When I was in middle school, I was infatuated with a girl in my class who I will refer to by her middle name, “Rose”. If a teenage girl is measured by her allure, Rose was the highest caliber of girl. She must have had every thirteen year old boy in all of New York City at her feet. And, well, who was I to contradict the masses? 

What I remember most of seventh grade was English class with Rose. She sat in the back corner of the room, and I in the corner opposite her at the front. She hardly spoke; instead, she spent her time composing percussive masterpieces by repeatedly smacking her chapstick on her desk. Her absentminded silence intrigued me more than any of my other classmates’ desperate attempts at analyzing Shakespeare’s darling Hamlet. I wondered what burning deliberations were worthy of her time, what thoughts preoccupied her mind while all that preoccupied mine was her. 

As we were in the same general friend group, Rose and I often ate lunch together. The fluorescent lights in the cafeteria imbued her fair complexion with a pinkish sheen as she scrunched her nose at the dish before her –  Tilapia. Somehow, even when contorted in an expression of raw disgust, her features never wavered in their kindness; if anything, the emotions flushed her cheeks with a rosy hue that made them appear especially soft. Through some subliminal message, her verdict permeated the cafeteria hall, and the organization of the small bodies in the lunch line devolved into a chaotic show of boisterous asseverations of distaste for the school's Tilapia, choreographed with the throwing up and swinging down of arms. 

I always liked to think that she smiled more when she was with me. Oh, her smile was the best part. When she smiled, you realized that each of her facial features, which appeared simple enough individually, was an essential piece of the mosaic of her visage. And if you could freeze her evanescent displays of genuine emotion, like her characteristic nose-scrunch of disapproval, you would see that her features were perfectly aligned, symmetrical, even at the height of unrefined emotion– not even an unfortunate angle could betray her. The effortlessness with which she existed made it almost frustratingly clear that she bent nature to her whims by no means of coercion or of rehearsed strategy; no, it went willingly.  

She floated obliviously out of the cafeteria, and I trotted behind in tow. I often tried to decode what genetic or anatomical mutation made her opinions so contagious, and wished I could replicate them. Oh, how I wanted to be her. I envied her, but I never resented her for the ease with which she appeared to glide through life. 

In eighth grade, our relationship deepened. Her demanding mother never understood nor had sympathy for Rose’s lack of dedication to her studies, so she was thrilled when Rose and I started spending more time together to study. I was genuinely happy to help Rose; I wanted her to succeed in a way that my competitive twelve year old self didn’t want for anyone else. 

Over time, she and I shared pieces of our soul with one another. She borrowed my burdens and shouldered my sorrows, and I was so transfixed by her kaleidoscopic eyes that I didn’t notice when her problems became indistinguishable from my own. 

That year, her parents went through a very messy divorce. Angry and confused, she ran to me for support.

 I remember how she called me shaking, the tremor in her voice. I remember standing on the sidewalk, waiting for her for what felt like hours. Her tear-stricken face on mine. I remember holding her; I didn’t realize it at the time but I had begun to feel a sort of responsibility for her as an extension of myself. Her exhausted silhouette in my arms, my frail body braced itself to support her. I swore up and down that I would never betray her. 

I broke that promise. I wish that I could claim that my betrayal was intentional, “for her own good,” or something virtuous like that, but in reality, the moment I sat in front of the school counselor, my tongue betrayed me and I vomited up her secrets with my own. I was too young to know how to stomach them.

In the successive weeks my mom likened my falling out with Rose to a ‘breakup.’ I guess it counts as one because, God, all I wanted was to be with her. 

Yet, we didn’t speak for a year. Her once alluring silence turned deafeningly cold. Our paths officially diverged as we went on to different high schools. 

I run into Rose from time to time. Walking my dog or at a café. She doesn’t smile as much when she sees me now, but she still has that same stamp of cupid pink on her cheeks.  

I think I’ll always care for her. Girls like Rose–feelings like that, they don’t disappear without a trace. I remember the old feelings, and I choose to do so fondly—if not for the quality of her character, out of appreciation for my undying devotion to her—but I don’t feel them anymore.