Zac

My name is Zachary Eli Mazur.

I am sixteen years old.

My mom's name is Valerie Pietersen.

My stepdad's name is Jared Pietersen.

I live with my mom and stepdad in Manhattan.

I am a junior at Briarley Prep.

My best friend's name is Wes Evans.

No, I don't have a girlfriend.

And I don't like to talk about my real dad because he's in prison.

These were some of the facts about myself that I shared with Dr. Zhang.

And these were the facts she spit back at me—

I wasn't in New York City.

I was currently admitted as a patient at Wellesley-Newton Hospital in Wellesley, Massachusetts.

I had been involved in a bad car accident.

I sustained several injuries from this accident: Concussions, knee trauma, internal bleeding, and a few broken ribs.

I was likely suffering from selective memory loss due to my head injuries.

By Dr. Zhang's estimate, the scope of my memories seemed only to cover up to my sixteenth birthday.

To date, however, I was seventeen years old.

Which meant there was an entire year of my life missing from my brain. An entire year that I had lived without any knowledge of who I had interacted with, where I had gone, or what I had done.

I also had a neat row of fresh incisions running along my right forearm. Dr. Zhang suspected that these wounds hadn't been caused by the accident. When she pressed me about them, I told her all about my stepdad's psychotic tabby cat, Mr. Boots, who liked to scratch me up for the hell of it.

I was lying, of course.

We didn't own a cat. My stepdad was deathly allergic to those furry little motherfuckers.

At any rate, this was the extent of the information that Dr. Zhang and I exchanged with each other before she left me to wallow in my cloud of confusion.

I stared at the bandages on my arm and frowned slightly. For the life of me, I couldn't remember how I got these new cuts on my arm. I thought I had put that shit behind me. I thought I had promised myself to stop, especially after what happened to Tariq...

My mind flickered.

What the hell was I doing in Wellesley without my mom and stepdad?

And...

Where did Cate Donati go?

Did she leave already?

Damn, it seemed she hadn't even bothered to say goodbye.

My heart ached.

I stopped myself for a fucking minute there.

My heart ached?

The fuck?

My frown deepened. It didn't make any goddamn sense. I wasn't making any goddamn sense. Sure, maybe I had harbored an embarrassingly huge crush on the girl at one point in my life, but we hadn't seen each other or spoken a word since I left Wellesley and moved to New York.

You would think, by now, that my feelings for her would've simmered down.

You would think, by now, that I would've moved on to bigger and better things.

You would think.

But, nope, apparently, one kiss from Cate Donati was enough to send me spiraling back into my pathetic, pining twelve-year-old state of mind. I didn't want her to go. I wanted her to come back because...

Because I liked her again?

Because I missed her?

Because I wanted her to stay with me forever and always like some fucking nutcase?

Jesus Christ.

I was turning into a borderline creep. Or a goddamn simp. I wasn't sure which one was worse. This shit was getting out of control. I need to put a stop to... whatever this was... before I did something stupid.

Like... make a move? Try to get her number?

While I was in a hospital gown?

With a halfway functioning brain and a broken-ass body?

Yeah. Right. Uh-huh.

I groaned out loud at the ridiculousness of my own bullshit. I felt so out of my element. Lost. Frustrated.

Nothing Dr. Zhang had shared with me earlier seemed to provide any insight as to why my old classmate, the smartest and hottest and most badass girl at Ashton Wellesley Academy, had come to visit me in my sorry state.

The not knowing bugged me more than I could ever put into words.

♡♡

My mom flew into Wellesley from New York later that night.

She arrived at the hospital in a pissy mood, and, per usual, she refused to tell me exactly what I had done to piss her off, which, in turn, pissed me off, too.

I decided to ignore her, pretend like everything was fine, until she couldn't hold it in anymore and exploded all over me. Per usual.

In all fairness, though, I was an asshole to her most of the time. Hardly a good son by any stretch of the imagination. Sometimes, when my mom and I were really going at each other's throats, I would silently wish that she had been the one to go to prison instead of my dad. I got along so much better with my dad.

God, I missed him.

Perhaps the only silver lining to my mom's sudden arrival and ever draining presence was...

Cate Donati.

She came back to my hospital room with my mom and brought me a bunch of teddy bears and flowers and shit. I was a little disappointed when she told me that most of the gifts were from our classmates.

From school.

According to my mom and Cate, I had gone back to my old stomping grounds—you know, that hellhole, Ashton Wellesley Academy—for the past semester. For a student exchange program? I mean, that shit made no fucking sense to me, but I just nodded my head, smiled, and went along with it.

Not much about my life, after all, was making much sense right now.

From there, though, fate took an unexpected turn for the better. To my delight and surprise, Cate Donati came back the next day to visit. She helped out with everything my mom and I needed without a word of complaint. Whenever we made eye contact, she smiled sweetly in a way that made me want to pinch myself over and over again. It felt like a dream. A very, very good dream. I couldn't believe that this was the same Cate Donati who used to walk right past me in the hallway without a second glance.

Cate bought us food. Ran errands for us. Did research on everything and anything that had to do with retrograde amnesia. Did more research on the physical and psychological therapies I would need to undergo in the coming months to ensure a smooth recovery. She brought me clean clothes from the apartment that I had been living in. Kept me company. Put up with my mom's crazy demands. And, in general, continually stepped up whenever we needed something from her.

I wasn't going to lie.

That shit really touched me, like, if I wasn't simping over the girl already, at this point, I was pretty much ready to kiss her feet and worship her as my one true goddess. Her presence in the hospital soothed me even while it excited me. All of my feelings for her from middle school—and then some—came flooding back.

They caught me completely off guard and smacked me upside the head like a fucking sledgehammer.

Every time I tried to talk to Cate, get closer to her, flirt with her, though, she seemed to shy away from me. I didn't get the sense that she was turned off by my advances since she always seemed genuinely interested in what I had to say, but the girl definitely had her walls up.

I couldn't help but feel as though she was purposely trying to distance herself from me. The mixed signals she kept sending were driving me crazy. I didn't know whether to back off... or to go harder, like, no-holds-barred, balls-to-the-wall, until I convinced her to look my way.

Man.

Girls were confusing as fuck.

You think you know who you are as a person.

My name is Zachary Eli Mazur.

You think you have all the facts.

I'm a sixteen-year-old mofo who loves Marvel comics, video games, and girls with dark hair and hazel eyes.

Identity is nothing but a collection of facts, after all.

My mom's name is Valerie Pietersen. My stepdad's name is Jared Pietersen. I live with my mom and stepdad in Manhattan. I don't like to talk about my real dad because he's in prison.

I know myself.

I'm a junior at Briarley Prep. My best friend's name is Wes Evans.

Even when the facts feel meaningless without memories and emotions attached to them.

No, I don't have a girlfriend.

Just now, I shared these facts with Dr. Zhang. Then, she Reverse Uno-ed me and started sharing a completely different set of facts. It was a reality that I barely recognized.

You're not in New York City. You've been admitted as a patient at Wellesley-Newton Hospital in Wellesley, Massachusetts.

Funny how quickly you can go from knowing everything about yourself to knowing nothing at all.

You were involved in a bad car accident. You sustained several injuries from this accident. Several concussions. Knee trauma. Internal bleeding A few broken ribs. You're also likely suffering from selective memory loss due to your head injuries.

By Dr. Zhang's estimate, the scope of my memories seemed only to cover up to my sixteenth birthday.

To date, however, I already turned seventeen. Which meant there was an entire year of my life missing from my brain. An entire year that I had lived without any knowledge of who I had interacted with, where I had gone, or what I had done.

Fan-fucking-tastic, right?

I also possessed a neat row of fresh incisions running along my right forearm. Dr. Zhang suspected that these wounds hadn't been caused by the accident. When she pressed me about them, I told her all about my stepdad's bipolar tabby cat, Mr. Boots, who liked to scratch me up whenever she was in one of her moods. I was lying, of course. We didn't own a cat. My stepdad was deathly allergic to those furry little beasts.

At any rate, this was the extent of the information that Dr. Zhang and I exchanged with each other before she left me to wallow in my cloud of confusion. I stared at the bandages on my arm and frowned. For the life of me, I couldn't remember how I got these new cuts on my arm. I thought I put that shit behind me. I thought I promised myself to stop, especially after what happened to Tariq.

My mind flickered.

What the hell am I doing in Wellesley without my mom and stepdad?

The ability to concentrate kept fading in and out like dancing shadows.

Where's Cate Donati?

I felt like a mess.

Did she leave already?

Damn, she didn't even bother to say goodbye.

My heart ached.

I stopped myself for a minute there.

My heart ached?

The fuck?

My frown deepened. It didn't make any goddamn sense. I wasn't making any goddamn sense. Sure, maybe I had harbored an embarrassingly huge crush on the girl at one point in my life, but we hadn't seen each other since I left Wellesley and moved to New York.

You would think, by now, that my feelings for her would've simmered down.

You would think, by now, that I would've moved on to bigger and better things.

You would think.

But, nope, apparently, one kiss from Cate Donati was enough to send me spiraling back into my pathetic, pining twelve-year-old state of mind. I didn't want her to go. I wanted her to come back because...

Because I liked her again?

Because I missed her?

Because I wanted her to stay with me forever and always like some fucking nutcase?

Jesus Christ.

I was turning into an obsessive psycho. Or a lovesick stalker. I wasn't sure which was worse. This shit was getting out of control. I need to put a pin in whatever this was before I did something stupid.

Like make a move. Or try to get her number. While I was in a hospital gown. With a halfway functioning brain. And a broken-ass body.

Yeah.

Right.

Uh-huh.

I groaned out loud at the ridiculousness of my own bullshit. I felt so out of my element. Lost. Frustrated.

Nothing Dr. Zhang had shared with me earlier seemed to provide any insight as to why my old classmate, the smartest and hottest and most badass girl at Ashton Wellesley Academy, had come to visit me in my sorry state.

The not-knowing fucked with me more than I could ever put into words.

***

My mom flew into Wellesley from New York later that night.

She arrived at the hospital in a pissy mood, and, per usual, she refused to tell me exactly what I did to piss her off, which, in turn, pissed me off, too. I decided to ignore her, pretend like everything was fine, until she couldn't hold it in anymore and exploded all over me. Per usual.

In all fairness, though, I was an asshole to her most of the time. Hardly a good son by any stretch of the imagination. Sometimes, when my mom and I were really going at each other's throats, I would silently wish that she had been the one to go to prison instead of my dad. I got along so much better with my dad.

God, I missed him.

The only lifeline that kept me afloat in the chaos of my mom's sudden arrival and ever-draining presence was... Cate. She came back to my hospital room with my mom and brought me a bunch of teddy bears and flowers and shit. I was a little disappointed when she told me that most of the gifts were from our classmates.

According to my mom and Cate, I'd gone back to my old stomping grounds—you know, the hellhole that's Ashton Wellesley Academy—for a semester-long student exchange program. I'll be honest. Shit made no fucking sense to me, but I nodded my head, smiled, and went along with their explanations.

Not much about my life, after all, was making much sense right now.

From there, though, fate took an unexpected turn for the better. To my delight and surprise, Cate Donati came back the next day to visit. She helped out with everything my mom and I needed without a word of complaint. Whenever we made eye contact, she smiled sweetly in a way that made me want to pinch myself over and over again. It felt like a dream. A very, very good dream. I couldn't believe that this was the same Cate Donati who used to walk right past me in the hallway without a second glance.

Cate bought us food. Ran errands for us. Did research on everything and anything that had to do with retrograde amnesia. Did more research on the physical and psychological therapies I would need to undergo in the coming months to ensure a smooth recovery. She brought me clean clothes from the apartment that I had been living in. Kept me company. Put up with my mom's crazy demands. And, in general, continually stepped up whenever we needed something from her.

I won't lie. If hearts could have boners, Cate's kindness turned mine to steel. At this point, I was ready to kiss her feet and worship her as my one true goddess. Her presence in the hospital soothed me even while it excited me. All of my feelings for her from middle school—and then some—came flooding back.

They caught me completely off guard and smacked me upside the head like a sledgehammer.

It was weird, though. Every time I tried to talk to Cate, get closer to her, flirt with her, she seemed to shy away from me. I didn't get the sense that she was turned off by my advances since she always seemed genuinely interested in what I had to say, but the girl definitely had her walls up. I couldn't help but feel as though she was purposely trying to distance herself from me. The mixed signals she kept sending were driving me crazy. I didn't know whether to back off. Or to go harder. Like a no-holds-barred, balls-to-the-wall kind of pursuit. Until I could convince her to look my way.

Man.

Girls were confusing as fuck.

You think you know who you are as a person.

My name is Zachary Eli Mazur.

You think you have all the facts.

I'm a sixteen-year-old mofo who loves Marvel comics, video games, and girls with dark hair and hazel eyes.

Identity is nothing but a collection of facts, after all.

My mom's name is Valerie Pietersen. My stepdad's name is Jared Pietersen. I live with my mom and stepdad in Manhattan. I don't like to talk about my real dad because he's in prison.

I know myself.

I'm a junior at Briarley Prep. My best friend's name is Wes Evans.

Even when the facts feel meaningless without memories and emotions attached to them.

No, I don't have a girlfriend.

Just now, I shared these facts with Dr. Zhang. Then, she Reverse Uno-ed me and started sharing a completely different set of facts. It was a reality that I barely recognized.

You're not in New York City. You've been admitted as a patient at Wellesley-Newton Hospital in Wellesley, Massachusetts.

Funny how quickly you can go from knowing everything about yourself to knowing nothing at all.

You were involved in a bad car accident. You sustained several injuries from this accident. Several concussions. Knee trauma. Internal bleeding A few broken ribs. You're also likely suffering from selective memory loss due to your head injuries.

By Dr. Zhang's estimate, the scope of my memories seemed only to cover up to my sixteenth birthday.

To date, however, I already turned seventeen. Which meant there was an entire year of my life missing from my brain. An entire year that I had lived without any knowledge of who I had interacted with, where I had gone, or what I had done.

Fan-fucking-tastic, right?

I also possessed a neat row of fresh incisions running along my right forearm. Dr. Zhang suspected that these wounds hadn't been caused by the accident. When she pressed me about them, I told her all about my stepdad's bipolar tabby cat, Mr. Boots, who liked to scratch me up whenever she was in one of her moods. I was lying, of course. We didn't own a cat. My stepdad was deathly allergic to those furry little beasts.

At any rate, this was the extent of the information that Dr. Zhang and I exchanged with each other before she left me to wallow in my cloud of confusion. I stared at the bandages on my arm and frowned. For the life of me, I couldn't remember how I got these new cuts on my arm. I thought I put that shit behind me. I thought I promised myself to stop, especially after what happened to Tariq.

My mind flickered.

What the hell am I doing in Wellesley without my mom and stepdad?

The ability to concentrate kept fading in and out like dancing shadows.

Where's Cate Donati?

I felt like a mess.

Did she leave already?

Damn, she didn't even bother to say goodbye.

My heart ached.

I stopped myself for a minute there.

My heart ached?

The fuck?

My frown deepened. It didn't make any goddamn sense. I wasn't making any goddamn sense. Sure, maybe I had harbored an embarrassingly huge crush on the girl at one point in my life, but we hadn't seen each other since I left Wellesley and moved to New York.

You would think, by now, that my feelings for her would've simmered down.

You would think, by now, that I would've moved on to bigger and better things.

You would think.

But, nope, apparently, one kiss from Cate Donati was enough to send me spiraling back into my pathetic, pining twelve-year-old state of mind. I didn't want her to go. I wanted her to come back because...

Because I liked her again?

Because I missed her?

Because I wanted her to stay with me forever and always like some fucking nutcase?

Jesus Christ.

I was turning into an obsessive psycho. Or a lovesick stalker. I wasn't sure which was worse. This shit was getting out of control. I need to put a pin in whatever this was before I did something stupid.

Like make a move. Or try to get her number. While I was in a hospital gown. With a halfway functioning brain. And a broken-ass body.

Yeah.

Right.

Uh-huh.

I groaned out loud at the ridiculousness of my own bullshit. I felt so out of my element. Lost. Frustrated.

Nothing Dr. Zhang had shared with me earlier seemed to provide any insight as to why my old classmate, the smartest and hottest and most badass girl at Ashton Wellesley Academy, had come to visit me in my sorry state.

The not-knowing fucked with me more than I could ever put into words.

***

My mom flew into Wellesley from New York later that night.

She arrived at the hospital in a pissy mood, and, per usual, she refused to tell me exactly what I did to piss her off, which, in turn, pissed me off, too. I decided to ignore her, pretend like everything was fine, until she couldn't hold it in anymore and exploded all over me. Per usual.

In all fairness, though, I was an asshole to her most of the time. Hardly a good son by any stretch of the imagination. Sometimes, when my mom and I were really going at each other's throats, I would silently wish that she had been the one to go to prison instead of my dad. I got along so much better with my dad.

God, I missed him.

The only lifeline that kept me afloat in the chaos of my mom's sudden arrival and ever-draining presence was... Cate. She came back to my hospital room with my mom and brought me a bunch of teddy bears and flowers and shit. I was a little disappointed when she told me that most of the gifts were from our classmates.

According to my mom and Cate, I'd gone back to my old stomping grounds—you know, the hellhole that's Ashton Wellesley Academy—for a semester-long student exchange program. I'll be honest. Shit made no fucking sense to me, but I nodded my head, smiled, and went along with their explanations.

Not much about my life, after all, was making much sense right now.

From there, though, fate took an unexpected turn for the better. To my delight and surprise, Cate Donati came back the next day to visit. She helped out with everything my mom and I needed without a word of complaint. Whenever we made eye contact, she smiled sweetly in a way that made me want to pinch myself over and over again. It felt like a dream. A very, very good dream. I couldn't believe that this was the same Cate Donati who used to walk right past me in the hallway without a second glance.

Cate bought us food. Ran errands for us. Did research on everything and anything that had to do with retrograde amnesia. Did more research on the physical and psychological therapies I would need to undergo in the coming months to ensure a smooth recovery. She brought me clean clothes from the apartment that I had been living in. Kept me company. Put up with my mom's crazy demands. And, in general, continually stepped up whenever we needed something from her.

I won't lie. If hearts could have boners, Cate's kindness turned mine to steel. At this point, I was ready to kiss her feet and worship her as my one true goddess. Her presence in the hospital soothed me even while it excited me. All of my feelings for her from middle school—and then some—came flooding back.

They caught me completely off guard and smacked me upside the head like a sledgehammer.

It was weird, though. Every time I tried to talk to Cate, get closer to her, flirt with her, she seemed to shy away from me. I didn't get the sense that she was turned off by my advances since she always seemed genuinely interested in what I had to say, but the girl definitely had her walls up. I couldn't help but feel as though she was purposely trying to distance herself from me. The mixed signals she kept sending were driving me crazy. I didn't know whether to back off. Or to go harder. Like a no-holds-barred, balls-to-the-wall kind of pursuit. Until I could convince her to look my way.

Man.

Girls were confusing as fuck.

You think you know who you are as a person.

My name is Zachary Eli Mazur.

You think you have all the facts.

I'm a sixteen-year-old mofo who loves Marvel comics, video games, and girls with dark hair and hazel eyes.

Identity is nothing but a collection of facts, after all.

My mom's name is Valerie Pietersen. My stepdad's name is Jared Pietersen. I live with my mom and stepdad in Manhattan. I don't like to talk about my real dad because he's in prison.

I know myself.

I'm a junior at Briarley Prep. My best friend's name is Wes Evans.

Even when the facts feel meaningless without memories and emotions attached to them.

No, I don't have a girlfriend.

Just now, I shared these facts with Dr. Zhang. Then, she Reverse Uno-ed me and started sharing a completely different set of facts. It was a reality that I barely recognized.

You're not in New York City. You've been admitted as a patient at Wellesley-Newton Hospital in Wellesley, Massachusetts.

Funny how quickly you can go from knowing everything about yourself to knowing nothing at all.

You were involved in a bad car accident. You sustained several injuries from this accident. Several concussions. Knee trauma. Internal bleeding A few broken ribs. You're also likely suffering from selective memory loss due to your head injuries.

By Dr. Zhang's estimate, the scope of my memories seemed only to cover up to my sixteenth birthday.

To date, however, I already turned seventeen. Which meant there was an entire year of my life missing from my brain. An entire year that I had lived without any knowledge of who I had interacted with, where I had gone, or what I had done.

Fan-fucking-tastic, right?

I also possessed a neat row of fresh incisions running along my right forearm. Dr. Zhang suspected that these wounds hadn't been caused by the accident. When she pressed me about them, I told her all about my stepdad's bipolar tabby cat, Mr. Boots, who liked to scratch me up whenever she was in one of her moods. I was lying, of course. We didn't own a cat. My stepdad was deathly allergic to those furry little beasts.

At any rate, this was the extent of the information that Dr. Zhang and I exchanged with each other before she left me to wallow in my cloud of confusion. I stared at the bandages on my arm and frowned. For the life of me, I couldn't remember how I got these new cuts on my arm. I thought I put that shit behind me. I thought I promised myself to stop, especially after what happened to Tariq.

My mind flickered.

What the hell am I doing in Wellesley without my mom and stepdad?

The ability to concentrate kept fading in and out like dancing shadows.

Where's Cate Donati?

I felt like a mess.

Did she leave already?

Damn, she didn't even bother to say goodbye.

My heart ached.

I stopped myself for a minute there.

My heart ached?

The fuck?

My frown deepened. It didn't make any goddamn sense. I wasn't making any goddamn sense. Sure, maybe I had harbored an embarrassingly huge crush on the girl at one point in my life, but we hadn't seen each other since I left Wellesley and moved to New York.

You would think, by now, that my feelings for her would've simmered down.

You would think, by now, that I would've moved on to bigger and better things.

You would think.

But, nope, apparently, one kiss from Cate Donati was enough to send me spiraling back into my pathetic, pining twelve-year-old state of mind. I didn't want her to go. I wanted her to come back because...

Because I liked her again?

Because I missed her?

Because I wanted her to stay with me forever and always like some fucking nutcase?

Jesus Christ.

I was turning into an obsessive psycho. Or a lovesick stalker. I wasn't sure which was worse. This shit was getting out of control. I need to put a pin in whatever this was before I did something stupid.

Like make a move. Or try to get her number. While I was in a hospital gown. With a halfway functioning brain. And a broken-ass body.

Yeah.

Right.

Uh-huh.

I groaned out loud at the ridiculousness of my own bullshit. I felt so out of my element. Lost. Frustrated.

Nothing Dr. Zhang had shared with me earlier seemed to provide any insight as to why my old classmate, the smartest and hottest and most badass girl at Ashton Wellesley Academy, had come to visit me in my sorry state.

The not-knowing fucked with me more than I could ever put into words.

***

My mom flew into Wellesley from New York later that night.

She arrived at the hospital in a pissy mood, and, per usual, she refused to tell me exactly what I did to piss her off, which, in turn, pissed me off, too. I decided to ignore her, pretend like everything was fine, until she couldn't hold it in anymore and exploded all over me. Per usual.

In all fairness, though, I was an asshole to her most of the time. Hardly a good son by any stretch of the imagination. Sometimes, when my mom and I were really going at each other's throats, I would silently wish that she had been the one to go to prison instead of my dad. I got along so much better with my dad.

God, I missed him.

The only lifeline that kept me afloat in the chaos of my mom's sudden arrival and ever-draining presence was... Cate. She came back to my hospital room with my mom and brought me a bunch of teddy bears and flowers and shit. I was a little disappointed when she told me that most of the gifts were from our classmates.

According to my mom and Cate, I'd gone back to my old stomping grounds—you know, the hellhole that's Ashton Wellesley Academy—for a semester-long student exchange program. I'll be honest. Shit made no fucking sense to me, but I nodded my head, smiled, and went along with their explanations.

Not much about my life, after all, was making much sense right now.

From there, though, fate took an unexpected turn for the better. To my delight and surprise, Cate Donati came back the next day to visit. She helped out with everything my mom and I needed without a word of complaint. Whenever we made eye contact, she smiled sweetly in a way that made me want to pinch myself over and over again. It felt like a dream. A very, very good dream. I couldn't believe that this was the same Cate Donati who used to walk right past me in the hallway without a second glance.

Cate bought us food. Ran errands for us. Did research on everything and anything that had to do with retrograde amnesia. Did more research on the physical and psychological therapies I would need to undergo in the coming months to ensure a smooth recovery. She brought me clean clothes from the apartment that I had been living in. Kept me company. Put up with my mom's crazy demands. And, in general, continually stepped up whenever we needed something from her.

I won't lie. If hearts could have boners, Cate's kindness turned mine to steel. At this point, I was ready to kiss her feet and worship her as my one true goddess. Her presence in the hospital soothed me even while it excited me. All of my feelings for her from middle school—and then some—came flooding back.

They caught me completely off guard and smacked me upside the head like a sledgehammer.

It was weird, though. Every time I tried to talk to Cate, get closer to her, flirt with her, she seemed to shy away from me. I didn't get the sense that she was turned off by my advances since she always seemed genuinely interested in what I had to say, but the girl definitely had her walls up. I couldn't help but feel as though she was purposely trying to distance herself from me. The mixed signals she kept sending were driving me crazy. I didn't know whether to back off. Or to go harder. Like a no-holds-barred, balls-to-the-wall kind of pursuit. Until I could convince her to look my way.

Man.

Girls were confusing as fuck.