There's something poetic in the numbered red bubbles being called 'badges,' but I haven't figured out how to put that to use yet...
Hello, I did something stupid today. Marginally so, in the scope of things, but still.
Think back to the days of linoleum classroom floors and notes slipped between the bars of dented lockers. Back then, this would have been a tactic. A game. A way to test how long we could both go playing chicken, waiting for the other’s thumb to flinch and hit the send button.
A decade later and I’ve grown more impatient with time. I’ve talked to you about this before, there isn’t much we haven’t talked about. Patience isn’t a virtue I possess and a college education with too much control over arbitrary things like my degree and how much ice cream I can eat in a day left me out of practice with waiting. So, now, I don’t play games anymore. I don’t put affection to the test like it’s something one can measure. Like the couple of times I polished off a bottle of wine on my own, I outgrew putting myself in positions that left me too hungover to enjoy the morning. Waiting isn’t my friend anymore than tannins are.
But today, I hesitated. I stumbled back. Today, I felt myself as I did then, insecure and watchful.
Although I’m too old for notes with “check yes or no,” I’m still pretty young in this affection. I’m in the early stages of love, a heart stained pink, give it time and who knows, maybe it’ll turn red enough to match the shade of a notification bubble. I wasn’t trying to get a temperature on your levels of love, I was trying to cool mine.
You spoil me, even when I’ve convinced myself that affection is better left untyped. Tall letters, a HELLO, flashes up on the screen to match the smile my face. Hi there, you have thoughts, and for some reason, you’ve decided I’m just the person you want to talk to about them.
The great thing about getting old and stupid is that you realize you’ll never figure everything out. There isn’t an encyclopedia that’ll explain why I’m the one you chose, JSTOR doesn’t have journals on this type of thing. But if I trust you, I need to trust your choice, even when I can’t see the reference section at the end of the page.
This was a light message, you saw something on TikTok. It’s funny, the heavy stuff comes in the same way, same font and black text, but in long lines. It fills up the screen, weighs down a hand tired of typing loveless words about parents who may never see me as more than “your close girl who’s a friend.” That’s okay though, because for today, it’s light. Memes and tweets and jargon that makes me feel more millennial than gen Z because you always have to explain the punchline to me. I did something stupid by waiting and you breezed past it. Who needs patience when your shorthand greets me in a pixelated rush, a world on fire and moving too fast, a heart that feels the same?
Three messages later and the world seems lighter. Brighter. Lit up, even.
I wasn’t playing a game, but it feels like I’ve won. Your name is always my favorite prize.
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