It's strange how a person can change over a few years of school. She never expected to get out of her shy, more quiet phase. She never expected her best friend to abandon her and become a new person. A more likable person to some, to her however, he felt unnatural. Unreal. Forgotten.

Ellie started her senior year with Cyrus, just like they started preschool. Ellie still wore big fluffy sweaters, but Cyrus wore a Derby jacket that used to hang in the nearby thrift store. He adorned them with patches of bands he had gotten into, and sometimes Ellie can see the inside of his jacket; yellow paisley with a patch of a bright yellow star. Hers was in her favorite sweater pocket.

They sit next to each other, like they had for so many years. She quietly did her work, muttering the answers so that she could focus. He sat with one leg on his desk and his hands in his pocket. He chews cherry bubblegum, she bites her lip. They acknowledge each other, and talk during group projects; never in any other situations. Their friendship disappeared, and they both minded. They just don't know how to fix it.

"Sylvia Plath was a young writer who committed suicide at age 35," Ellie reads from notecards. Her voice is raised a little higher than normal, after the prodding of a teacher. "Ariel is the last documentation of her written work, with poems from previous years and from weeks before her death. The poem that I have analyzed, The Applicant, shows society's ways on how the change of marriage changes the partner themselves."

She pauses to take a breath. A look around the room can only show bored teenagers, except for one. Cyrus, in his ripped black jeans, desk covered in permanent parker, chewing on his pencil, was staring at her. Intently. She looked away from him, the poem she is to recite in her hands. The poem, in her mind, being a call-out, one last one, to the old Cyrus.

She knew she would never marry him, even with the promise back when they were seven years old. She only wished she knew what it's like to kiss him, maybe to hold him or vice versa. To feel the old love they shared, platonic or not. There was everything there, from the middle school rants on police brutality to the shows of Disney Channel. She could only stare at the color red for so long before choking up and feeling awful.

"First, are you our sort of person?" She starts shakily. "Do you wear a glass eye, false teeth or a crutch/ a brace or a hook/ Rubber breasts or a rubber crotch--"

Students snickered at those words. She tried to continue going, but laughter can be cruel, even with different intent.

She tries again.

"Stitches to show something is missing?/ No, no? Then how can we give you a thing?" Her words are still shaky, maybe even worse. "Stop crying/ Open your hand/ Empty? Empty/ Here is a hand."

Cyrus was still staring, both his legs on the floor, elbows resting on the table, pencil being chewed. Not that she noticed, she only noticed the people around him.

"To fill it and willing/ To bring teacups and roll away headaches/ And do whatever you tell it/ Will you marry it?/ It is guaranteed."

This time, students are talking to one another. Only thirty minutes left in class, so no one pays attention; it's senior year after all.

"Miss?" She tries. The teacher looks up from her computer. "I'm feeling rather sick, may I go to the nurse?"

She nods.

Ellie walks away.

And then runs out of the school, the teachers too busy or bored to follow.

Someone did.

"I didn't think you'd be here." Ellie flinches at the familiar voice. The thinking of boots on wood makes her stiff, unmovable.

"I didn't expect you to follow me," She says, looking over at Cyrus. He sighs and runs a hand through his hair. "And I didn't expect you to remember where I would go."

"Almost forgot," He mumbles. " but I wanted to hear the rest of the poem."

"What for?" She scoffs. "You were only listening because there was nothing better to do."

"Wrong."

"Right."

"Wrong."

"Cyrus, I know I'm right because you never pay attention in class," She snaps. She wraps her arms around her legs, hair falling in her face. "You never pay attention to any other students, you hardly listen to the teachers, and you never see me."

"Wrong."

"Stop saying that!" She practically yelled. "I'm not wrong because I've seen you. I don't follow you, but you still somehow know where to show up, know where to remind me that you aren't a friend, know how to stay in my head but still don't even talk to me. I don't know anything about you anymore." She rips up the notecards containing the poems and tosses them to the side, the paper flying over the side of the treehouse. Cyrus doesn't try to grab them. He just sits next to her, feet dangling over the edge. His boots are heavy, and he feels the urge to kick them off. Wear the thin, canvas shoes that matched with Ellie's when they were younger.

"Sounds like you're still talking like Slyvia Plath," He says calmly. "You wanted to be a writer, right?"

Ellie sniffles and wipes a little tear away. She nods her head.

"Are you still writing?"

"Why would you care?" She mumbles. "it's not like you read my works or anything."

The two sit in silence. Cyrus sighs, looks over, sighs again. Ellie refuses to look over.

"To thumb shut your eyes at the end/ And dissolve of sorrow." He starts. "We make new stock from the salt/ I notice you are stark naked/ How about this suit."

Ellie scoffs, but doesn't say anything else she continues listening.

"Black and stiff, but not a bad fit/ Will you marry it?/ It is waterproof, shatterproof, proof/ Against fire and bombs through the roof/ Believe me, they'll bury you in it."

"I don't understand something," She interrupts. Cyrus stays silent. "We've known each other for so many years, like, thirteen?" She looks over at him, His eyes focused on hers. "Why did you stop talking to me?"

He stays silent.

"I waited and waited for you to talk to me," She continues. "And yet, I'm still alone. Why?"

"I wasn't the one who stopped talk--"

"Yes, you were."

"Okay."

Silence from both of them, a tension thick and clammy. The sunlight shone through the leaves, making green flash around them on the old, white wood. The wind makes their hair blow, the air too cold, but perfect just the same.

"I stopped talking because I was in love."

"What?"

"You heard me."

"Stop acting all tough, you stopped talking to me because you were in love with a girl?" Her heart fell a little, but anger surged in her veins. "What the fuck, Cyrus?"

"Language."

"Oh, shut up, you hardly have tagged a curse word when you hang out with Tracy. Or Scott. Or Samuel. Or Lulu."

"I was in love and I didn't know what to do, because I was in love with you."

Ellie, stunned, doesn't speak. She refuses to look at him, tears still dripping down, face red, heart going a thousand miles a minute. They just sit in silence.

"Now your head, excuse me, is empty/ I have the ticket for that/ Come here, sweetie, out of the closet/ Well, what do you think of that?/ Naked as paper to start," Cyrus continues the poem. "But in twenty-five years she'll be silver/ In fifty, gold/ A living doll, everywhere you look/ It can sew, it can cook/ It can talk, talk, talk."

Ellie clears her throat. Cyrus looks over at her, her eyes piercing into his, and as they lean in, their eyes half-close and hands reach for faces.

"It works, there is nothing wrong with it/ You have a hole, it's a poultice/ You have an eye, it's an image/ My boy, it's your last resort/ Will you marry it, marry it, marry it."