Zeanne hates me.

And I definitely think she does...

For some reason, my classmate has always looked at me like I've done something unforgivable. But strangely, I don't mind it. She still stays around me somehow.

Whenever our eyes meet, she glares. Then somehow she looks at me all the time with a glare, and then we bicker out of nowhere.

I don't even know how our arguments start. One second we're minding our own business. The next, we're already annoying each other. It's almost like we have some kind of invisible competition that neither of us remembers signing up for. We argue over the smallest things, and somehow everyone around us has already gotten used to it. My friends don't even react anymore which is unusual. They just sigh and continue whatever they were doing.

One time she got mad because I borrowed her chair. It wasn't even her chair.

Another time she called me an idiot for lending someone a pen. I still don't understand that one.

She also has this habit of acting like she knows exactly what I'm about to do. Sometimes she answers my questions before I even finish asking them. Other times she tells me not to do something seconds before I actually decide to do it. It's weird... almost suspicious.

And every time we pass each other in the hallway, I get this weird feeling. Like I've seen that expression before.

Odd to think I've seen it before.

Sometimes I catch her looking at me when she thinks I'm not paying attention. The moment I notice, she looks away. Neither of us says anything during those moments. It's just... silence. A strange kind of silence that feels heavier than it should. Then someone eventually clears their throat or walks between us, and whatever that moment was disappears.

Other times, she just keeps staring.

I usually end up staring back.

Then one of us gets annoyed and leaves.

Mostly her.

Did I do something wrong?

I've asked myself that question more times than I can count.

As far as I know, I've never offended her. I've even tried asking her directly.

She just stared at me for a few seconds and walked away.

For some reason, she looked more upset after I asked. Which only confused me even more.

There are other weird things too.

Sometimes she says my name before I even realize she's talking to me. Sometimes she starts a conversation and then leaves halfway through.

And once, I caught her looking at an old class photo. The moment she noticed me, she hid it and told me to mind my own business.

Wait, does she like me? That doesn't sound right. She's not my type anyway and I definitely I'm not her type either.

Honestly, she's impossible to understand.

Ah, maybe I know the reason she hates me.

Not long ago, she asked to take a picture with me.

I said no.

She looked disappointed for the rest of the day.

Maybe she's still mad about that.

Though...

For some reason, every time I think about it, it feels like that wasn't the answer she wanted.

‎I hate Leeron.

‎I hate how he always looks so carefree.

‎I hate how he always looks confused whenever I glare at him.

‎I hate how he keeps asking if he did something wrong.

I hate how he looks at me with such a smile that it's irritating.

I hate that I have to see him everyday.

No matter how many times I tell myself to stop looking, my eyes always find him anyway. It's annoying. It's exhausting. I wish I could just ignore him like everyone else does. But somehow, the more I try, the more impossible it becomes.

‎Sometimes he catches me staring at him.

‎Then he gives me that confused look.

I want to slap him.

‎And I hate how he acts like everything is normal. And every day, I hate him a little more.

‎Not long ago, he asked me why I hated him.

‎I wanted to answer.

‎But I couldn't.

‎So I stared at him and walked away.

There are words sitting in my throat that refuse to come out. Every answer I could give would mess everything up in the wrong way. I can't tell him, not ever. Every explanation sounds impossible and too much for me to bare. So I stay silent, hoping he'll stop asking before I completely fall apart.

‎Sometimes I wonder if it'd be easier if I hated him for real.

‎Maybe then my chest wouldn't hurt every time I looked at him..

‎Maybe then I wouldn't keep watching him from across the classroom.

‎Maybe then I wouldn't care.

‎But I do.

‎That's why I hate him.

‎I hate him because he was mine first.

‎And now, I'm becoming a stranger to him.

.....

‎He's forgetting me...

‎If I knew this would happen, then I shouldn't have loved him.

‎And I hate him for doing this to me.

I hate that he made me love him.

‎Yet, I wish I really did hate him...

‎They already told us what would happen.

The moment I heard it...

‎Little by little.

‎Piece by piece.

‎Until there's nothing left.

‎Leeron doesn't know.

‎He still laughs.

He still smiles.

He still shines.

‎Still complains about school.

Still acts like everything is normal.

‎Still plans for tomorrow.

‎As if tomorrow belongs to him.

‎But I know the truth.

And the moment he woke up and slowly forgot about me...

was the moment everything fell apart.

‎I hate Leeron.

‎Every day, he's forgetting a little more.

‎I was too overwhelmed and frustrated that I couldn't face him with a happy smile like i usually do... So yes.

‎I hate Leeron.

.....

‎He doesn't have much time soon.

I hate that he's leaving...

I can't bear this. I'm slowly losing my mind. I hate that I don't know how to handle this..

‎And I hate that there's nothing I can do except to watch as he slowly let's go.

‎I hate Leeron.....

I heard the front door click open at exactly 4:15 PM today.

Like every other day this month, I froze in the kitchen. I didn't want to turn around too fast. I didn't want to scare her or make her feel like I was inspecting her face the second she walked through the door.

But I looked anyway. I always look.

Zeanne was standing on the welcome mat, her shoulder slumped under the weight of her school backpack. Before she even lifted her head, I saw her sleeve move. She wiped her eyes quickly, rubbing her knuckles against her eyelids until they were probably red, trying to scrub away any proof that she had been crying on the walk home.

Then, she looked up. And she smiled.

It’s a smile that breaks my heart every single time. It doesn't reach her eyes at all. It’s just a mask she puts on so her father and I won't ask questions.

"Hey, Mom," she said. Her voice sounded a little thick, a little raspy, but she tried to keep it bouncy. "Smells good. What’s for dinner?"

"Just chicken," I said, trying to keep my own voice completely normal. "How was school?"

"Fine. Just regular stuff. I have a lot of homework, so I'm going to head upstairs for a bit."

She didn't wait for me to answer. She just hurried up the steps, her sneakers dragging heavily against the carpet. A few seconds later, I heard her bedroom door click shut. Not slammed. Just closed quietly, like she was trying to disappear.

My husband came home from work an hour later. The first thing he did when he walked into the kitchen was look up at the ceiling, toward her room. He didn't even have to ask. He just looked at me, and I gave him a small shake of my head.

*Not a good day,* that shake meant. *Another bad day.*

Dinner was completely silent. Zeanne sat across from us, pushing her food around her plate with her fork. She didn't really eat anything. She just moved a piece of chicken from the left side to the right side, pretending to be busy.

"Zeanne" her dad said gently, reaching out a hand. "You need to eat a little bit. You look tired."

She forced that fake smile again. "I'm okay, Dad. Honestly. I just had a big lunch at school. I'm just really focused on this history project."

We both knew she was lying. We knew there was no big lunch, and there probably wasn't a history project making her look that exhausted. The thing draining the life out of our daughter wasn't schoolwork. It was Leeron.

Later that night, around midnight, I couldn't sleep. I got up to get a glass of water, and as I walked past Zeanne’s room, I stopped. The hallway was freezing, but I just stood there, holding my breath, listening.

From inside her room, I heard it. It was a muffled, choking sound. She was burying her face in her pillow so we wouldn't hear her break down. It wasn't just regular crying. It sounded like she was suffocating under the weight of it all.

I reached my hand out to touch the doorknob. I wanted so badly to twist it, to walk in there, to pull her into my arms and tell her that everything was going to be okay.

But I didn't. Because I knew I would be lying.

Everything wasn't going to be okay. Leeron’s mother had called me weeks ago, crying so hard she could barely breathe, telling me what the doctors had said. His mind was slipping away, erasing his life piece by piece, and he didn't even realize it yet.

And the worst part? Zeanne had to go to school every single day, sit in the same room as the boy she loved, and watch him look at her like she was just some random classmate he couldn't understand.

She couldn't tell him at all, she wanted to but couldn't. She had her own reasons.

I walked back to my bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed, burying my face in my hands. My husband woke up and just wrapped his arms around me.

"She's crying again," I whispered into his shoulder. "She looks at us and smiles, but she's drowning. She's completely drowning and she won't let us help her."

"I know," he muttered, his voice cracking in the dark. "I know. But she's trying to be strong for him. If she breaks down here, she won't have the strength to face him tomorrow."

It's a terrible thing, watching your child break in slow motion. You want to fight whatever is hurting them. If it was a bully, or a bad grade, or a scraped knee, we could fix it. But how do you fix a broken heart when the person who broke it doesn't even remember why he's doing it?

Every morning, she puts on her uniform. She stands in front of the bathroom mirror, fixes her hair, blinks back the tears, and walks out the door to go see a boy who is slowly forgetting she ever existed.

And all we can do is watch her go.

The next morning was a Saturday, and the sun was way too bright for how heavy the house felt.

My husband was already downstairs in the kitchen when I came down. He had the griddle out and was making pancakes. It’s what he always does when he’s stressed and doesn’t know what else to do with his hands. He just cooks. He was flipping them over and over, staring down at the stove like it was the most important job in the world.

"Is she up?" he asked quietly, not looking at me.

"I haven't heard her yet," I said, leaning against the counter. "Let's let her sleep. God knows she needs it."

But just as I said that, we heard the floorboards creak upstairs. A few minutes later, Zeanne walked into the kitchen. She was wearing an oversized hoodie—one that looked way too big for her, one I’m pretty sure used to belong to Leeron before everything went wrong. Her hair was tied back in a messy bun, and even though she had probably splashed cold water on her face, her eyes were still swollen and puffy from crying all night.

The second she saw us looking, that mask snapped right back onto her face. It’s terrifying how fast she can do it now.

"Morning," she said, her voice small and raspy. She forced her lips to curve upward into that terrible, fake smile. "Wow, pancakes? What’s the occasion?"

Her father swallowed hard, trying to keep his face completely normal. "No occasion, kiddo. Just figured you deserved a good breakfast. Sit down, I'll get you a plate."

She sat at the kitchen island, pulling the sleeves of the big hoodie over her hands. We all tried so hard to act like a normal family on a normal Saturday morning. My husband talked about a weird noise the lawnmower was making while I talked about wanting to clear out some old boxes in the garage. Zeanne nodded along, taking tiny bites of her food, pretending to listen.

But the silence between our sentences was deafening.

I kept looking at her, and my mind kept drifting back to a year ago. Just a single year ago, this kitchen was the loudest place in the neighborhood. Leeron used to practically live here. He would burst through the front door without even knocking, yelling, *"Hello Mrs. Alarcon, what’s for lunch?"* He would tease Zeanne often, steal a piece of bacon off her plate, and she would chase him around the island, laughing so hard she’d cry. They were inseparable. They were so young, so ridiculously in love, and they had this entire universe built just for the two of them.

Now, Leeron was sitting in a classroom a few blocks away, probably wondering why this hopeless girl, who he only thought of as a regular classmate in the same room as him, is avoiding him. And Zeanne was sitting in our kitchen, suffocating on the memories of a boy who was still alive but already gone.

After breakfast, Zeanne muttered something about needing to get some fresh air and left the house to go for a walk. The second the front door clicked shut, my husband dropped his spatula into the sink. He leaned his hands against the edge of the counter, his shoulders shaking.

"I can't do this anymore..." he whispered, his voice cracking. "I can't just sit here and watch her pretend. It's killing her. Did you see her eyes? She looks like a ghost."

"I know," I said, walking over and wrapping my arms around his waist, burying my face in his back. "I know... But what do we do? If we force her to talk about it, she’ll just push us away. She’s trying so hard to hold it together."

"All we can do is be there for her... even if this ends up—"

...

Later that afternoon, while Zeanne was still out, I went upstairs to her bedroom to grab her laundry basket. I didn't mean to snoop. I really didn't. But as I picked up a pile of clothes from her desk chair, I accidentally knocked over a small, faded shoebox she kept tucked behind her school books.

The lid popped off, and everything inside spilled across the carpet.

My heart dropped. It was a box full of Leeron. There were movie ticket stubs from films they’d seen months ago, a dried-up flower from their school dance, a couple of photobooth strips where they were pulling silly faces at the camera, and a handful of crumpled, handwritten notes.

I knelt down on the floor, my hands trembling as I picked up one of the notes. It was written on a piece of torn notebook paper in Leeron’s messy, looping handwriting.

> *Zeanne—*

> *Stop staring at me in history class. You're making me forget all the dates. Just kidding. Don't ever stop looking at me. Can't wait for forever with you. *

> *—L*

A tear hit the paper before I could stop it, smudging the blue ink. *Can't wait for forever with you.* He wrote that before the accident. Before the coma. Before his brain started turning into a blank slate.

And then I saw it. At the very bottom of the box was an old class photo, Zeanne had used a black marker to circle Leeron's face, but the paper around his picture was wrinkled and warped. It took me a second to realize why. It was from her tears. She had sat in the dark, staring at his face, crying over it until the paper ruined.

She wasn't angry at him. She was just a heartbroken eighteen-year-old girl who had been handed the cruelest hand in the world. She was acting mean and pushing him away because looking at him hurt too much. Every time he looked at her with those blank, confused eyes, it was a reminder that the boy who wrote *“can’t wait for forever with you”*, looked at her like a stranger would. Even if his familiar actions towards her was still lingering around.

I carefully put everything back in the box, tucked it behind her books exactly how it was, and walked out of the room.

When Zeanne came home a few hours later, her eyes were red again, and the wind had made her cheeks flush. She walked past the kitchen, gave us that same empty, polite smile, and said, "I'm just going to do some homework before dinner."

"Okay, sweetie," I called out, my throat tight.

My husband and I just sat on the couch in the living room, holding hands in the dark as the sun went down. We are her parents. We are supposed to protect her from the world. But as we listened to her quiet footsteps moving around upstairs, we both knew the truth. There are some monsters you can't protect your children from.

And right now, the monster was time, and it was running out for both of them.