biting the clothesline

there’s the boy who seems to maybe like me back—he calls me back to his room (we’re working in his house, and I’ve been vigilantly professional) and asks me if I find him attractive, and I begin to crumble and quake inside—the possibility, the terror—so much, I say, it’s killing me—and then I’m biting the clothesline that hangs before me. he says, I wondered if we might try something. he looks awkward and avoids meeting my eye. you can just say no if it seems weird or whatever to you. and I think, here it is—the moment of truth. and I say, okay, trying to keep my voice steady—it could really go either way—and then I wake up, and it’s lost, unreconciled. and I’ll never know what he was going to suggest.

I’m with thisbe, and she’s showing me something online which involves the guy she has a crush on—and then suddenly there he is, on the screen, seeing us back—and we’re both embarrassed and thrilled, giddy and suddenly regressing to adolescence—and I gesture that thisbe loves him—and she’s gesturing something equivalent about me, I notice, right after I question the kindness or wisdom of spilling these beans—and I’m overwhelmed by how childish we’re both being and fall away from the computer. nothing good or real seems bound to come from this.