2. Bug Boy

Just as I had predicted, my mind buzzed with nothing else but Matt for the remainder of the day. I went over, again and again, the relaxed way with which he reclined on his bed.

The glances he stole down at his hand held game, making it obvious that he wanted badly to return to that tiny private world of his. But the thing I cherished most was his smile. That subtle, upturn of the lips, those perfect lips, which made me want to smile too, simply to celebrate his own happiness.

It seemed that my friends, namely Alicia, noticed my distraction.

"Why do you look so pleased, Arsa?" she asked, her delicate voice ringing like the most charming of bells. Her breath came in puffs, having just run to catch up with me after the match. "We lost, remember? No one should look that happy after losing like we did." She grabbed my hand and held it tightly, like children often do when it is still acceptable for them to hold hands with another person.

I sighed and looked down at my feet as I walked, as to prevent myself from glancing up at the window that I knew to be his, because I badly wanted to see if, maybe, he was looking at me, watching me play soccer like he said he had done before. "I know we lost, Alicia. Is it bad that I'm happy for no reason?"

She shook her head insistently. "No! Not at all. I'm glad you're happy." She threw me a quick, devious smile. "I just wanted to know if that boy might be the reason."

I swallowed like a convict sentenced to execution. "B-Boy?" I asked, as if I hadn't been thinking of nothing but him for the past hour and a half.

Alicia looked at me as if to say don't think I don't know what's going on just because I'm younger than you are. "Yeah, boy," she said. "You know, Matt. That boy."

My mouth opened and closed, feigning speech. To say how I felt, that dangerous, incriminating secret I had been harboring for years, would make it real, unavoidable. I couldn't very well tell Alicia about him. There was nothing to tell, really.

"Well?" the girl pried. "Is he who you're thinking about? If you like him, you can tell me. It's ok to have crushes."

I couldn't stand it. Having this girl, who was five years my junior, wrench open my heart-shaped box in which I kept this secret. I yanked my hand from her, viciously, and with more anger than I had ever exhibited towards her. "Just leave me alone. It's none of your business!"

Before I could see her cry, that lower lip quiver and those baby-blue eyes flood with salty tears, I turned on the spot and ran as quickly as I could away from her, Alicia, my only real friend in all of Wammy House.

How could he have done something like this to me? Something as despicable as infatuation, let alone love. Did he know what things I felt? But didn't feel, all at the same time.

My legs pumped against the cement ground that led to the institution's main garden, a wild, overflowing natural place teeming with life and color. I had spent many sunny afternoons there, in that garden, sitting beneath the ancient oak and laughing without a care. At least, without a care that I let show.

Now I collapsed beneath that very oak tree. I fell to my knees and curled in on myself, like a pill bug, those little masters of secrecy that were able to hide themselves away from the world whenever need be. Oh how I wished to turn into a bug in that very moment. To grow feelers and an exoskeleton, bulging eyes and dull wits. Then I could crawl easily, slip between the bark of trees and tuck myself away from the world and its crushing blows.

"Arsa?"

I jolted up with recognition. That voice. It couldn't have been my imagination, or the wind, as parents tell their children when ghosts tap against their windows. No, this voice was real. And right beside me.

"What wrong? Are you hurt?" he asked, his goggles flashing as they caught the dying sunlight. He himself looked, for a moment, like the very bug I had wished to transform into.

I realized I had been crying and wiped my cheeks. "No. I'm not hurt." I didn't dare say I was fine. That would be a lie. The cruelest lie I could tell at that very moment.

Matt took a drag on the cigarette, already half gone, that balanced between his lips. I could smell the tobacco, a sweet, comforting aroma, about his person. "Good," he said. "When I saw you laying out here by yourself, crying like you were…I thought…I thought maybe one of the kids had beat you up or something."

I shook my head and tried to smile. My efforts turned into a sickening grimace. "No it's nothing like that." In truth, no one at Wammy House had ever hit me, except out of play.

"Then what is it?" he asked, taking in more smoke from the cigarette. The tip of it glowed bright, neon orange that rivaled the color of the sun.

"It's just that…Well you see…" I struggled to come up with an acceptable, believable white lie that would save me from telling him the real reason for my despair. Eventually, my words ceased and I instead looked down at my hands as they rested in my lap. I couldn't think of anything to say, and a small, irrational part of me was sure he would read my mind and discover what I truly wanted to say.

Softly, after several moments, he said, "It's fine if you don't want to tell me. I know it might be weird since we don't know each other."

My eyes, still red and sore from crying, stared anywhere but him. He had actually offered to be a crying shoulder, and I couldn't take advantage of it. Even more, he had actually acknowledged the fact that we didn't know each other. Did that mean he hadn't known who I was after all those years of living within the same walls? Could it be possible that he had been totally unaware of my presence before that very morning?

He sighed. The forlorn sound caused me to look up at him, anxious to see if he was becoming annoyed with me. "Do you hate me, I wonder?" he said in the softest of tones, his head tilted to the side as he examined me, his brow knit together as he frowned. "That's it, isn't it? You hate me or something, right?"

Here was my chance. My chance to cut off all contact with him and save myself any future sorrow. All I had to say was Yes, I do hate you and everything, for the most part, would be fine. I could remain unscathed by the fiery tentacles of love. But, deep down I knew, that no matter the circumstances, I could never tell Matt that I hated him.

"Why would I hate you?" I asked, not exactly answering his question, but at least I wasn't denying it…yet.

His lips quivered into something that resembled a grin, almost like he was pleased that I had responded at all.

"You never talk to me," he said. His hand came up and he pulled off his goggles, leaving them on his forehead, his hair splitting in tiny red arrows over the orange lenses. For the first time in years, I was seeing Matt without his goggles, without his mask. I was seeing how he really looked, and the realization came as a pleasant surprise. "I've seen you around before, lots of times, actually, but you've never talked to me. I assumed that the only explanation was that you despised me for some reason." He spoke with the air of someone saying their thoughts out loud, more to himself than to me.

"I never knew you noticed…" I said. My fingers played incessantly with the hem of my skirt, winding and pulling at the fabric until it resembled nothing more than a weaving together of cotton fibers, rather than an article of clothing.

Matt gave a bitter half-chuckle, and flicked his finished, and now unlit, cigarette off into some unseen patch of grass, at the same time pulling out a fresh one from the pack in his pocket, as well as a sleek black lighter. "I would have to be a douche bag not to notice you. We are living in the same place, ya know."

So he had noticed my existence. I was certain my head would explode if only I could tell him, share with him, what his words meant to me.

Just in the knowing that I wasn't some nameless, faceless being in his life had left me faltering, breaking down with hidden happiness in the most pitiful, pathetic of ways. What would happen if he actually revealed deeper, greater feelings for me? That was why I couldn't allow myself to love him, even admire him. I didn't deserve, couldn't handle to be loved by him…by anyone.

When I returned my gaze to meet his, I was smiling; I would allow myself that display of emotion, at least. And he smiled too. We were like two people sharing some private joke, which was, I suppose, pretty close to the real truth.

For what else is love, even unrequited love, but a joke between two people?