Don't Hate the Player

by Shelby Elizabeth

I don’t know how he can get under my skin so easily.

It’s the first time I’ve truly wanted to play the piano, and it makes me wonder why pain and music are so incredibly tightly bound.

I can’t get a read on Eli. I thought he was just a jerk at first, but now I don’t think he means to come off that way at all. It seems like he doesn’t realize some of the things he says so bluntly are mean. If he used his head more, he would know . . . unless he really has no idea how to socialize.

I remember trying to decide how to grab the sunlight—whether, if it could be captured, it would be more like snowflakes or raindrops. Maybe it would feel like fire, and look like a reverse mist. Tangible. Warm. I’d decided it would be like drops of brilliant energy; small, energized matter that pooled like a liquid and emanated heat from its very core, but never burned. Warm light you could hold whenever you wished, that left you relaxed but full of energy. I’d told my uncle my idea once, thinking it would make him smile.

I look up to meet his eyes. How can he go from completely irritating one second to so far from it the next?

He’s stuck by me more than the mandatory practices Coach assigned us. No one’s stuck by me like that before.

He’s pretty much my opposite in that way, and though I don’t like it, I find myself staying close to Jack the entire time and using him as a reference for what to do.

Motion at the door draws my eye, and I see Jack’s blond head. The air stirs when he walks into the room, the scent that always clings to him mingling with the stale classroom environment and giving it life. It’s fresh air and sun-warmed grass, turned up earth and wildflowers, and I feel a sense of longing in my chest. He smells like the outside. He always smells like the outside, whether it’s this warm, drowsy daytime scent like now or the colder, brisk clarity of nighttime. It’s as if nature surrounds him. I want to be out there now, experiencing it myself. Since this teasing scent is all I can get of the outside at the moment, I’m grateful he walks in and comes over to me.

He’s an embodiment of the sun, full stop.

I’ve just never had a friend before, I tell myself. I’m sure friends can think of each other as innocent and endearing, and feel whole whenever they’re around in a way they never have before, and wonder if their hair is as soft as it looks . . . Damn. One too far even to fool myself. I need to be careful from now on. I can’t risk letting him take any more of my heart than he already has. I can’t deny I sometimes think of Jack more fondly than I should, but it can never be more than this, odd moments of silent admiration. I can’t let myself start to fall in love with someone who couldn’t possibly love me back.

Jack has no idea how vibrant he is today.

He truly has no idea of the effect he has on people. On me most of all.

“It’s the scars you can’t see that hurt the most.”

I’ve equated Jack to the sun since the moment I met him. Everything about him conveys brightness and warmth and light. In this moment, when he’s standing in my kitchen, standing as tall as he can with his eyes drilling into my uncle, his face flush with rage, I realize he truly is like the sun, in all its aspects. The sun isn’t always gentle and pleasant. In harsher, desert climates, it blazes and burns everything in its path, blinding in its fury and scorching in its power. That’s Jack right now, emanating a fierce kind of radiance as he stands there like a solar flare, aiming his devastating brilliance at my uncle.

Maybe I just need to show him how I feel. I don’t know if he can tell how thoroughly he’s imprinted himself on me. Maybe if I can be sure he knows it, and I can see his reaction, it won’t be so painful to wonder what it could be like. I’ll know if it’s possible or not. If this is one-sided or not.

“You don’t need permission to feel, Eli. You can feel any way you want, about anyone. You can feel multiple ways about a person, all at the same time.”

You’re so much brighter together.”

“The day we met, at the summer tournament, you were dressed all in orange, and you were so bright and fast. It isn’t just running, though. It’s your personality. You’re so warm and vibrant, full of energy. I can’t help but feel better when I’m around you. You’re my sun.”