I get to work on Jo’s graduation present. 

Recently I found that my love language is gift giving. I love giving gifts, it’s my way of telling people that I love them very much. The more time I spend on the gift, the more I love them, I guess. 

Jo’s gift consists of a lot of small gifts wrapped as one. Some are small things she likes and one of them is handmade. I plan to give her a small mason jar filled with origami hearts. Her favorite color is pink, so this is the obvious choice. 

I only have a couple of days before her party, so I spend all of my free time making them. 

I’ve tried to avoid Noah at all costs, but I know I’ll have to see him at the party. The mere thought of me bumping into him terrifies me. 

The worst part is I won’t be able to avoid him. Not entirely that is. 

I’m finally in a place where I can see him and talk to him without having a panic attack and I’m afraid of my newfound confidence. 

The thing about Hispanic parties is that there will always be dancing. And I love to dance. So if I’m hopped up on adrenaline from dancing, and I see him, I’m afraid I will most definitely have the courage to talk to him. Like really talk to him. 

The type of talking that will involve me confessing. It’ll be Gen’s graduation all over again. Except I will already know the answer. 

Noah doesn't like me. He never has. And from the look of it, I’m just not his type. This means that every time I thought that maybe, maybe there was some semblance of mutual feelings for each other, that I was wrong. 

That just like he did with Amber, I was reaching for something that didn’t exist. 

The day before Jo’s party, I decided to clear my head. So I head out towards the bookstore. 

In these past few months I’ve been so busy trying to work on myself. Be a better person to my family and friends, that ironically I have neglected my relationship with my friends. Mostly because I was depressed and I didn’t want to burden anyone. Especially not when everyone else around me was having the time of their lives. So I decided to go to the bookstore instead of the coffeehouse. 

I find my usual spot, order some coffee, and I pull out my notebook. 

And I stare at the blank page. 

And stare

…

I know that you’ll never receive this letter because I never plan on giving this to you, I’m only writing because if I have my feeling in writing, maybe I’ll see just how ridiculous this is. 

I’ve had feelings for you, for quite a while. (I’m not sure I’m not sure if I still have them or if I’m so upset I’ve managed to get over it) and every time I tried to tell you or give you some indication that I liked you, the fear of losing you as a friend always stopped me. But lately I don’t know if I even want to be friends with you anymore. 

The main reason being the way you treated me. You may not have noticed or maybe you did it on purpose. But sometimes I feel like I’m disposable to you, and maybe it’s partially my fault for always being there when you wanted/ needed something from me. But every time you came to me, got what you wanted, and then ignored me until you needed me again, I always managed to pick myself up again and justify your actions. 

But not this time. This time you crossed a line. You made me believe something could happen or that at least that you had managed to realize that I had always been there. But no. You had once again managed to use me. The worst part is that I don’t even know if you did it on purpose or not. Because if you did it on purpose it means that you knew what you were doing. If you didn’t, then you don’t realize how much that affected me. 

After I found out why you were “going through something” I didn’t want to talk to anyone. For the first time, I didn’t even want to see you or hear anything about you. The mere thought of speaking to you would send me down a spiral. When you finally did remember I existed and spoke to me, it sent me into a panic attack. 

Before the thought of being able to hang out with you made me happy because I got the chance to see you. Now when I find out that there is a possibility that you will show up, I start to panic because I’m afraid of what I might say. Either I will want to explain why I suddenly stopped talking to you or I’ll confess. 

To a certain point I want to let you decide if you want to continue to stay friends after knowing how I feel, because if it were up to me I would choose to never speak to you again. But I can’t. 

Part of me still wants to run to you and how you’ve been. Or how are you holding up now that you’ve moved back. I want to forget all this happened and pretend I don’t know, just like I’ve done in the past. And honestly I hate that about myself. 

(At least in these circumstances) 

I hope you never receive this, because that would mean I’ve given up, and no longer care whether you know or not. 

The day of Jo’s party arrives and I’m not even close to ready. 

I ordered a dress online and I forgot to take it out of the bag when it arrived. Now my dress has wrinkles. A lot of wrinkles. 

I decided to go have coffee with some friends, which was a mistake. That set me back a couple of hours and now I feel like I don’t have enough time to get ready. 

Thankfully I finished Jo’s gift last night. I didn’t want it to be like Gen’s gift, which I finished making a few minutes before her party. The only problem is I haven’t written the note. 

I shower as fast as I can. Dry my hair and straighten it. I write the note, drop it in the gift bag, and I sit down to do my makeup. 

My family finally got ready just in time to make it early to the party. 

We arrived. 

And he’s there. Standing next to his sister. 

I try my best to not look panicked. I leave my gift at a table and find a table for my family. 

Jo had decided she wanted her party to be in a repurposed barn. The tables were upstairs, so we had to climb them every time we wanted food or water. Thankfully Jo and her family had thought of this, so she asked her male cousins to be waiters. Since that wasn’t going to be enough, she then proceeded to “ask” all of our guy friends to help. It wasn’t really a question, it was more of “I’m telling you, you are doing this.”  

The food looked good, but I was so nervous about accidentally talking to Noah that I didn't actually eat anything. 

Once the music started, the night became sort of a blur. 

I remember dancing with a lot of people. Mostly my own friends. 

I also remember the sweating. The barn clearly wasn’t made for having parties in the summer. 

In one of the songs my blood pressure dropped a bit and I had to walk out to get some fresh air. 

Most of us were using the paper plates that were left over as paper fans. Unfortunately I had used mine so violently that it had broken and no longer worked as well. I got closer to where the plates were to get a new one. 

I stand in a corner near the entrance to the “dance room” and observe everyone dancing. 

I do this quite often at parties. I do this in hopes that someone will ask me out to dance. It never works, I don’t know why I keep doing it. 

I start to look for Noah. I know I want to get this over with. All I’m looking for is closure. I know he doesn’t like me and that he’s never felt that way before, but I need to hear him say it. Not just me speculating. 

I’m looking around when I make eye contact with one of my friends, Icarus. Which I’m not surprised since he does tend to stand out in our friend group. He’s ghostly white, wears glasses and usually has a serious look on his face. 

“Are you okay?” He standing on the other side of the barn

I looked around to make sure he wasn’t talking to anyone else and responded, “yeah. I’m fine. It’s just really hot in there.” I point towards the dance room. 

“It’s cooler out there.” Icarus point towards the entrance of the barn 

I nod and follow him out. 

“Are you going to stay out here all night?” I ask

“Yea. It’s too loud in there.” 

“True. But dancing.” I point out

“I don’t know how to dance.” 

“It’s very easy. It’s just a couple steps and they just repeat. You just have to follow the music.” I start to sway 

“I hurt my foot a couple of weeks ago, and it hast fully healed. So it’s painful to even stand.” Icarus point down 

“Fine.” 

It’s quiet for a while. 

“Your face is so red.” Icarus points out

“Yea. That’s what happens when my body gets too hot. My face turns really red. Like tomato red. It’s concerning.” I point towards the room filled with dancers, “it’s really hot in there.”

Icarus was one of my younger friends. He was… his vibe was different. He wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea. I found him refreshing. He was straightforward and honest (sometimes), I never had to second guess or overthink what I say.

 Which is why the next words that come out of his mouth threw me off guard. 

“Well not anymore since you are out here.” He does the finger gun thing that guys do when they are attempting to flirt. He also does a terrible job at winking. 

My eyes widened, surprised and concerned, “I am five years older than you. You are aware, right?” I take a step back. 

“No. I know. I was joking. I don’t like you, I do, however, like a girl that’s here.” Icarus confesses 

“Oh?” I look over to Icarus trying to get him to continue talking. 

“It’s Jo.”

This does not surprise me

Icarus continues, “yea. She came out to see how I was doing. And she asked me if I wanted to dance. And even though I’m in a lot of pain, I said yes. We danced and when she touched my arm, I just knew.” 

I stay silent 

“Which sucks because I knew I liked her, but I didn’t want to let myself like her. It was like I was scared of being hurt again.” 

I know what this feels like. When everything with me and Noah happened, I didn’t have the energy to meet anyone new. Or let myself feel anything for anyone. I want to offer up some words of comfort, but nothing seems to come to mind. When I’m talking to a girl, it's easy to comfort. I can just hug them or give them some advice. What am I supposed to say to a guy? 

“The last girl, I’d known her since I was a kid. And I liked her for a huge majority of my life. And when I finally confessed, it turned out that she liked me back.” Icarus continues, “and then a week later, she ghosts me. I know nothing about her anymore.” 

I can’t believe what I said next, “well the guy I liked, he ended up asking another girl out. He got rejected. But immediately after he got rejected, he strung me along and made me believe he liked me back. So I think we’re both screwed.” 

Icarus nods understandably. 

Later that night, I lay wide awake in bed. 

Did I really tell a little kid what happened to me? A little kid? Over shared to a little kid? 

Oh no. What if he gets the wrong idea? I don’t think I actually gave him a name. And there are a lot of guys in our friend group.

I think I’ll be fine.