Well...This Is New - 37

Last night, I asked Paul what all the fuss during lunch was about. I asked him about telling me not to walk so close to him.
He told me it was all a joke.
Earlier in the year, when he'd found out about my feelings for him, he'd actually done that stuff. I'm haunted by memories of his angry face snapping at me to not sit next to him, to not be near him, to not walk so close to him.
I reminded him about all of that and he told me that that was when he'd realized how serious it was...but now he didn't mind.
He said he's accepted it. And then he told me I needed to get over it.
"It's been a year," he said. "It's time to stop waiting for the derailed train."
I just listened, trying desperately to smile even though my eyes were stinging. I'd already cried once that day, I didn't need to again.
"I know you like need a guy and everything, but I can't be your boyfriend," he went on. "We're like brother and sister...you can't love your brother. That's too weird. You need to move on to other people, because you're not going to get anything from me. I love you, but not like that. I mean, don't get me wrong..."
I pressed my lips together, swallowing hard.
Tried to swallow all of the pain, the confusion, the hurt, and don't forget love that was almost choking me.
"I'll see you tomorrow."
He asked me if I was okay, and I said I was fine. Then I closed my eyes and tried to take deep breaths.
"I'm going to go crazy," I thought, shaking my head, trying to blink back the second flood of tears that was trying to surge out of my eyes. "I can't keep loving this boy and him acting like he loves me...and then...telling me he doesn't."
The tears were threatening to conquer.
"I can't listen to him telling me about our family on Sims and calling him every day to make him happy and spending so much time with him and I can't handle him holding my hands and my arms, putting his arm around me, doing all of that stuff...and then...him telling me..."
I couldn't think. My throat burned.
"I don't know how I'm going to see him tomorrow," I thought, feeling almost sick to my stomach. "How am I going to look at him when he's hurting me so much?"
But I knew that I had to. The last time I avoided him, he got incredibly angry.
He told me he shouldn't have to suffer because of my feelings for him.
He told me that I can't distance myself from him in order to get over him.
"That's not fair to me, and you know you won't be happy if you do," he'd said.
He was right.
And yet...I...I'm not sure I'm so happy when I'm with him, either.
I don't know. I just don't know anymore.