My friends laugh at something that Josh said. I smile not catching the joke but decide I’d be better off shaking my head and pretending what they said was discussing. It usually always is. My friend Vera sits next to me and sighs. “Guys when will you ever grow up?” I laugh and the boys on the other side of the table try to defend themselves.
That’s when I see Declan.
He walks out of the lunch line with his blasé attitude. He has on his gray hooded sweatshirt that I used to wear when we dated. His brown long hair is now cut short. I used to run my fingers through it when we used to lie on his couch and…
I would tell him to never cut his hair because his hair was him. And not to mention how great it looked on him. But with it short and covering the tips of his ears I couldn’t believe how much better it looked. How much more alluring he looked.
“Skye?”
“Huh?” I looked at Drew who said my name. He and josh were staring at me with awaiting faces.
“I was saying how you…” I flicked my eye sight back to Declan walking so close by my table. I sat up straight thinking that he was coming to talk to me. but of course like he does every day, he takes a right turn and sits at the table across from mine.“Don’t you think?” drew said.
“Uh…yeah.” I said missing the whole conversation.
I still look at him. Even though I feel my heart rip just a little farther every time I do. I miss him. But he doesn’t miss me. I can see his head over all the other people crammed onto his bench. “Declan,” I whispered. Just the way I would when I would lie on his chest in the darkness of the night. But this time he won’t hear me and he won’t stroke my hair and laugh.
“Just let him go,” Vera murmured in my ear.
I turned to see if Josh, Drew and Alex were listening. Even though I knew they weren’t. “I can’t.” I said to Vera.
She looked at me understanding. Fixing a broken heart is like gluing back together a shattered vase. I turned to look at him again clandestinely, hoping he wouldn’t notice. I want to go talk to him so badly. “Skye,” she said with sympathy.
Ignoring her I see him joking with his friends. But he wasn’t laughing. I wish I was there with him. I could get him to laugh, like I always used to.
I feel a twitch in my eye and I turn away hoping he wont see a tear slide down my face.
“You guys want to go to a movie on Friday?” Alex asks all of us.
“Sure,” I say my voice cracking. “Sounds fun.”
The bell rings and we all get up to leave. As everyone in that cafeteria cram into the diminutive doorway I hear a familiar voice behind me.
“Yeah,” Declan said glumly, “movies on Friday…sounds fun.”