Secret Things

If I could have loved anyone, it would have been him. And deep down, in the most secret part of my soul, I know I did.

He was the pastor’s son, he grew up in church, in class beside me. I spent ten days at his parent’s house one time, and he invited me to play video games in his room every afternoon. 

I have Asperger’s, have since I was very young, although it took me many years to come to that realization. I am also asexual, meaning my romantic inclinations are minimal at best. Suffice to say, I was a very strange child, who didn’t really like being touched, and had no idea how to talk to someone. 

But this boy didn’t seem to mind. Our conversations were few and far between, but our silence was not awkward or uncomfortable. It was a peace I have not had in many years. We played games, Mario mainly, and he let me follow him when I was too shy to be by myself. 

Years passed, and though every time I saw him, my heart fell into my stomach, we always seemed to stand at opposite ends of the room. When I got a little older, I tried talking to him. I washed dishes after lunch at church and he always ambled quietly near me, not speaking, but close enough to let me talk to him. 

And time passed that way for a while. We talked more, laughed more, and though I did not enjoy the feelings of butterflies twisting in my gut, I grew accustomed to it. 

For me, that is love. Not the heavy breathing, and wild kisses of passion, but that moment when you are used to that other person, enough to ignore the pain and the shyness, the lump in your throat or the sweating of your palms. 

And I pondered the question of love. Could someone like me, a quiet, awkward girl, with her mind on a million things, none of them being the present. But he was the only one whose eyes I wanted to keep looking into, wanted to never stop looking into.  

And then… he left. Just as quickly as he had appeared in my life, curly hair and piercing blue eyes, he was gone. He told me he would leave, warned me of his imminent disappearance from the halls of church, but somehow I did not believe him. Or at least I did not want to.

And so the last time we spoke in the hall of church, people passing by us, unaware of the turmoil inside me, the storm raging in my chest, I told him I loved him. That last part was only in my head though, because how could I say something I barely understood? How could I just stand in front of him and tell him I had loved him always, loved him as long as I could remember, and if there was anyone that I could have settled down with, despite my difficulties, I would have done so with him. 

But I said none of these things.

“Write me,” was all I told him. 

He smiled and nodded. And that was that. 

The boy never wrote me though. He found someone else, so quickly after he moved that I realized he did not share my feelings. 

He was a ghost in my mind, another character I had created that loved me, that hung around me so we could talk, that smiled at things I said, with eyes that sparkled when they saw me. 

I loved him. In a way I still do. But I know now that he will never know this. It will remain a secret in the crevasses of my soul, a secret hidden beneath the floorboards of my mind. 

I have moved on, it’s true. I’ve thought of no one else as relationship material since. I am happy and content with myself, and all the strangeness therein. And if he were to return, I think I would smile at him, hoping maybe for a smile back. 

But I don’t expect love anymore. I don’t expect him to ever know of my wishes. 

That’s alright, I’ll think as I smile all the brighter, it can be my secret. One only my vision of him knows.