And you don't even notice
You haven't gone unnoticed.
"Dreamer" by My Favorite Highway
He wondered what went on in her mind. When he looked over at her in algebra, completely unaware that 3 out of the 15 people in the class were also watching her, wondering, he wondered. What put that smile on her face? Was she remembering the time they went to her family's cottage in Vermont together, when they lay in the woods, peeking up at the clouds through the trees and pointing out the clouds that looked like chameleons or giraffes? Or the time in theater class where they danced around and sang, "Welcome to the Jungle" by Guns N' Roses, not caring that the other kids in the class were staring at them as if they were insane?
The best part about her was that she didn't care. She didn't care when people stared, or when her snarky classmates tried to spread a rumor about her. Unlike those same classmates who would call their hair stylists at the smallest whisper of a rumor for a color treatment to prove that they were still on top, she would merely shrug and move on. She wasn't afraid of what people thought of her. She would laugh for hours at the smallest things, like somebody saying the word 'toilet', not caring if she was called immature, smiling to herself whenever the thought popped back into her mind for days afterwards.
Maybe she was smiling because she remembered when they sat together on her bed talking about anything and everything. She curled her toes up into her black Juicy Couture sweatpants in that adorable way that she knew he loved. She was taunting him. He had to be with her. "Are you always this happy?"
"Only when I'm with you," she responded, uncharacteristically shyly. That was all he needed to hear before he leaned over, and kissed her.
She caught him staring now. Ms. Parker was droning on in the background about matrices, or something else completely useless. He still had a smile on his face from the memory, but her smile had been replaced with a quizzical look. Why was he staring at her, smiling at her? He broke up with her after all. She'll never know that he, her current boyfriend, threatened him. She'll never know that he said if he didn't break up with her, he would let everyone know his secret. She'll never know how hard it was for him to do. She'll never know how it broke his heart to hear her choke back tears and hang up the phone. She'll never know how he thinks about her everyday, day after day. She'll never know how badly he wanted to talk to her. She'll never know how he never will be able to talk to her again, as long as she was with him. She'll never know how sad he his that she won't forgive him, won't meet his eye, won't smile back at him. She'll never know how frustrated he is, not being able to let her know. And she'll never know how his smile faded, the crinkle in his eyes disappeared, and his heart dropped when she rolled her eyes, turned around, and started talking to him again. He was so mad at himself for not standing up to him, for letting him ruin his life. But she'll never know.