CHAPTER 10- The One Who Changed My Life

It's clearly obvious who I'm talking about. Blaire is the absolute most amazing person I have ever met. The day I met her is one I'll never forget. It's one of those memories that you end up remembering what the whole day was like. A lot of my friends actually don't remember when they first met me. All of them just know the general time in which we met. Even Damon is like that, even though I can remember that day vividly. There are many days I remember, and many I wish I wouldn't, but the day I met Blaire is still fresh in my mind. I remember what I wore, what I ate for breakfast, what classes I had, and even the music I listened to on the drive to school… As if it was just yesterday.

January 10th, 2050

It was the Monday after Christmas break. For some reason, the break was longer than usual, but who am I to complain? I may have a really good time at school, but a long break is a good one. The day was cool and crisp because guess why, January. It's been almost three years since Dad died, and things felt sort of empty without him. My best friend Damon says I've been holding up very well since then. Well, after the mental breakdown I had shortly after we got back from Spring Break in 7th grade at least. Somehow I finished that school year pretty decently. Ever since that day, I have never been the same. I put on a smile for everyone, but it's always rather hollow with little truth behind it. Don't get me wrong, there are days where I'm very happy. It's just that I never feel it for long because I start to think. My mind wanders, to the point where I end up just randomly phasing out. Everything changed today, changed for the better.

"Riiiiiing!" The bell rang as I walked into first period Algebra.

"Good morning Asher! Had a good break? My teacher Mr. Yorkshire said as he finished setting up the projector.

"I guess. New Year's kinda sucked, but hey, new decade." I said as I walked past him to my desk.

"It may not mean much to you, but I find it quite exciting to be in the middle of the century."

"How come?" I asked with interest.

"Just think of how far technology has advanced in these past 50 years, and think how much it will grow in the next."

I'm somewhat of a tech nerd, so hearing things like how far technology has come and where it will go fascinates me. It wasn't long ago when we finally landed humans on Mars, and the possibilities from now are too many to fathom.

"E-excuse me… Is this Algebra 2?" A girl walked in the classroom and asked shyly.

"Yes, you're in the right place! You must be Blaire, I'm Mr. Yorkshire. Welcome to Denver. " Mr. Yorkshire greeted the student.

The girl who walked in was layered in clothing, too much it seemed. She appeared to be ill-prepared for the weather here. Wherever she moved from, it must've been much warmer usually. I will say, even though I could barely see her face, she was kinda cute.

"I'm not so good with directions, so I'm glad I found my first class."

"I'm glad too. I have been informed of your grades before you moved here and lucky for you, you should be right where we left off before the break. If you have any questions about the material we're learning, feel free to ask me or any other student for help."

"Thank you." Blaire said and sat down at the seat closest to the door.

I proceeded to my seat that was located at the front left of the classroom. Under a minute, more people started entering the classroom. We all had assigned seats in this class, and of course, the new girl wouldn't know. As I was getting my tablet out for the bellwork on the board, one person entering noticed Blaire was in her spot.

"You're uh… in my spot." They point out awkwardly.

"Oh sorry!" She said as she quickly moved over and sat in the next seat.

A few times over, that kept happening. She was in another student's seat and was asked to move. Some were polite asking, others were a bit more hostile. This school isn't exactly the best when it comes to manners. The staff has to deal with over 12,000 students, there WILL be bad apples. Blaire was probably asked to move at least ten times, and by the time she got to me, she was in a state. As I was prepping for class to start, she tapped my shoulder to get my attention.

"Um… is t-this seat t-taken?" She pointed to the last vacant chair in the too. next to me with a nervous face.

"No." I turned back to my tablet. "The person who sat there moved before Christmas."

"Oh what a relief…" She said as she placed her backpack on the back of the chair.

She fumbled through her backpack for a few moments before pulling out her tablet and placing it on the desk. It appeared that she probably had some other bad experiences before arriving in this classroom. Her body language made her seem a lot more nervous than I have ever seen before in a person.

"You ok?" I asked while not veering my vision away.

"Oh! I'm fine… It's just been a stressful morning and all." She stated without making eye contact.

"You sure?"

"I'm sure. After my move here, I'm a bit of a broken record."

"Oh, I guess I should've assumed you just moved. Where from?" I asked out of curiosity, but with a tone that seemed like I didn't care.

"A bit east from Tulsa in Oklahoma."

"Why did you move here?"

"My dad is a psychiatrist, and he got a really good paying position here."

"Cool." I responded, and with no follow-up, I ended that conversation.

Class started as usual and we got reacquainted with where we left off before Christmas. Mr. Yorkshire rambled on about current events and the things that are yet to come because 1st period doubles as our advisory class where we obtain knowledge of school-wide procedures such as drills, new rules, and upcoming events. Also, we very quickly discussed how our experiences over the past few weeks were over the break. Our main lesson that day was just getting back in the flow of learning. We did our old worksheets from the previous semester so we could make that possible. Those things are good for others, but for me, it's not needed. I'm at the point where I could just plug numbers into a formula easily as if it's second nature. All the formulas I was able to remember. In a matter of only 10 minutes, I was already finished.

I placed my school provided tablet for schoolwork back in my backpack and took my phone out of my jacket pocket. Looking at news of all sorts is what I like to do in my free time at school. Many things happen between leaving your house and coming back home late in the afternoon. It's nice to have something to talk about to Mom when we get home that night. As I read the news about some bullcrap political arguments, Blaire shyly got my attention again.

"Sorry for bothering you, but can you… uh help me with something?"

I sit my phone down in slight annoyance from the build up of confusion that the article I was reading gave me. "What's up…"

"I'm writing out the formulas but I can't remember what this one was." She pointed on her screen to a problem that uses the quadratic function vertex formula.

"You got it almost right." I took the pen out of her hand and turned her tablet to face me. "It's squared and not cubed, since it's on a two-dimensional graph. Also you need to add the vertical shift."

I corrected her mistakes and handed back the pen. She looked over my edits and pinched the skin under her lower lip. The subtle nods showed she understood what I did.

"Thank you!" She spoke with a tone of embarrassment. "I keep making that same mistake."

Blaire turned back to her work and started doing the problems. I was left feeling a bit different. How she said 'Thank you' hit strangely for what was regular old gratefulness.

"D-don't mention it…" I faced toward and buried my eyes into my phone screen.

The embarrassment and shyness in her voice as she said those two words somehow appealed to me in a… cute way. It sent a dropping feeling in my chest that I can never recall happening. I read that you can learn a lot about a person's nature in their voice if you know what to hear for. Blaire's voice told me that she is filled with innocence and amiability. Though I barely talked to her, I felt that I knew more about her personality in just that very short time. It still seems a bit weird to come to a conclusion that quickly.

I continued to look at news, transitioning to local, then to gaming, and I had this girl stuck in the back of my head. I read the articles with hollow attention, because Blaire stole all of it away in an instant. I kept jolting my eyes to my right at her very briefly while trying to piece together the predicament in my mind. There wasn't anything special about her and what she said, yet… why was it so impactful? Not to say she isn't special, everyone has something unique about them. Some things are a bit more revealing than others, and those are which I would rather not have found out.

"The things I have learned…" I said in my head as the fun facts of classmates rolled into my immediate thoughts.

"Whew, done." Blaire sighed and placed her tablet in her backpack.

I escaped from my trance and began invested in her actions. She traded out of the bag another tablet in exchange for the school one. This one was much more professional looking than what the school provides us. It was a tablet that was able to show the gray table from underneath. The transparent screen lit up brightly and showed a rainbow stretching across the display with amazing quality. At that moment, I realized it was a tablet with the main purpose for art and was popular among aspiring artists. I was intrigued by what she could've been drawing. I made sure to keep her from knowing I was watching by randomly flicking my finger on my phone screen to appear like I'm occupied. Blaire opened a document with something I wasn't expecting to see. Instead of a bird, or a flower, or a portrait of a person, it was a shirt.

"A shirt?" I was confused as to why she would just be drawing a very detailed shirt.

I forgot to keep my awareness of watching from her as more of my attention went onto her screen. She had many notes on the side which wasn't zoomed in enough to read. I wouldn't understand the point of putting notes on the side of a sketch.

"There's really nothing to look at here." Blaire said shyly.

"Is it a start of some sort of character drawing?" I asked curiously.

"Not really." She zoomed into the sleeve on the drawing and it showed detailed stitching. "I'm interested in sewing and stuff related to that. But so far I'm not that good. I can fix buttons and loose ends but I'm trying to learn as much as I can."

"So by drawing them it helps you understand them?"

"I draw other things like fruit and stuff on this tablet, but that's just an alibi to hide it from my parents."

"What's there to hide?" I gave her my full attention after sitting my phone down.

"It's just that I'm not sure if my parents would approve of me going into that kind of profession. I'm really into fashion and I'm thinking of going to a school for it after graduating."

"Like design and making clothes? That sounds cool." I looked at her clothes and my attention was moved to her jacket.

"Y'know how Paris is basically the fashion capital of the world? It's my dream to be able to be part of that important part of the culture."

"I can tell by your jacket. It looks very French."

Her jacket was light grey, and is very long. In her current position, it almost looks like a dress. What looked like buttons were asymmetric and traveled the length of the jacket. It looked very expensive. A jacket like this must need important care and maintenance.

"It looks like it's worth a lot." I said while pinching the material of a sleeve in my fingers.

"Yeah it was my Grandma's. She got it when she went to Paris a year before I was born."

"It doesn't look like it's over 15 years old." I respond with amazement. "Have you been taking care of it?

"I consider it as my training."

"Well you've been doing good, that's for sure. I can't even get a thread through a needle."

She giggled at my self deprecation. I felt warm inside seeing her smile. We kept talking about her work with clothing until class was about to end. Mr. Yorkshire wanted to talk to Blaire and give her some important information and papers for her to look over. With how our school works, I'll only see her in this class every other day. Unless she has another class with me, but I didn't bother to ask.

"Hey! You got a minute?" Blaire grabbed me aside outside the classroom.

"Sure! What's up?" I said nervously as I leaned against the wall.

"Thanks for helping me earlier. Math isn't really my strong suit."

"Algebra 2 in 10th grade? You have to have some skill."

"I guess, but not as much as you though. I just want to get all of my necessary classes out of the way so I can dedicate to what I really want. You finished in what seemed like an instant." She replied with attracted praise.

"Oh t-thanks! By the way, my name's Asser. I mean- Asher!" I hesitantly held out my hand.

"Cool, and my name's Blaire. Nice to meet you…Asher?" Blaire responded in an awkward tone as she accepted my handshake.

"That's right, but I mainly go by Ash. You can call me that, i-if you like."

"Ash… that's a cute name. I never met anyone with a name like that."

"C-cute? I never heard that before…" I slowly took my hand away.

Usually, I'm not easily flattered. But for some reason, she got easily through me. My cheeks started feeling warm, which they rarely do. Something about Blaire is different from other girls, and I didn't know what. She gives off a certain energy that grabs my interest. As we exited, a few jocks ran by, and bumped into Blaire as they ran by. They didn't even acknowledge her, they just kept on running while she fell to the ground.

"Cameron! Dwayne! Have a little respect won't ya?!" I exclaimed to the jocks as they started running up to the 2nd floor.

"Oh shit, sorry Ash!" Cameron, a runningback, yelled back with guilt.

"We got a bit aggressive, sorry for bumping into you!" Dwayne, a quarterback said while jogging in place on the stairway.

"Thanks… I'm fine." Blaire said while collecting her papers.

I shrugged them off as I leaned down to assist Blaire picking up the stray papers. They turned and continued on their way.

"They know you?" Blaire asked as I handed the papers over to her.

"Yeah."

"And they listened to you?"

"Mmhmm." I lifted her back on her feet.

I could see the genuine confusion on her face. Blaire was trying to figure out what kind of power a punk ass looking dude like me could have over some football players.

"How in the-"

"Oh right. How do I explain it…? I'm kinda a well known person around here." I awkwardly stated while shrugging my arms.

Blaire gazed at my attire and seemed even more confused. "Aren't you a bit out of that league?"

"My clothes, right. I'm not really a punk, I just look like one.. I just really like leather… and ripped jeans… and piercings." I moved my hair away to show a piercing over my left eyebrow.

"I see… Well uh, sorry for assuming." She held her paper over her mouth and nose.

"It's fine, really. You're not the first. Are you good though? That was quite the fall."

"Yeah. I happened to land where it wouldn't hurt."

"Cool. So I'll see you later?" I stepped away from the wall.

"Mhmm." Blaire turned her body and walked away.

The hallway quickly flooded with kids and I lost sight of her. From the classroom, we went opposite ways to our next classes. All during my engineering class, Blaire was all that was in my mind. For the first time in a long time, I can say that I was confused in a class, and it's because I wasn't paying attention. After that class, I had lunch. After I grabbed my food from the cafeteria, I sat down and stared at the burger that I had no appetite to eat. I slowly gnawed on the fries to at least get something in my stomach. My daydreaming was interrupted by a swift slap to my back.

"Sup!" Damon greeted happily while he sat down across from me at the table.

"Nothing…" I began to eat another fry.

Damon looked at my food and then back at me. He was confused by my behavior.

"Usually you're done eating by the time I get here from football. Something wrong?"

"Well…" I knew I could trust Damon with a secret. "There's a girl and-"

Damon slammed his hands on the table and stood up eccentrically. His grin showed he was joyous.

"Are those hormones finally kicking in?!"

"Wha-?! Well, maybe…"

"She must be really cute to get your attention."

"She is…" An image of her popped in my head.

Dark brown hair, deep blue eyes, and a pretty smile. Such basic things yet perfectly fitted onto a face.

"What's her name?"

"Blaire."

"Ooh that's hot!" Damon said with shock. "Fuck, if I met her first…"

"Don't go there." I stopped his sentence.

"Kidding! Kidding! I got plenty of girls down my spine anyway."

"I bet you do… Mr. I Get Laid Daily…" I responded with disgust.

"Now that's an exaggeration. It only happened like three times."

"In a row."

"The point is!- Now maybe you can start rolling in it." Damon attempted to change the subject.

"I'm too young for that."

"If you say so." Damon sat down. "You gonna eat that?"

I pushed my food towards him. Infatuation has taken my appetite away from me. I thought about her affinity for clothes and fashion. I like it. She has a dream to work towards. While I'm here clueless about what I really want to do.

"Yoohoo…" Damon got my attention. "Earth to Ash."

"Huh?" I must've spaced out.

"You've been looking at the table for about two minutes. You good?"

"Yeah, now I'm just thinking about after all of this…"

"After what?"

"High school, when we graduate. I know I want to do something with engineering, but what do I really want."

It's like the hierarchy of needs, in which you'd want to strive to reach the top. To reach that is a goal, to find my worth. What I'm worth is more than being a functioning member of society. To be more than enough.

"What you want is to get your whole life planned out." Damon said after burping into his hand. "If you do things as you want and not worry about it, you can see if you really got where you wanted."

"Huh?"

"Climb the ladder, and see where you get when you're at its peak. Maybe that girl that has you interested will be along the way."

Damon suddenly got all philosophical. It was weird, but he made sense. I should just 'Go with the flow'. Even with the flow, Blaire makes that seem not as easy at face value. Wherever I go, I want to be happy with how I do it.

Man, but I'll never forget that day. It felt like it was only yesterday when I met her. I could go on and on about all the good times we shared together, but not everyone has the time to hear me gawk about her. So instead, I'll just tell one important story. I mentioned it before, and I feel I should elaborate on what exactly happened that one Christmas Eve…

December 24th, 2052

"You really didn't need to come with me Blaire." I said as we entered the park.

"Well I had nothing really to do tonight, so I figured I'd come with you to give those gifts to the children."

"Your family! You could be with them now!"

"We had dinner at 5:00, and it was over just in time for me to come with you." Blaire nudged my arm to reassure me.

It was really cold out, about three below zero last time I checked. There was a gentle gust that made it seem like it should be breaking every cold record in the books. Her house was just beyond the park and I was meeting up with Mom here anyway. I delivered gifts that were given as donations from school to an orphanage that is in the area. I love doing these sorts of things, because I feel great by helping people.

"Those kids really appreciated those gloves you made them. It makes me happy that less fortunate kids can have a good Christmas."

"Same here, and it really warms my heart."

"Speaking of warm, are you good? It's really chilly tonight." I asked with slight worry.

Blaire rubbed her hands together and placed them back in her pockets. "I'm good. It's a little cold in this jacket though."

Ironically, Blaire made over twenty pairs of gloves and didn't wear a pair of her own.

"How about this…?" I took off my ear muffs and moved her hair so I could put it on her ears. "It can be bad for your ears to be this cold.

"You don't need to do that." Blaire was unsure of my generosity.

"Nonsense. And besides, they look way better on you."

"T-thank you." Blaire blushed subtly, but I only thought it was because of the cold.

"You're welcome. So, do you want to get some hot chocolate before your dad comes to pick you up?" I asked as I pointed to a hot chocolate stand a ways from us.

"Oh, uh- I didn't bring money..." Blaire stated as she looked at the stand.

"I'll pay, so don't worry. You want some?"

"Sure." She smiled with gratefulness.

We walked to the hot chocolate stand and stood in the relatively small line. Every step we took forward, we felt a wave of heat from the hot chocolate. When it was our turn, we were greeted by a kid who was no older than seven.

"What would you like sir?" The kid greeted us through his many layers of clothing.

"Two cups of hot chocolate please." I held up my fingers as I got out my wallet from my pocket.

"That will be six dollars."

I opened my wallet and pulled out a little plastic strip. Credit cards got a lot smaller over the years, and physical money is surprisingly still used. I held it up to a scanner and the transaction went through. The boy waddled to a woman at a machine with the hot chocolate with two cups in hand. A few inaudible interactions later, and the boy walked back and handed us the cups.

"Merry Christmas." The boy said gleefully.

"Merry Christmas to you too!" I responded with thanks.

I handed a cup to Blaire and we walked away to a bench under a street light to drink the cocoa. I wiped off the thin layer of snow on the bench before we sat down. I knew that this night was special to Blaire, because she loves the romance of Christmas. I just don't know if I can handle being on the receiving end of any romance that she brings up. I'm always nervous around her and I can't bear to be awkward.

"This is a nice night." Blaire said after she lightly blew on her hot chocolate.

"It was?" Confused, I wondered what was so special.

"Heh…" She sat back and watched a few stray snowflakes fall from the sky. "Back in my hometown, we never had a white Christmas. It was just way too warm down there those years."

"You really like the weather here in Denver?" I turned after taking a sip from my cup.

"I like the mountains, I like the people, I like…"

"Like what?"

"I like all the good times I had here so far. I hate that when school is over, I'll be going abroad in Paris. It's great that I live here, but it's a dream to learn there, and it's going to come true."

"You worked hard to get where you are. I'm proud of you." I spoke with praise.

"Thanks… really. I don't know how far I would've gone if it weren't for you and others always believing in me."

"I'm not that important…" I replied modestly.

"You'd say that of course. On my literal first day of school here, you've been very kind to me. I don't know if you could tell, but I was somewhat intimidated by your whole punk look back then."

"Really? It was intimidating? I guess I could see why, it was a bit… out of place."

"I started to like that style of yours. Then you began to get more down to earth…" She said with disappointment. "W-which is still good on you!"

"Maybe I should grow my hair out a bit more." I pulled some hair out from under my beanie.

"I do like that hairstyle though, simple and effective."

"I do like what you did with your hair, with the purple tips."

"Surprisingly, a lot of people don't like it." Blaire brought her long brown hair into her vision and inspected the two inch long tips of dyed hair.

"Who cares about who doesn't like it? I like it."

"I've always been sorta self aware of how I look. Even though I'm a really good cheerleader, people still have rude things to say like 'Your hips are too wide! You need to lose weight!' It really gets to me."

"You're beautiful. Don't let anyone say otherwise." I said with a serious tone at the thought of others judging her.

"Speaking of beautiful…" Blaire cleared her hair out of her face. "This park… it's very beautiful. The decorations, the care the city puts into keeping it looking good, it all makes this such a better place." Blaire rubbed the bench between us as she admired everything.

"Why do you say that?"

"Because since I moved here almost two years ago, it has been an escape to come here and just breathe."

"Oh, I see what you mean. With all the things that go on in the world, it's nice to just go somewhere to where you don't have to worry."

"Do you have somewhere to go?"

"My imagination." I said as I sloshed the remaining drink in the cup in my hands.

"Lemme guess, Pokemon?" Blaire asked, knowing the answer.

It always was, and probably always will be. My first toy was a Pokemon plush that I got right after I was born. I still have it and it has a lot of sentimental value to me. Pokemon was in my life every step of the way.

"Exactly. It's always been there for me when I need an escape, and whenever the VR Pokemon game comes out, you'll know I'll be cashing in all my vacation days for the launch."

"I'll admit, when I learned you were a Pokemon nerd, it kinda was a turn off. Then I became a nerd and now it t-" Blaire covered her mouth quickly once learning what she was about to say.

"What was that?" I didn't get where she was going at that point, but remembering this day makes it obvious.

"Uh- just that I understand Pokemon more so it's not as cringy!"

"Oh yeah."

Blaire sighed, but hid it's reasoning. We sat watching families walk by and enjoying the park and its scenery. Blaire and I would laugh whenever some kids would run ahead of their parents giggling and trying to outspeed eachother.

"Kids are cute." Blaire said.

"Yeah."

"I bet your kids will be adorable." Blaire turned to me.

"*cough*" I choked on my hot chocolate. "Gah! *cough* Thanks for having faith in me."

"I'm really surprised you don't have a girlfriend. So… are you gay?"

"What?!"

"I'd support you, I'm just curious!"

"I'm not gay…"

"You could ask any girl out here and they'd do it! Hell, I'm here with you right now! Like a date!"

"Really now?" I froze. It came to me that I basically asked her out.

"Why don't you date anyone?"

"I just want to wait until I find someone that I really like. I like a lot of people, but I want to date someone I like just a little more."

Of course, I was talking about her. Making that clear to her would be the tough thing.

"What's your dream?" Blaire asked with curiosity.

"My dream?"

"What do you want to do once high school is over?"

"I guess… I'm too busy for a dream."

"How?"

"I'm going to be working in a lot of places, and meeting so many people that are miles smarter than me. So I guess, for the time being at least… My dream is to be someone that people can look up to, because that's just what I'll be doing. I want to be like them, the prime example."

"Well uh… the thing is…" Blaire said as she finished her drink.

"Yeah?"

"Nevermind, it's not important." She shrugged off what she was saying.

I finished my hot chocolate and dropped it in the trashcan next to me. We stood up and continued walking to where we needed to go. It was then when I realized what I wanted to do. If I wanted her to know I liked her, I would need to actually take initiative. It was Christmas Eve, and it was a perfect time to make a move. I walked slightly closer to Blaire, contemplating to hold her hand. I'd look at her, turning my eyes as far as they could go while keeping my face forward while I thought of my plan. Right before I was going to do it, she made the move. It shocked me but it wasn't the way I expected.

"Are those gloves warm?" She asked as she rubbed my palm with her thumb.

"Oh y-yeah they are. I can get you a pair if you want."

"Nah it's fine."

Her holding my hand for such a wholesome reason gave me confidence to speak up. Being in a situation like that justifies any move, right?

"Blaire, I can keep your hand warm if you want me to…" I attempted to turn the situation to an opportunity.

"Sure!" She laced her fingers between mine and gently gripped my hand.

"Holy crap that worked! I'm actually holding her hand! This is a dream come true. I'm sorta getting romantic with her and she is ok with it!" My mind was celebrating the victory.

"So anyway," She gripped ever so slightly tighter. "about what I was saying a minute ago."

"If you don't want to say anything, you don't have to."

"You would really like to know." Blaire pulled me to the side of the path out of the way of others.

Whatever it was, it got me curious. Her expression showed some anxious desire to get it off her chest.

"Look up, please." Blaire requested gently.

"What is i-?"

I froze in place when I saw the mistletoe above our heads. I looked back at Blaire and started to stutter random sounds as I tried to remain calm.

"I d-didn't plan t-this."

"I know."

She smirked with a loving face, gently and slowly placing a kiss upon my nose. Her lips were smooth, even with the dry and cold air, they were warm.

"I-I…" I was unable to process what just happened.

"You said your dream was to be someone people can look up to, right?"

"Mmhmm." I hummed as confirmation, still trying to not act weird.

"Well… you kinda succeeded."

Blaire let go of my hands and swiftly jogged off in the direction we were heading.

"Wait!..." I took a step forward and held my hand out with no effort to actually stop her.

"My house is just up ahead! Merry Christmas!" She shouted as she continued running off.

"I… love you…" I said quietly as I slowly returned my hand to my side.

She was out of sight in a matter of seconds. My head was scrambling with different thoughts about what that kiss meant. I was left there in a state of shock, and was confused by what she said. I… succeeded? What did that mean? Does she look up to me? If so, how should I feel?

I touched my nose where she kissed with my finger subtly and lowered it to my lips. After all, I've never been kissed by her before, so it meant a lot.

"Merry Christmas… Blaire…" I spoke softly as I kissed my gloved fingers, wishing I could have an opportunity to actually kiss her.

Looking back on those events, it was very obvious that Blaire liked me. Turns out I was the oblivious one. If only I have done something different… like asking for my earmuffs back before she ran off, but that's in the past now.

In the time ever since she left for Paris, the relationship between Blaire and I has remained the same, just friends. I hated knowing that, because I wanted it to be much more than that. It gets worse knowing Blaire wanted the same. If only I actually had the courage to make a move on her in high school, things could've been much more like I always dreamt. I was always hit on, and I always turned down whoever it was who asked. Ironically I never did that myself, because I was always afraid Blaire would turn me down.

Remembering things can help you grow as a person. I only knew her for two and a half years at that point but I felt like it was so much shorter. At graduation, it was announced that she was going abroad to France to study fashion, while I was going into what I liked to call "freelance studying" because I jumped across so many schools in those four years after highschool. I wasn't when close to done, or better to say is that I wasn't satisfied with what I learned.

I like technology, and I became an engineer interning for a company famous for leading the charge on groundbreaking technology advances for the past 20 years. One assignment I had was to create a device along with a few others that could aid submarine exploration. The prototype that was no more than a few doodles and ideas got me a trip to the international space station in July because in theory. Turns out the device would work better in the vacuum of space rather than under intense pressure of deep oceans in theory. But that didn't happen because I became an involuntary couch potato forced against my will.

I'm still kind of mad about that fact. I had the perfect excuse to work out and what did I get? A major headache whenever the day I wake up is. A crappy bonus is my indefinite deteriorating muscle mass. Hopefully I'm being kept somewhat normal, health wise. It's amazing what medical breakthroughs have happened in the past decades. Care in hospitals has been made so cheap from how easy things are that breaking a bone means nothing. The worst part of breaking your ankle by doing a dumb hoverboard trick is the time it'll take to heal it. Science hasn't fixed that problem yet.