“So you never really got over Oliver, did you?” he asked.

“I’m completely over him.” I spat a little more poisonously than I should have, but he paid no mind. He looked at me, his wide eyes contradicting me in a way that screamed, “If you were over him, then why did you spend so long just looking at him?” but he didn’t verbalize these feelings because I’d only retaliate and make the situation worse. He continued on.

“So you tell yourself that you don’t care about them, or what they do,” he paused to lick his lips against the cool wind that made me dig my hands into my pockets. “But in reality, you can’t really go that far to say. No matter how they may have hurt you, you still hold some place for them in your heart however small you might tell yourself that space is. For example, even though you hate Victoria from all she’s put you through, and your sudden realization of such, you still would never wish death or misfortune upon her, would you?” He cut his pause short, not allowing me time to answer, as if he saw the fists balling up in my pockets. ”No, I know you and you’re better than that, but I don’t trust the judgements you’d make in anger. But with all reasoning, you still had good times with her and if she didn’t turn out to be such a villain, you’d enjoy those moments in memory.” He paused for breath, and to reorganize his thoughts once more, like a speaker on a stand looking over his cue cards again.

“The same goes for those you fancy, but to a somewhat higher degree. Somewhat, though, because when you look back on this moment later on in life, you probably won’t feel like this whole crush process was a big deal. But, anyways, when you have a crush on someone, the mixture of serotonin and dopamine and adrenaline – it gives you the sort of high that drug users constantly seek. It’s such a valuable feeling, but knowing exactly how it makes us feel makes us exaggerate our emotions and call it love.” If I wasn’t paying attention, I wouldn’t have noticed his voice drop the smallest of pitches. “But it’s not love, it’s just a teenage phase. You don’t need to worry about Oliver, or Connor, or whomever your hormones may drive you to lust after, because the scariest thing I think about life is –” Sebastian exhaled and took another breath in, it was shaky either by the weather or by the stroke of genius he was on. “The scariest thing about life is that I believe no matter what decisions we make today, our futures are set in stone and it’s up to fate...It’s up to fate to decide how we lead our lives. Can you imagine it? This year – no, this chapter of our lives is focused on us and building our futureand learning this base for our education so we can be successful. But then, in this next chapter of our lives, after we’ve gotten our career paths chosen, we’ll find that perfect someone that we may have known for ages, or had never met before, and we’ll marry them. Just think, the person you were created to love is walking around the same ground you are and you don’t notice him. But, yeah, this next chapter of our lives is spent finding this perfect harmony between caring for ourselves and caring for them, and then caring for children, and suddenly you’re your parents – you’ve got to make all the decisions, and you’ve got to learn how to teach these kids to walk, and speak, and do algebra, and understand how lack of serotonin in the brain causes depression – you have to do all of that stuff!”

He stopped talking and I looked at him, he was shaking. He had never opened up to me like that – or at least not in a while. He rarely spoke of his personal philosophy but the complexity of his words, contrasting with the fact that I understood what he had meant to say so well. His appearance made me want to cry – the situation and the fact he had held so many years of thinking from me. He shocked me with a smile.

“I remember when we met – it was ten years ago but it doesn’t seem that long ago! It really makes me think how time moves so fast.” I was glad to see him brighter after that morbid conversation. “Anyways, the point of this is that I know how you feel. I was, and still (sort of) am in that situation and I tell myself all those little facts about dopamine, and all the simple, scientific reasoning behind even the most confusing of human emotions – love – but sometimes I don’t have the patience for common sense – even if it might save me. I don’t have any more patience then than I would have if I had three minutes to jump from a cliff and someone told me to use primary trigonometric ratios to calculate the distance between myself and a ledge to potential safety.

“But I want you to have all of those facts, just in case you need them – in case you’re able to use common sense to reason yourself out of this foolish mess thatis teenage romance, because I’m afraid this stupid heart of mine won’t stop begging for more than it can have, and my brain can’t keep up with the urgency of its beating.”

Although his language was beyond my own, I was used to the poetic, beautiful way with which he spoke. His friendship was a gift that Victoria would never appreciate if she got the chance – thank God she didn’t, and hopefully never would.

“So does that mean you still like Seth?” I asked him, finding the voice to speak, though I cursed how abrupt my voice was, compared to his.

Seb’s eyes were the clearest windows to the soul there ever were; no matter what he was saying or doing, you could clearly see his emotion clearly in his eyes. He was like a fawn, and when he looked at me, I saw sorrow reflected in them. “Yeah,” he answered, finally.