Missed

Of the few times he had stood behind her, only once did he actually address her. She couldn't remember if it was a shrug, an answer to a question she had unconsciously muttered to herself, or simply a mistake in hearing resulting from too much hope on her part. Whatever it was, when she turned to look, his gaze was forward, through her, leaving no evidence of his acknowledgement of her. It didn't feel anything, at least not enough to make an impression akin to pain. When the summer was over, she had dismissed all thoughts of him, partially successfully, until he made himself known with just a one short simple sentence. Had she known, had she asked, maybe things would have turned out a little more differently. But it was the advent of May, and he was in love, and she was entrenched in something far more profound, like herself.

Chance

He had thought, many times, of the things they could do together had the summer been longer. He dared imagine being free, out of love, and beginning to fall for a girl he believed he had everything in common with. It wasn't just the numbers on the sheets that caught his attention; it was the way she dusted herself off the floor after a collision that would have sent others crying back to the bleachers. She was far from strong at that, but her drive—which she clearly mistook for talent—had made him question his faith on more than just one occasion. Then he would look back at the girl he loved and lose all memories of ever thinking of her.

In her mind she had cursed over a thousand times his happiness. The summer had been shorter than enough, and she wondered if this was because she was enjoying it way too much. Maybe she did, but she probably had no right to. Besides, the image of a beautiful girl on the other side had threatened what little pleasure she could get from being on the same mile radius with him. A fragment of a second, a minute, an hour, she wasn't sure how long she had then to study his oblivion. In those moments there was nothing more apparent than the quiet exultations he tried so hard to conceal as a result of being so deeply in love. Sometimes, when she was alone and not submerged in homework, she dared to wish making love to him—the same way the girl certainly had.