• She watches her best friend, her heart painful with longing, watching as they talk from across the isle in the row of seats in front of her. Watch as painful expressions cross the other girls face, watch, but unable to hear the words. Sees as hurt turns to hope, and, corny as it sounds, she dies a little bit inside to see her best friend with him. He hugs her when he sees her in the halls, and though she knows it's wrong to feel this way about her best friend's boyfriend/ex-boyfriend/boyfriend, she can't help the little squeeze her heart gives when he does. The way she still loves the feel of him holding her despite her armfull of binder and sketchbook, black jacket still half hanging off black clad shoulders.
    But she could never tell her best friend that. If the other girl knew, she'd be mad. Think that she was trying to break them up, even though his step-mother says that they can't be together. It shows how much he likes her, breaking up to appease his step-mother, but caring (loving?) her enough to keep going out on the DL.
    It makes her sad.
    It makes her sad to know that her first Homecoming dance will be spent in a dress already worn by her aunts, dolled up by her mother, watching her best friend dance with the boy who, knowingly or not, holds her heart. Who doesn't know that when he says "I love you" to her, she feels both warm and happy, and cold and sad, knowing he doesn't mean it in the way she wants him to. Who has no clue that she can see them, he and her best friend, together for years and years after, and how badly it hurts.
    And though she likes the other boy well enough, it wouldn't be fair to him. Because he is shorter than the first, and while he hugs her too, it's just not the same. Sure, she can always feel the lingering warmth of his hug, but it doesn't fill her with that warm feeling inside anymore. It's just the outside.
    And to think, she never even liked the boy who holds her heart until he asked her out, and didn't realize the depth of her feelings until he was no longer hers.