Clara

I thought about what I would say to Clara almost every day on the bus after school. We knew each other for about a year since I transferred into 6th grade. We were both shy. We talked a lot on Facebook and a little in real life. 

I never fantasized about touching her. Only that abstract, innocent form of love, the Disney Channel Original Movie kind. On April Fools, I messaged her proposing she be my girlfriend. I quickly retracted this request — it was April 1st, 2010. Little did I know I would be moving to Hawaii in two months. The joke was on me.

The joke continued to be on me when I visited Boston in 2020, which is where Clara happened to be going to college, ten whole years later. For some reason I thought she’d grow out of her shyness like I had. For some reason I thought we might still have something in common, some magic chemistry, the kind you only have with people from your past. There was none. She likes KPOP now. We will never speak again.