what would I say after that?

I was jealous because I like you.

And what would he say?

Oh.

I could already imagine it.

The awkward silence. The careful smile. The gentle explanation that he didn't see me that way.

Or worse, the possibility that he might like me too, but not enough to do anything about it.

I wasn't sure which would hurt more.

So I shrugged.

"I'm not upset."

Sam studied my face.

"Okay."

He stepped aside.

I walked past him, feeling strangely disappointed that he hadn't tried harder to get an answer.

That was the ridiculous thing about me.

I wanted him to understand me without making me explain myself, but I was terrified of what might happen if I actually let him.

That evening, I went home with a headache and an attitude I couldn't explain.

My mother noticed immediately.

"Isabelle, come and eat."

"I'm not hungry, Mummy."

She looked up from the dining table.

"You haven't eaten properly since you came back from school."

"I ate at school."

"What did you eat?"

I hesitated.

She raised an eyebrow.

"Exactly."

I walked towards the table and sat down.

My mother served me food, then sat opposite me.

For a while, neither of us spoke.

She was scrolling through her phone while I pushed food around my plate.

Then she looked up.

"Is something wrong?"

I shook my head.

"No."

She studied me.

"You know, you always say no."

I stopped moving my spoon.

"What?"

"Whenever I ask you if something is wrong, you say no. Whenever your father asks why you're quiet, you say you're tired. Your brothers tease you, and you tell them to leave you alone."

She sighed.

"Sometimes, I don't know what's happening in your life."

I looked down at my plate.

There was no anger in her voice.

That almost made it worse.

My mother wasn't a bad woman. She loved me. She worked hard for us, worried about our future, and tried to provide everything she could.

But love didn't always translate into understanding.

And I didn't know how to explain that. Sometimes, I felt lonely even in a house full of people who loved me.

"I don't know what you want me to say, Mummy," I whispered.

She was quiet.

Then she reached across the table and touched my hand.

"You don't have to say anything perfect. Just talk to me."

I swallowed.

For one brief moment, I considered telling her.

Not about Sam specifically, but about everything.

About how difficult it was to explain myself. About how I sometimes felt like an extra person in my own life, watching everybody else move forward while I stood in the background.

About how I wanted to be understood without feeling as though I was asking for too much.

But the words wouldn't come.

They gathered in my throat and stayed there.

"I'm okay, Mummy."

She withdrew her hand slowly.

I saw the disappointment in her eyes, though she tried to hide it.

"All right, my dear."

She returned to her food.

And I sat there, feeling guilty for not being able to give her what she wanted.

It wasn't that I didn't trust her.

It was that I didn't know how to explain the things I hadn't even figured out myself.

Later, when I got to my room, I sat on the edge of my bed and stared at the wall.

I thought about Sam asking me what he'd done wrong.

Then I thought about my mother asking me what was wrong.

Two people had given me the opportunity to speak that day.

And both times, I had chosen silence.

I wondered whether I was protecting myself or simply making it impossible for anyone to reach me.

I opened my journal.

Dear Diary,

Today, I realized that being quiet doesn't mean I don't have anything to say.

Sometimes, it means I have too much to say, and I don't know where to begin.

Sam asked me if he had upset me.

I wanted to tell him that he hadn't done anything wrong. That was the problem.

How do you explain to someone that your feelings are hurting you when they haven't actually hurt you?

How do you tell somebody that you wish they would choose you when they have never promised to?

I watched him with Vanessa today.

They looked comfortable together. They laughed, teased each other, and acted like being around each other was the easiest thing in the world.

I hated how much I noticed.

I hated that I compared myself to her.

And I hated that I wondered whether he would ever look at me the way he looked at her.

I know I shouldn't feel this way.

He's not mine.

But if he's not mine, why does the thought of him becoming someone else's make my chest feel so heavy?

I paused, staring at the page.

Then I wrote the sentence I had been avoiding all evening.

I think I am falling in love with someone who might never love me back.