“Human beings are funny. They long to be with the person they love but refuse to admit it openly. Some are afraid to show even the slightest sign of affection because of fear. Fear that their feelings may not be recognized, or even worst, returned. But the one thing about human beings that puzzles me the most is their conscious effort to be connected with the object of their affection even if it kills them slowly within” -Sigmund Freud

It was around 11 pm on a Saturday night. I had strategically ended up at some juniors house party who always laughed at the popular kids and called them, “preps”. I was a sophomore, but all of my friends were seniors. I opened the front door to the house which was bumping B.I.G.’s Juicy. A bunch of cigarette smoking hipsters standing around a glass table with a bottle of Jameson looked up and smirked…

Looking back on my sixteen-year-old self, I had to have looked about nineteen after I’d ditched the braces and grown into my all-too-quickly maturing body. I looked around with my best friend at the time, choosing a plush chair to sit in and cracked open the water bottle of vodka she’d stolen from her parents liquor cabinet. “It was all a dream, I used to read Word Up magazine” blared the stereo, the last lines of lyrics I heard before I locked eyes on him. It was after a distressing week of hearing he’d been messing around again. Tonight wasn’t about that though. I shift my gaze to the “prep” name calling hipster I had learned to love and approached her on the makeshift dance floor in the kitchen. By then the vodka was kicking and I felt like I was invincible, dancing hand-in-hand with this chick I would lose contact with in years to come.

I feel a tug on my shoulder halfway through the Chili Peppers “All Around the World”, I can’t believe the cops haven’t come. It’s him. I wave a quick goodbye to my friend and roll my eyes as he says, “Can we talk?”. This might be the tenth time we’ve “talked” about our insurmountable toxic relationship we’d later call: “love”. I trot down the three small stairs off the back door and walk over to a corner away from a fire pit of mid-twenty somethings, lighting a joint. I put my sandal-clad foot against the wooden shed door and stand there sassily awaiting the explanation of why he feels the “need to talk” once again.

I’ve carefully orchestrated this entire situation. I know him like the back of my hand, so I wore this black skirt and crochet top he always liked. Deep down I’m hurting. Bursting at the seams with excitement that he’s approached me. I usually find myself doing some desperate act to grab his attention when we’re out, but right now I think I’m in control.

Fifteen minutes later our voices will have reached insurmountable levels, yelling in inebriated states. You see, we’re both very smart and we’re both disgustingly competitive, so naturally whoever yells and gets the most words in is right. By 1 a.m. his friend will awkwardly attempt to pull him away from our “conversation” and tell him it’s time to leave. I’m staying at my friends, so it’ll look like I don’t have a curfew (perfect).

It’s 1:45 a.m., my phone is dead, but luckily the girl throwing the party offers hers up to me. I only know one number by heart, other than my parents’ so I punch in the number and step outside.

Twenty minutes later he’ll pull up in his car, shaking his head at me as we lock eyes, each secretly accepting the fact that it’s never over.