Sometimes the best way to avoid an awkward situation is to run away and never look back.

I stayed up all night listening to a boy reading me scary stories online once. He’d read them to himself then summarize the best ones over AIM. He told me it was because he couldn’t sleep and for him reading was the best cure. I believed him and read every story he sent. When the night was over he asked me if I would watch the sunrise with him. I said I was too tired and instead went outside to watch the sunrise with the boy on the other end of my telephone.

He showed me his notebook when I came to class early one afternoon and was the only one in the room. I was surprised he would show me love poems. Outside of Instant Messenger I had never talked just to him and would have expected poetry to be too intimate an ice breaker. Eddy showed them to me, though, and I read them. They were awkwardly graphic. I lied when I complimented the eyes/thighs end rhyme and told him I thought he should show them to the girl they were written for. He slammed the book shut when a classmate walked in and scurried out of the room.

I forgot about the poetry until a few weeks later when he came to me with a new poem. I told him what I liked and didn’t like about it and he told me he would keep working on it. I thought that’s what he wanted. I thought that’s why he kept bringing them to me.

Valentine’s Day didn’t even occur to me when he told me he had something for me. I don’t celebrate Valentine’s Day. It’s just not my thing. I don’t celebrate Valentine’s Day, but I did that year unexpectedly when Eddy made good on a promise I had forgotten he made online late one night.

Leah and I were sitting in our usual spot outside the classroom before the bell. A few of the lockers around us were decorated for Valentine’s Day with red paper and pink balloons. Eddy hesitated next to one of these lockers before setting his jaw and coming towards us. Confused, I watched him as he came closer, picking up the pace the nearer he got until literally breaking into a run. He reached into his bag and we suddenly understood each other for the first time as he pulled out a red velvet heart-shaped box. At that point we both knew it was too late and the only thing to do was hurl the box at my feet and bolt down the hall without a word or a second glance.

I picked up the box and knew I couldn’t justify my surprise. So I slid it quietly in my bag before walking into class. Eddy came in fifteen minutes late and sat across the room facing the wall.

It was an entire year before he spoke to me again. After I left for school and had spent a few months living across the country he popped up online one night just to say a quick hello, wish me a happy Valentine’s Day, and tell me about his new girlfriend.