The wind blew the hair out of my face and softly whipped my ears as I carefully walked down the hill to the park. I sat on one of the rusty swings that were swaying slightly in the breeze. My iPod was all the way up but still enjoyed the peace and quiet. The only people in the park were the people on the basketball court. They seemed miles and miles away. Even though I couldn’t hear the pang of the basketball hitting the concrete court, the sound rand through my head anyway. I let my eyes slowly scan the landscape of the park. Finally, I found what, or more like who, my eyes had been yearning to see.

There he was, running across the court, almost a whole 6 feet tall. His short hair bounced on his head as he ran up to the basket, took a shot, and missed. i finally realized I had been staring and quickly ripped my eyes away, scolding myself silently. I got up from the swing and without really realizing my feet were moving, made my way over to the basketball court where he was playing by himself.

“Hey.” I said, but not until I got right to where he was standing. He replied with his own semi-nervous sounding “Hey”. The next few minutes were silent and awkward. The only sounds were the slight rustling of the fallen leaves that lay under the trees.

“Do you wanna go for a walk?” he’d asked. He’d acually startled me because I had been so focused on the silence. When my brain finally registered what he said, I became overly excited, but I definetly couldn’t let it show. See, this wasn’t any random guy. this was the guy that I had liked for a couple of years now. So the idea of him and I going on a walk was definetly a big deal.

“Sure.” I quietly replied, trying to keep my voice even, and not let it portray any specific emotion. He grabbed the basketball and I followed him up the sidewalk away from the park. We ended up walking all the way down town, then we looped back around and ended up walking along the bank of the creek. We sat in the soft Autumn sun and skipped rocks until the sun slowly started to retreat behind the mountains, leaving the sky brilliant oranges, reads, and pinks.

We had walked away and hadn’t really talked about anything serious. Just casual chatter. Even though his tall, skinny, toned body was sitting right next to me, the whole afternoon seemed like a dream. I don’t think I could’ve been anymore happy.

“I think I should probably head home.” I put on most depressed face. I never wanted this evening to end. But, what he said next made going home all the more easy.

“Oh, okay. I’ll walk you.” He hopped up and gently took my hand and started to lead me up before I could object. It took all the strength I had in my face not to smile. I started to wonder wether I acually would’ve objected or not.

We took the longest way possible home. We held hands the entire walk home. I was so happy, words would’ve been an insult. They’re was just no describing it. I couldn’t wait to tell my friends what had happened. When we reached my front steps, I stood on my tip toes to reach my full height of 5 feet and lightly kissed his cheek. I pulled away and we both wore huge grins and didn’t say a word. It would’ve ruined the moment. He squeezed both of my hands and slowly walked away.

I was shaking violently because of how happy I was. I skip-hopped up the steps and quickly went in the house. I went up the stairs and into my bedroom to retrieve my cell phone. There was one message flashing on the screen. It was blank except a single smiley face. I didn’t even need to check who it was from. I changed my clothes and layed down in bed to get some sleep, but the buzzing in my head was way to loud, and i was way to excited for tomorrow.



The next day was Monday, which meant school. My usual groggy, Monday-morning self was no where to be seen. I was bouncy and full of energy. Yesterday had been amazing. I’d always thought that when we’d occasionally hung out before, he had been hinting at how he really felt. Yesterday seemed like a confirmation. So I got on the bus and rode to school, lost in the memories of yesterday.

I was happy and excited for the new day, or atleast until I walked off the bus and saw the boy of my dreams sitting and laughing and holding hands with another girl on a bench in the lunch area. My face twisted up and I felt as though I had just fallen a thousand feet. But as my anger and disappointment welled up, I watched the girl that was squashing my happiness. She was prancing around and flipping her hair and fake laughing and I realized: I had done the same thing. I realized that I had been acting so fake, putting on such an elaborate false sheraid, that even if he had been my friend, or even liked me, it wasn’t the real me. It was just a false faccade.

So when I walked up to my bestfriends and they asked “Whats the matter?” with concerned expressions plastered on their faces, I glanced back at the fake love birds perched on the bench and said with a smile “Nothing. Absolutely nothing.” And we walked into our first period class.