My name is Carson, fourteen and still single. And I’ve always been that way.

I was in my bed one day, on my phone, when my friend—Kyra—texted me.

_Okay but like_

_Did my hair look better straight or curled_

My heart skipped a beat. For a while now I’ve liked Kyra, and she’s been embedded to my thoughts like a virus to a computer. I saw her on the TV, she was in my dreams, I was restless without her.

How should I respond? She usually has curly hair, but she straightened it today and it was beautiful. But how do I tell her without giving it away?

_It was rlly pretty, it caught my attention_

Was that okay?

_Thx, I like it like this_

I’ll take that as a yes

We started texting for a while, though I was texting more. Then again, I send a word every text so maybe she’s just not that type of texter.

My friends knew I liked her, I was guilty of telling so many. Valentine’s was coming up to, and our Valentine’s dance at school too was on the same Friday. What are the chances? Maybe the stars were all aligned and this was my time with her. Maybe fate would play out.

I spent the next few days thinking of our texts. She wanted _my_ opinion. Maybe she liked me a little too.

My friends all tried making me ask her out, but I said I had to wait, I didn’t know when to ask her for sure.

I watched as the days accumulated. Days passed and passed and Valentine’s was just next week. It was Tuesday now, and I was still not ready to ask her, but my friend told me she’d say yes if I asked her to the dance.

This wasn’t exactly confidence-boosting, but it was enough to make part of me ready.

My palms were sweaty, my neck was throbbing, my eyes could barely stay open because of the amount of light in my eyes. She wanted leaving the lunch line, pizza in hand and another empty hand. In the next twenty minutes I thought maybe that hand will be holding mine.

I watched as she came over, she looked at my friend and had a shy smile. So she did like me! YouTube always told me that was an obvious sign.

She was walking the other way though, and my friends were pushing me—literally—towards her.

“K—Kyra?” I asked as I approached her. She looked at me and had a smile. I just wanted to get this over with. Why was it so hard just to ask?

“Yeah, Carson?” she asked me slowly.

“S—so like. Can you be my valentines?” Immediately something felt off. My words escaped my mouth and stabbed mini swords into the roof of my mouth, marking that this was a mistake. Suddenly everything went black except her, and we were in solitude. Alone.

“Oh.” Her smile faded into an empty stare. “Walk with me.”

I followed her, at her side as she looked to the ground.

“So like, I don’t see you as anything more than a friend,” she said, trying to hide her laughter. My stomach sank deeper than the Titanic. Suddenly buildings arose around us, just to be demolished by the air and fall all around us. “I’m sorry but you’re just not my type.”

“O—oh. Oh yeah that’s okay.” It was not okay. “See you later.” I held my sweaty-hand out for a dap up, receiving a pitiless one.

“Wait can we still be friends though?” she called back. I stopped in my speed walk, turning my head to the side.

“Sure.”

Regrouping with my friends and even just random people from classes who decided to watch, they were all around me like a swarm, asking what happened.

“What’d she say?”

“What’d you say?”

“What happened?”

The words were coming at me like knives, each one a stabbing reminder of what I’d never have.

“She said no.” That silenced everyone as all their eyes widened. My friend, who asked his crush out earlier—she said yes—looked at me and patted my shoulder.

“What did you say?” The same friend who said she’d say yes grabbed my shoulders tightly. He looked freaked out, piercing-blue eyes wide, his skin was paler than usual, and his body-language read he was distressed.

“I asked her to be my Valentine like you said!” I said, a bit loudly and a bit irritated. However everyone had a collective gasp and my friend looked at me like I committed blasphemy.

“What…What!” he shouted, shaking me vigoursly.

“What do you mean?! You told me to say that!” I argued back.

“I said ask her to the dance! Not to be your Valentine!” He ran his hands through his hair, shaking with every breath. “Do you understand what you’ve done! Now my friendship with her is going to be destroyed!”

_So that’s it? That’s all you care about? Not your friend who just got rejected?_ a voice in my head said, not wanting to say it out loud.

I was quiet the next few hours. Every word still hurt.

I went home silent, slamming onto my bed and putting my AirPods in. Why couldn’t I just hold someone’s hand? The same happened with the last girl, but she hasn’t stopped calling me a creep because I liked her and I’m not what she would call “pretty enough”.

I was poor. I was poor because I couldn’t buy her love. I couldn’t pay for trust between my friends. I couldn’t pay for anything.

Everything was falling into place. My place in the world? To be loveless for the rest of my life.

That’s all I’m made for.