I'd like to thank T-Mobile and Wattpad for giving me the opportunity to bring you this short story.

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My first crush, Robert, had a scar over his eye, cleft his brow right in half like a nectarine. I thought that scar was the neatest little quirk I'd ever seen. He'd sit next to me at lunch, the sunlight from the tall windows at the other end of the cafeteria shining on him like a spotlight, and he'd talk about whatever. His brows would rise and furrow, the creases on his forehead would pinch together and relax, and I'd stare at that scar and make up all kinds of wild stories.

Robert struck me as a tough kid. Listened to punk music. Worked out all the time. Played basketball with his shirt off because he liked getting attention. Honestly, I had no idea why I thought Robert seemed so tough, he just did. So, I imagined him getting into an altercation during a heated basketball game, some curly-haired kid walking up and pushing him and making a big deal out of nothing, and Robert—superhero that he was—reeling back and knocking the curly-haired freak onto the squeaky gym floor.

Boom.

Boy, but when that kid got back up. Robert, sweetest boy I'd ever seen, got knocked right back, but this time, he got cut. Over his right eye.

"Hey," he asked me, drawing my attention off the scar and from my daydreams. "You want to walk home together today?"

We had been suspended from the bus. For what, I can't remember, but we lived close enough that we could hoof it home without much effort. The roads round where we lived were famously uncared for. Maybe it was the conservative governor or the cheap taxpayers or both; whatever it was, the cracked bitumen always turned into a searing rod, drawing in sunlight like a kid sucking the last bit of juice from a carton (popping its lips and saying, "Ah!" afterward). Not just that, but the shrubs actually reached out of the forest, crossed the tree line, and crept onto the roadside.

"What're you going to do after you get out of high school?" I asked him, both of us still too young to be thinking so far ahead (then again, according to adults, "too early" doesn't exist when considering one's future).

"Join a punk band," he said with the same certainty other kids would've announced their intent to become surgeons or pilots or disgruntled Wal-Mart employees. I'm sure all fifteen years of him believed it, too. "What about you?" he asked.

I didn't have any talents. I just sat in my room all day, writing poetry. "I guess I'm going to be a writer."

"What're you going to write?"

"Poetry," I said, unsure of any other answer.

"That sounds boring."

In his defense, it did.

Although we passed my house before we got to his, Robert had asked if I wanted to come over, so I agreed. Mainly, we sat in the carport while he shot a basketball through a hoop suspended over his garage. He blared Minor Threat and asked me if I liked them, and, because I wanted him to think I was edgy, I said yes, even though I hated the incessant yelling. He commented on how much black I wore and said he liked my style. That left me grinning like a kid in a toy commercial.

I watched his chest rise and fall as he spoke, watched sunlight shimmer on his buzzcut blonde hair, watched little beads of sweat dribble down his neck like honey, watched his lips pucker and widen with every syllable, and those eyes—those painful blue eyes with the mysterious scar—I watched them dance alive as he rambled about things he was passionate about. I didn't care what he was talking about. I just wanted to be there, around him.

He sat next to me on the ground, stinking like sweat. He wiped off his slippery hands on his red basketball shorts and wrapped his arms around his knees. Lying back, I stared up at the wispy cirrus clouds as they slowly disappeared in the big blue sky. It was around five, and the sun stayed up late around this time of year.

Looking over, I saw Robert, squinting at the horizon, face scrunched because the dying sun's glare was hitting him in the eyes. I wanted so badly for him to roll over on top of me, stare at me with that scar over his right eye, and use it, like some magic power, to see through me, see how much I liked him, see how much I longed for him. He shot me a quick smile then stood up and reached for my hand.

After he helped me up, I went home with little Roberts spinning around my head. With feint music floating out of my radio, I lay on my bed and stare up at the ceiling and thought about Robert's scar.

Maybe his home life wasn't great. I imagined him waking up to the sound of crashing glass. He crept out of bed and inched up to the door, where he peered out between the crack and watched his father scream at his mother in the kitchen. His mother, warm in her white bathrobe, tried to dismiss his father's myriad accusations: "You're cheating on me," "you're thinking of leaving me," "do you really want to break this family apart." He went on and on and on and no matter what she said, he just yelled over her.

After gathering a dust pan, his mother kneeled and started collecting the broken shards from the vase that Robert's father had knocked over.

"I'm talking to you!" the man said, going down and closing his hands around a sizeable piece of glass. Robert grew nervous. He couldn't make out what his mom and dad were saying, and now his angry father was on one knee, armed with a sharp piece of glass. Robert burst out of his room and ran into the kitchen, where he hoped to wrestle the shard out of his father's hand. His father, shocked, rose and swept the glass through the air, slicing Robert's eye in the process. Robert went down crying and screaming as blood dripped everywhere and his mother fell over him, shielding him and glaring at her monstrous husband for hurting her precious little boy.

I rolled over on my bed. Maybe I was overdramatizing things.

The next day at lunch, I was there sitting in front of Robert again, trying to figure out how he'd gotten that scar. If I got really bored, I imagined he was a secret agent, ducking and rolling through hallways in some expensive suit. Our principal, who naturally played the villain, had hold of some device he swore was connected to a laser that would destroy the entire world, and Robert—cool, brave Robert—charged at him, ready to save the world, but his reckless abandon had given him a blind spot. He didn't see one of the Principal's goons coming until it was too late, and the wrecker of a man—our janitor, who stood six feet and five inches and easily weighed over three-hundred pounds—bulldozed over Robert, and when Robert came to, he found the cut over his right eye.

"What?" he asked me.

I must've been staring. Shooting my eyes down, I used my fork to shuffle around some peas on my tray. When he went back to chewing on a biscuit, when his eyes drifted off, I went back to staring at that scar and thinking how perfect it was on him. Scars aren't meant to be perfect. They're reminders of past mistakes. Not on Robert, though. On Robert, that scar was a reminder that there was only one boy like him in the whole world.

That night, I went to church, and while the preacher blasted us for sins both committed and assumed, I sat in that pew, staring up at the picture of Jesus in the rose window, begging for Robert to make the first move because I was too afraid to. Because I didn't want Robert to kick my ass and stop being my friend the minute he realized I wanted to kiss him. Hands clasped together, I ducked my head when the pastor told us to, and prayed:

Holy father, I know we don't talk much—

Bet you hear that all the time, huh?—

Anyway, I've got this one teensy, weensy favor to ask.

Hopefully, you won't mind helping me out.

According to the preacher, what I want's a sin,

But Jesus died so we could all be forgiven for our sins,

And I just don't think this sin is that big a deal, so,

I know this is probably against your policy,

But if you could, maybe, help me make this sin happen,

I'd be super grateful.

Thanks.

Amen.

Everyone said amen, and we all rose for some stomping and singing and dancing, then, while everyone was fattening up on potluck food, I stood against a corner, still trying to figure out how Robert had gotten that scar.

Lawn mowing accident? Now, I could totally imagine him hitting something with a lawn mower on that slope around his house, and it—whatever it was—flying out and slicing him across the eye. Realistic. Believable. A little dull, though.

Maybe he was some angelic warrior who had fallen from Heaven, and my job was to remind him of his celestial origins, so together we could make off to save the universe from . . . some unspeakable horror.

I thought, maybe I should stop thinking about Robert and that stupid scar. Thinking about him was driving me crazy. I sucked in some air through my nose and closed my eyes, but in the darkness behind my eyelids, little Roberts floated down on balloons of all different colors. I should've gotten a pin and popped all those balloons, watched Robert fall and fall until he went splat on the ground. But I didn't. I looked closely as the little Roberts smiled at me and said things like: "Why don't you play basketball with us? Are you too good for basketball?"

When I was out of church, and finally back home, I put on the saddest record I had and lay in bed, waiting for Robert to walk in and kiss me and force me to realize something I didn't want to say out loud: I was gay. Super gay. And I really, really, really wanted him to like me, too.

The next day at school, I saw Robert at lunch, and because we were still banned from using the bus, he asked if I wanted to walk home again. I said yes, of course. On our miserably long trek home, Robert asked me, "You still a virgin?"

It was an embarrassing question for me. The answer was, technically, no, because I'd lost my virginity to one of my best friends, but said friend was a guy, so to everyone else, the answer to that question was a curt, "Yes."

"I'm not. I've got a girlfriend."

"Does she go to school with us?"

"No."

"Where does she go to school?"

"One county over." Of course, she did.

"How did you lose your virginity?"

"We had sex."

"What kind?"

"What do you mean 'what kind'? We had sex. Sex, sex. Regular sex."

Watching him get all flustered like that, trying to defend that dumb lie, I cracked a smile.

"How far have you gotten with a girl?"

Back in middle-school, I accidentally grabbed one of my baby sitter's boobs. She didn't get real mad about it or anything. I'm pretty sure she knew I didn't like girls. "Not very far," I said, sheepishly dropping my head.

Robert put his arm around my shoulder and shook me. "Why don't we try to get you a girlfriend? You're not bad looking."

Did he just call me cute?

When we got to his house, before he went in, he looked in my eyes and smiled at me for a good long minute, not saying anything, just smiling. I don't know what I was thinking. Maybe I was thinking, "Nice weather we're having today. It'd be a real shame if something went and screwed this up," so what'd I do? I screwed things up. Leaning forward, I pressed my lips against his and held the kiss until I realized what I was doing and ran home and paced and paced and paced until the next day when I saw him, he didn't say anything. Not about the kiss. Not about getting me a girlfriend. Nothing.

He was just quiet. And that quiet stretched long as the Nile.

And he was like that for days that stretched into weeks that turned into months. And I thought our friendship was over. I cried so hard for him to like me again that I think the angels must've taken pity on me.

Near Winter break, he randomly asked me to walk home with him during lunch one day. Even though we weren't banned from using the bus any longer, just having him be that nice to me made me say yes unquestioningly.

While we were walking, he kept quiet, and when we got to his house, he stayed quiet, forcing me to sit and watch him toss his basketball through a loop a few times. "We're moving after Christmas break," Robert said, his eyes still trained on the basket.

My heart had already fallen apart from not talking to him for almost two months, so I barely batted an eyelash when he announced that. "Where to?"

"I don't know. Indiana or Kentucky or something." He tossed the ball and it rolled into a holly bush near the driveway.

"Seems all the same."

He laughed. "That's what I thought, too."

I fell quiet again. I was still embarrassed about what had happened between us. The awkward kiss I'd landed on him because I'd misread the situation, because I was sixteen and there wasn't much I could do outside of misreading situations. I was one big situational misreader.

Before either of us spoke another word, he kissed me, and his lips left me breathless. When he pulled away, I thought, this is it, I can finally ask him where he got that scar. I opened my mouth to ask him, but he blocked my words with another kiss. And we kissed and kissed until his parents came home, and even though he asked me to spend the night--because this would be the last time we'd ever see each other again--I was too scared.

Too scared to find out what would happen if I jumped, and he caught me.

I went home, trapped somewhere between the troposphere and the stratosphere, and when I finally sat down and gave everything a good thinking-over, I realized I never got to ask him where he got that scar. He moved away not long after, and I still never got a chance to ask, so I guess I'll always wonder what happened to Robert, and how he got that one, little scar.