Half His Age

Chapter 50

My first day back at school, he gives me nothing.

I didn’t expect much. A glance maybe, longing or apologetic, I’d have taken either.

A quick, nondescript compliment on my last homework assignment.

A graze of my shoulder as he passed by me.

Some small gesture indetectable to anyone else, but one that I could load with meaning and possibility and lap up in the privacy of my own mind.

One that would confirm all that we shared, all that we were.

Or even just that we were anything at all.

But instead, nothing. He’s gone cold. Completely unyielding. He looks over me, through me, but never at me. And I sit in my plastic chair, destroyed.