“...I just really, really like you,” he finished. And it took me a moment to catch up. I had been stuck on the volume of his voice: he had confessed at a normal volume for any other person, I guess. For him, it may have been loudly; for me, it was slightly louder than his usual soft-spoken decibel. That was different.

And now he stared at me. I had always seen his expression as kinda sleepy: half-lidded eyes; semi-neutral expression. But today, in this moment, I realized that was wrong. They may have always been open mirrors when they stared at me. Hopeful. Full of the feeling of liking someone a lot.

Dangit.

I didn’t think there was enough time for questions. Why did he like me? What did he see that made him like me? Why did he longer not just want to be friends? What *was* it that had made him decide to cross the line between the classroom tiles that made him think he liked me?

Didn’t he realize he and I were opposites? I was loud and got in trouble for talking too much in class, and he was mainly quiet and drew anime? That me talking to him was just talking? That I was just saying his name? That while he considered the possibility of liking me the way a 12-year old-boy likes a fellow 12-year-old girl, I had finished doing the math and science and concluded that I didn’t feel the same? And that me not feeling the same was why we were friends?

I looked at him looking at me with...expectations.

And saw that what I was about to say was going to be hard.

“Sorry, but I don’t like you like that.”