It is lunchtime, and he watches her enter the cafeteria. His eyes follow her as she walks around the tables. When she reaches an empty seat, she turns around, as if she can feel his gaze warming the back of her head. She meets his eyes and offers him a small smile, a small wave. He waves back, and she turns around. Once again, he wonders who she is sitting with. The spot she had claimed for ten years is empty; it has been empty all week. He wonders why, but if he really thinks about it, he already knows the answer. He shivers slightly – the radiating warmth that used to envelope his right arm is missing – and bows his head to begin eating. The food has no taste.
***
Now, the school day is over, and he is standing by the front gate. He scans the crowds, as he does every afternoon, and listens for her sweet voice calling his name as she runs up to meet him. But there is no head of straight, long, chocolate hair, and all he can hear is a stream of meaningless babble from other students on their way home. He waits, as the crowd thins and disappears. An hour passes. He sits down with his pencil and a sheet of paper, and completes the assigned homework for that day. Another hour passes, and then another, and another. Finally, as the sun sinks below the horizon, he gives up and walks slowly back to his home.
His mother meets him at the door. She asks no questions about where he has been, and for that he is grateful – he can hardly admit that he spent the whole afternoon waiting for her yet again. The family sits down at the table, but he cannot summon up the will to eat, not even for his mother’s heavenly cooking, so he excuses himself ten minutes into dinner. He can sense his family’s concerned eyes following him up the stairs – he hasn’t eaten much these past five days. He feels a prick of guilt for worrying them, but the empty sorrow buries it.
He opens the door to his room. Smiling faces greet him from the walls. On any other day, they would be a comfort, but today, he just wants to tear them all down and rip them to shreds. Why is she still smiling at him from the walls of his room? He throws himself onto the bed and closes his eyes, but it is a long time before sleep comes.
***

He awakens to obnoxiously bright light shining in his face. He looks around the room groggily and realizes that he had forgotten to draw the blinds the night before. A glance at the clock reveals the time – 10:46 AM. Luckily for him, it’s a Saturday. He would hate to break this year’s perfect attendance streak. And he really doesn’t want to see her, not today. She’s been avoiding him all week; he needs a break from spending the whole school day in the same rooms as her. He yawns and stretches before pulling himself out of bed. It’s time to face another day.

After breakfast, he weighs his options. He can’t spend all day at home; his parents are worried enough about him. He doesn’t want to go anywhere that they used to frequent together – she might be there. That leaves him very few choices. In the end, he decides to go to the library. He needs to get a book or two, and he knows that it is the one of the places she rarely visits.
Unfortunately, today really isn't his lucky day, because upon entering the building, the first person he sees is her, sitting at a table with a few other people and a book. He quickly ducks behind a shelf, out of her line of sight. He wanders to the back of the library, where he greets some other frequent patrons and settles down to read a book with one of the kindergarteners. When they finish, the little girl smiles at him. He smiles back as he watches her return the book and run off to find her mother, but the calm he had gained from reading fades quickly. He shakes his head, and gets up to find a book of his own. When he gathers the nerve to check the area where she was sitting, it is empty. The only sign that anyone has been there recently is a book resting on the table.
***
He returns home soon afterwards, a few books heavier. After greeting his mother in the kitchen, he heads into his room. The faces on the walls seem to leer at him, but he’s too tired to do anything about them. His mind is full of echoes, voices repeating the same words over, and over, and over, until he wants to scream. This time she is the one speaking, from his memories of that day. "I’ve never thought about you that way . . . never . . . I need time to think . . . think . . ." He sighs, wishing he could hear her voice for real.
He’s wondered, so many times since it happened, why he asked her that question. He isn’t entirely sure, but he knows it was a necessary step towards the future. Clichéd as it may sound, he wants to stay by her side for as long as she’ll let him. So he watches her, and he waits.
***
Once upon a time, they had been a single unit. Him and her. The girl and the boy. Two innocent, young children, bound by an unspoken promise to stick together forever. Now, they’re splitting apart. It’s his fault – he knows that. But he realizes that their childish promise wouldn’t, couldn’t have lasted. They need to bond themselves to each other all over again, or go their separate ways. Their fate hinges on her response, the answer to a single question.
Yes, or no?
"I love you. I’ve always loved you.
Do you love me?"