Why was it you, when back then you could not even bear the sound of laughter whenever our names were placed side by side? I remember how flushed I was, scribbling a heart with your name so tender, etched by a restless pen on the back door of our school. I thought no one would ever know— the drawing was so small, so hidden. Yet I stood there, behind the wall, when you arrived with someone else. You grew so defensive, so quick to deny, though it was nothing but a friend’s jest over that tiny heart. And I was struck by a bitter truth: you wanted it erased, as if it were a shame to be tied to me. But I knew my place. Now that we are grown, I see who you’ve become. And I question my younger heart— why it ever longed for you. Back then you were neat, so sweet, yet now you are someone else entirely. And strangely, I am glad. For what if it had been real? I can’t imagine us together— you and I, in this present time, our visions too far apart to ever intertwine.