Say “Hi!” to him at Hebrew school in October. Talk about your different schools and your mutual friends and how Moses parted the Red Sea. Catch feelings, begin to flirt—at the eighth grade level. Point out his crooked smile and mismatched socks. Laugh when his joke isn’t funny. Eventually exchange numbers. Text each other about what type of cereal you're eating and your annoying sister and what you’re doing over the weekend. Hope he asks you to go to the movies. Skype him and his best friend whenever you’re all online. Say “Yes!” when his best friend texts you and asks if you want to go to the movies with him. Try to find a weekend to go, when his friend doesn’t have a hockey game, when your best friend doesn't have a family dinner. Never find a date that fits for both of you.
In April walk over to his house at night (when his parents aren’t home) with your best friend Sarah who lives down the street from him. His friend is there, too. Watch stupid YouTube videos to dissolve the awkwardness. Pet his dog. Throw tiny pebbles at him and his friend, in a flirty way. Get nervous about the possibility of having your first kiss with tongue. Feel uncomfortable looking him in the eye. Play man hunt in the dark and be his partner. Be silly and pretend like you’re oblivious to the fact that he wants to kiss you. Walk a few steps behind him so he gets the message that you don’t want to. Find yourself with him—alone—in his front yard under a tree. Pick up a big stick and act stupid. Hope he doesn’t ask you if you want to “hook up.” Talk about your different schools and your mutual friends and how Moses parted the Red Sea. Listen nervously as he eventually says, “Hey, so, I was wondering, do you want to hook up or something?” Comment on his voice crack. Tell him, as you swing the huge branch around, “No, sorry. I want it to be more natural,” whatever that means. Go inside and pet his dog and be awkward. Go home with your friend and cringe when you think about it. Go to sleep on her spare mattress and kick yourself, knowing you could have had your first kiss that night.
Don’t go back to Hebrew school for a week. Get upset when he isn’t at Hebrew school for the rest of the year’s session because he plays lacrosse after school. Hope for another boy to like you so you can make him jealous. Stop texting him for a little while.
Go to summer camp for seven weeks. Don’t think about him. On the second to last day of camp, kiss, with tongue, a boy a year older with thick black curly hair that you’ve crushed on for two years. Get excited to tell all your friends back home.
In October of ninth grade tell him you might be switching to his school because your mom is “totally done with public school.” Talk about all the fun you guys would have together, his friends, his terrible grades. Talk about the girl you think he has a crush on, act like you’re not upset when she comes up in conversation. Secretly stalk her on Facebook. Stop talking for a few months because he has lacrosse and can’t go to Hebrew school. Submit your private school application.
Go to summer camp for seven weeks. Be accepted to the school. Text him and tell him. Talk to him for a long time. Get excited when the red light starts blinking on your Blackberry—hope it’s him. Fall asleep waiting for him to respond every night. Tell him about your fears, your insecurities. Feel special when he comforts you.
Text him the day before school starts and ask—for the millionth time—what time you need to get to the bus. Be put in the same advisory group at school. Be in his World Religions class. Be friends with his friends. Take a bunch of selfies with him on the bus. Sit next to him every morning at Morning Meeting. In the winter, tell him yes when he asks to “be a thing.” Have conflicting feelings. Develop a crush on someone else. Be a “thing” and never kiss. Hope that he doesn’t try to make a move on the bus because your sister is “only two seats away!” Know that that isn’t the only reason. Tell him you want it to be more natural, whatever that means. Get uncomfortable with the thought of putting your lips on his. Accidentally send a Snapchat that says I don’t want to be with ___...to him. Make up a BS excuse that you weren’t talking about him exactly, a different boy. Get angry at yourself for sounding so stupid. End your “thing” after a week. Apologize. Stop talking for a few days. Don’t sit next to him at Morning Meeting. Be awkward on the bus.
Be friends again two weeks later. Sit next to each other on the bus, at Morning Meeting. Watch funny YouTube videos together. Play games on the bus together. Hang out after school together a lot. Be best friends. Love his company more than anyone else’s. Catch him when he's looking at you, just smiling. Tell people, “No, we’re not dating!” when they ask, which is pretty much every day. Go to Washington D.C. together in February for a Hebrew school thing. Don’t think about how he feels when you flirt with another guy. He emails your advisor why you’re not at school on Monday. You both get detention for an unexcused absence. Laugh about it together. Go to basketball games together. Walk to town together. Help him with his math homework. Tell people you’re not dating when they ask.
Come April one day after school he tells you he still likes you, tell him you don’t like him, you just want to be friends. He gets angry at you. He stops going to Hebrew school because he has lacrosse and he has moved to the city. He stops talking to you, stops texting you, stops asking you to help him with his math homework. Decide you need to give him his space. Decide after a month you’ve given him enough space. Try to be his friend. Get upset when he calls you a bitch, when he ignores you in front of other people, when he won’t talk to you at all. Talk shit about him behind his back to Sarah. Find out Sarah told him what you said. Apologize to him and take it all back. Become friends again. Naively make a deal that if you’re both virgins by second semester senior year you guys will do it. Pinky swear on it. Forget about the deal for a little while. Stop going to Hebrew school for a long time because you’re angry at Sarah. Rekindle your friendship with her after a few weeks. Go back to Hebrew school but make him hang out with you so you don't have to talk to Sarah that much. Now you’re practicing for your confirmation, the last step in your Jewish journey. In June finally get confirmed the night before your World History final. Study while you’re on the bimah. Get sad because it’s over.
Finish tenth grade as best friends. Go on a school trip. For “shits n gigs!” kiss, with tongue, a boy on the trip. Get nervous about telling him because you're not sure how he’ll take it. Think about him occasionally. Get angry at yourself for not having feelings for him.
Come home from the trip. Text him and ask how he’s doing. Hang out with him at his new apartment in the city, go to the park, watch all the couples around you. Get nervous he’s going to ask you to kiss him. Avoid eye contact. Go home, wish you had feelings for him. Talk to him for the rest of the summer. Text him all day, fall asleep waiting for him to respond. Laugh at his stupid jokes. Screenshot his Snapchats. In August make him a long birthday post on Facebook.
Start junior year on good terms. Inseparable, always be together. You’re pretty sure your mom thinks you guys are dating. Walk to town with him and his friends. He tells you you’ve “developed in a good way.” Laugh about it for a long time because it’s so weird. Realize you dislike your friends—a lot. Hang out with him and his friends more often. Love his company more than anyone else’s. Catch him when he's looking at you, just smiling. Invite him to your house before someone’s party. Let him shower in your bathroom. He’s the first boy that isn’t family to see your room. Let him stay in the room while you change. Ask him for help with picking out a bra to wear. At the party, ask him if he thinks you should get with another boy, listen to him when he says “definitely not.” Tell people, “No, we’re not dating!” when they ask, which is pretty much every day. Listen to him when he tells you you’re beautiful, but don’t feel better about yourself.
In November he plans a surprise party for your birthday.
On New Year’s Eve, go to Central Park to watch the fireworks with him and a bunch of friends. Invite another boy, Steven, but not because you like him, just because he doesn’t have plans. He says he hates that kid. Take two separate cabs to Central Park. Get lost. Have a hard time finding where the fireworks are going to be. Steven is lost and stranded on a park bench. At eight minutes to midnight, get in a cab with one friend and go find Steven even though he says you shouldn’t, even though he says you can’t, even though he begs you to stay. Four minutes to midnight, find Steven. Sprint to the middle of Central Park and watch the fireworks, the three of you. He isn’t there, you have no idea where he is. He texts you, one minute past midnight, “happy new year.” Think that he might be mad at you, but don’t respond. Dance with your two friends and some thousand other people until 12:45 in the morning.
Text him the next morning saying “Happy New Year!” He doesn’t respond. Get worried. Think about the things you did wrong. In the back of your mind, know why he’s angry. Text him again. And again. And again. Then text him a long apology. A really long apology. He doesn’t respond. Call him. He doesn’t pick up. Text him a bunch of random emojis, hope he might laugh. He calls you. Pick up the phone. Say “Hi!”
Breathe heavily. Collapse on your bed. Feel your heart beat, faster and faster. Replay the sounds of his voice in your mind again, the words he said.
“Stop calling me, stop texting me, never speak to me again.”
Think about how cold he sounded, how he hung up the phone before you were even able to respond. Walk, slowly, to your bathroom. Take off your clothes, turn on the shower. The tears haven’t come yet. Stand in your bathroom, looking at yourself in the mirror. Pretend to wonder what went wrong, but know in the back of your mind that you know the answer. Step into the hot shower. Allow the hot tears to finally fall from your eyes. Put shampoo on your head, don’t have enough energy to rub it all in. Stand there and sob silently for a long time. Allow time to slow down. Curse yourself for not having feelings for him.
Tell your mom what happened. She knows why he got angry, too, but refuse to believe it. She tells you you have to apologize tomorrow, in person. Refuse. Go to your room and cry some more. Delete your Facebook. Delete his number from your phone. Go to bed even though it’s only 9 PM.
Wake up the next morning and smell the fresh scent of cookies right out of the oven. Walk into the kitchen— your mom is wrapping the cookies in a tin can. She tells you to get dressed, that you’re driving into the city to deliver the cookies. Refuse again. Go back to your room and tell yourself you’re over it, he’s being silly. Delete a lot of photos of him from your phone. Start to cry again. Get dressed and sit at your desk. Take out a card and an envelope from your desk drawer. Pick up your pen. Slowly write, “I’m so sorry. Please forgive me.” Go back into the kitchen and tell your mom you’re ready to go. Tape the note to the tin can. Drive with your mom into the city, give the doorman ten dollars to deliver the cookies to his apartment. Drive back home.
Don’t talk to him for the next two months. Be alone often. Hang out with people you don’t like. Cry before you fall asleep. Wish you had feelings for him. Be on his dodgeball tournament team in February, but don’t talk to him too much. Think about him a lot. Wonder about what it would be like to put your lips on his. Tell yourself he’s being a child. Tell yourself you did nothing wrong. Try not to think about the reason he’s so mad.
Go to a party in late February with some new friends. See that he is there, too. Avoid eye contact. You two haven’t spoken for two months. Wonder where the time went. When he is about to leave, he asks if you guys can talk. Say yes. Sit down. Know what’s coming.
“What you did on New Year’s wasn’t bad. I got so angry because…” Pray he won’t say it. Hope he has a different reason. Wish that you’ve been wrong this whole time. “…because I’m in love with you.” Congratulations, you were right. You knew it from the start, everyone knew it.
Say the first thing that comes to your mind, not the thing you’ve been practicing in your mind for two months. “No, you don’t.” Break his heart.
Hug him. He leaves. Wish you had feelings for him.
Nine months later, it is November of your senior year. You’re best friends again. Go between hating him and loving him (as a friend, of course). Dislike the girl he dates, not because you’re jealous, but because you just don’t like her. Convince him he doesn’t like her, because you truly think he doesn’t, and be happy when he breaks up with her. Tell him to stop talking to her, to stop stringing her along. Watch him date other girls. Hate how he treats you when he’s dating another girl. Yell at him for being cocky and rude when he’s with another girl. Get angry at him for not being a good friend. Come back to school the next day and pretend nothing happened.
In November, he plans another surprise party for your birthday.
In December, flirt with each other, not on purpose. Laugh at his crooked smile and his mismatched socks. Tell yourself you’ve developed feelings. Think about his lips touching yours. Tell him you might have feelings. Get his hopes up. Hang out with him after school one day. Pray he doesn’t try to kiss you. Tell him you’ve changed your mind. Break his heart, again.
Kiss a different boy over winter break in December. Open his text the next morning, he’s angry at you. You can do better, he says. Tell him he’s right, even though you’re not sure. Listen to him when he tells you you’re beautiful. Listen to him when he tells you that you two should be together. Tell him you’re sorry.
Kiss the boy again a few weeks later. Remember the deal you and he made a few years ago, he’s already broken it though. Open his text the next morning, he’s angry again. Not angry, he says, just disappointed. You can do better, he says. Make another deal with him. We should be together, he says. Listen to him, tell him you agree, because you really do. Tell him you’re sorry. Tell him he shouldn’t love you. Break his heart, one more time.
Maybe you do have feelings for him, you probably don’t but maybe you do, maybe they’re just hiding. Maybe, hopefully, you just can’t see them.
Crave those feelings.