Aiden

I remember that it hurt, looking at him hurt
I have never been the kinda girl who was outgoing but I have always been painfully shy. I remember the day that him and his family moved in across the street. I didn’t know him but in him, I sensed a soul very much like my own, trapped in a seemingly never-ending loop of constant ache. I remember thinking about how beautiful he was, how looking at him hurt and how he would never go for someone like me but I desperately wished that he noticed me. He changed me, he didn’t know it and neither did I at that moment, but he changed me.
That summer I met Aiden, my twin in internal turmoil. I was at the park reading, completely engrossed in my book that I didn’t notice Aiden sit right next to me. He cleared his throat in his attempt to get my attention, I assumed. I looked up at him and felt the entirety of my being freeze. I suddenly became very aware of my breathing and increasingly sweaty palms and prayed that Aiden didn’t notice just how nervous he was making me. "Hey" Aiden said, winking to keep the sun out of his eyes "that book any good?". I told him that it was one of my favourites and that I recommend he read it . "Cool, will do" was his nonchalant reply and we sat there in silence till I told him that I had to head back home. "You live across the street from me, don’t you? I can walk with you" he said and I went weak in the knees because he noticed me, he actually noticed me. We lived about an hours walk from the park and I realized that Aiden wasn’t much for conversation so I took charge and started talking. I spoke about everything, the weather, classes, hobbies, plans for my future, my interests. I realized that for the first time in my life, I met someone that made me feel comfortable, someone I connected with. Even in his silence, Aiden's presence and his non verbal appreciation and interest in the things that I was saying made me feel oddly euphoric. When we got to my place, Aiden said that he had fun and that we should do it again sometime and I told him that we could, only if he promised to do some of the talking, he laughed and promised he would , we said our good nights and went home. Up in my room, I found myself going over the events of that day and that’s when I felt it for the first time, that annoying aching feeling in my heart and that sick feeling in my stomach caused by thoughts of Aiden and I knew that he was going to break me but I didn’t care. I wanted to be in love with him. Looking back now, I did this to myself, completely unprovoked.
The following months after that with Aiden went by in a happy blur. He never really told me how he felt about me and I was too scared to tell him how I felt but it was there, it was there in the way that he looked at me, spoke to me, treated me, and I felt it. A big part of me was content in living in that bubble of constant pain/euphoria, only this time (for the first time in as far as I can remember) the pain was good. While the other more rational, albeit smaller, part of me refused to let go of the possibility that Aiden was just being nice to me, that he was just a nice guy. These thoughts, on days of my all-consuming depression, was almost enough to push me to seek for permanent numbness, to find an end to the constant emptiness and the loneliness and the self-hatred and the self-doubt but at the end of all of that was Aiden. I realise now that he had too much power over me, power that I gave to him too willingly, power that he never asked for or made me feel like he was strong enough or invested enough to handle. It was my fault, all of it. Mine.
Summer ended and the final year of school began for Aiden and I, and the thousands of other teenagers across the world I guess. Aiden fit in immediately, unsurprisingly. He had the very annoying ability to fit in anywhere, people gravitated towards Aiden without him even having to try. While I, like always, felt like an outsider looking in. Before Aiden, my life felt like it was one big out of body experience where I watch myself living but not really living. Final year of high school was a breeze for Aiden and even though I struggled, I didn't mind too much because I had Aiden and honestly, I didn’t feel like I needed anyone else.
The final year of high school began and that’s when my life started falling apart around me. Aiden started dating this girl we both knew. At first, I thought I could be content with being the girl he came to to talk about this girl that he was in love with, be his friend. The more the three of us hung out, on Aiden's insistence, the harder it became for me to be his friend. My pain/euphoric bubble had burst and euphoria was replaced with unyielding pain at the thought of my Aiden in love with someone else. I wanted so much to be happy but I wanted his happiness more and even though it sucked beyond comprehension, I knew he found happiness with her. For awhile I tried to seek solace in the thought of him being happy, that maybe someday I'll find someone else and that it will all be okay. But I didn’t want that, I didn’t want anyone else. In hindsight, it all feels rather dramatic but it is how I felt, Aiden consumed me and he had no idea.
Laying here now on my bedroom floor, on my red soaked rug, looking up at a picture of a smiling Aiden and a happier me �" I realise that it hurt, looking at him hurt.