Passing Glance

By Kayla Wittyngham

I pass him in the hallway every couple days and try to catch his eyes so that I can remember exactly what shade of blue they are.

I could go cliché but it’s not my fault that I remember them as Sunday morning skies, streaked with streams of airplane trails, the ocean in July, crisp, crashing, and darker the deeper you go, two sapphires glimmering in a glass case, polished and shiny.

Today, they were more like the Internet Explorer logo at the bottom of my desktop. a Frost Glacier Freeze Gatorade after cardio. a crinkled wrapper on one of the Zephyrhills water bottles I’ve collected on my dresser.

Some days his eyes are Superman’s tights. a Ravenclaw Quidditch uniform, Eleven’s windbreaker in Stranger Things.

No matter how hard I try, how long I sit and think, how many familiar things I try to compare them to, I cannot remember what his eyes look like.

In quiet moments, I remember when we used to talk. I recall the calmness in his eyes. They were always so cool and measured. I remember when we would glance at each other for fleeting moments in between conversations, spending every second we could stand memorizing each others’ features. And I try to remember the exact color of his eyes

because the last time I saw them, the last time I truly saw them, was when we used to be friends.

If I could have his attention for even just a half a second, I would ask him why he hides his incredible eyes from me. If he could have his own choice and not have to succumb to the pressures of high school, if he could have anyone, would he glance my way, at the sweet girl from church who doesn’t do sex and drugs and alcohol? I would ask him what he didn’t see in me that he saw in countless other girls who actually enjoyed breaking his heart. I see him and I see memories of a friendship doomed before it started; a kid like him and a kid like me don’t often become friends outside of Disney Channel movies.

If anyone should be bitter, it should be me.

And yet, somehow, Whenever I pass him in the hallway every couple days, I find it curious that he is always the one who looks away.