Back in my younger years, Dad had repeatedly taught me the family mantra until it was tattooed in my brain. "You're a Hunter! You don't back down from anything!" My sisters and I stayed true to it, and it had gotten us through some rough times. He didn't add anything more, so I figured I was supposed to continue my path and show why I was the best. He didn't say when to stop. He didn't say which signs to watch out for and when to take caution. I understand now that it was for me to learn on my own, but sometimes I can't help but wish he just taught me everything clearly or wrote me a list of instructions. Taking hints and reading people were not my strongest suits.

I kept going and hoping as if I was driving down a rocky trail and ignoring the warning signs. My mind was not in this universe but in another one, where I believed we were together, where I made her happy as she made me.

Not before long after that Halloween night, I was slapped in the face. Not literally, but it felt the same.

It was a cold and gray afternoon when it happened. Autumn and I spent the time alone in a classroom. I was playing the songs I wrote for the competition, wanting to get her feedback and wanting to let her know how serious I was about her. She looked like a statue throughout the session, only nodding and saying small words when I asked her. In the back of my mind, I knew something was wrong, but I continued to be stupidly optimistic—that she would feel the same way about me.

She didn't. Most stories of first love don't always end the way we want them to be.

When she said the very words that shattered my fantasies, everything around me began to spin. My heart ached. My thoughts raged. The rejection somehow reminded me of my parents who would wrinkle their noses at my little achievements and say, "You can do better." I tried to be better for Autumn. I stopped acting irresponsibly and studied hard, tried to be this person whom she would be proud to be with. But when she said, "I don't feel the same way," I realized that no matter how hard I try, I would never be good enough.

It was my fault. I had been drunk off with my own fantasies and assumptions that when reality kicked my ass, the overwhelming ache, humiliation, and fear consumed me all at once. The only way for me to be able to deal with all of it was to be angry with her for making me feel like shit.

I left her alone in the classroom before she could talk more. I cursed at her in my head. I dropped her as a friend. I should've been cool with my rejection, but no matter how much I had considered myself as "mature," at the end of the day, I was still a brat who had to get what he wanted.

At home, I cried. I was embarrassed to do it because I grew up thinking boys should never show tears, but—again—fuck it. I couldn't pretend it was okay. I hadn't cried like that since I was seven when I saw my mother faint from exhaustion and I thought she was dying. I guess it was all bottled up. I fell asleep on an empty stomach and a much emptier chest.

The next day I woke up with my head pounding. I was still in yesterday's clothes, and I didn't have the energy to get out of bed and take a shower. I told my mom I was sick, but she knew I was trying to skip class again. She asked me what was going on, and even when I refused to speak, her sixth sense that all mothers seemed to have kicked in, and she told me that cliché bullshit "you'll get better" speech. In the end, with a bit of persuading, I attended school, only skipping my first three classes.

Everyone was looking at me like I'd just risen from the dead. I normally wouldn't have minded the attention—for years it'd been my element. Yet this time, I wanted to be invisible. I didn't have to explain to my friends what had happened because Lance, who'd been outside the classroom during that incident, did it for me. The confused looks continued throughout the day. I didn't care about what they thought of me.

As for Autumn, she could barely lift her eyes to look at me. There were split seconds where I wanted to gravitate to her, wrap my arms around her body, and lose myself in her embrace, but before this longing grew, I was hit with the cruel reminder that I should be getting over her. The happy songs I wrote for her felt bitter on my tongue.

We didn't speak to each other for two days. Just before winter break (and just when I thought I was on the path to recovery), she asked me again to meet up with her. I hesitated for a second—my gut telling me this would be another episode of misery—but then I gave in.

God, it was easy to give in. Like I was ready to drop everything and run back to her if she'd say she loved me, too.

We sat on the apartment rooftop where my dad used to take me when I was a kid. There, we opened our hearts to each other under the afternoon sun. We'd never done something like this before, I realized—being honest with each other. It's ironic to think that we were opening our hearts to get some closure. She admitted she was in love with someone else. I didn't bother asking who it was because it had always been too clear.

It was Michael.

Just thinking about that name made me want to punch a wall. All those times I'd assumed I was the hero in her story when in actuality I was just the goddamned side character. April 11, Spring Dance, cemented that fact. On the dance floor, she swayed in his arms, a dreamy smile on her face. I realized I'd never seen her look at me that way. Never. I wanted to shut my eyes and leave, but I couldn't. Overcome by a morbid fascination, I watched as the two worlds—Autumn and Michael—collided in a slow dance. I could have been the one holding her—could have been, in another life.

I knew I had to move on, but my unfulfilled longings and cruel desires continued to devour me. Instead of wishing her happiness, I wished that Michael would disappear. My blood boiled every time I saw him. And I'm sure he had an idea about it. I never resorted to violence; I just wished he would disappear. I imagined another alternate universe where he never existed at all. I didn't consider Autumn's perspective or what she felt about Michael. Blinded by hatred, I continued wishing he'd disappear.

On the 28th of April, he did.

He ran away from home. Off to some place we never knew. Leaving nothing but memories and deep scars on the heart of the person who loved him most.

Autumn didn't cry, at least not in front of anyone. She didn't speak for days and didn't respond to anything around her. Sometimes I'd see her sitting under a sycamore tree, doing nothing but staring off into the distance. Sometimes I'd see her with her cell phone up to her ear, waiting for him to call back. Sometimes I wouldn't recognize her at all.

She was spiraling down, down, and down. I think a part of me died every time I saw her in a catatonic state. I was afraid she might not be able to get out of it.

I couldn't help her at all. I tried, but I couldn't. Because she might be here physically, but her mind was not. It was everywhere.

This was the consequence of my wish. Her heartbreak. I was scared of what I did, but at the same time, I was also brimming with conceit. I felt big, now that she was hurt by her first love, too. She and I were both scared. We were even. I remember thinking while I was trying to console her one time: "If you'd chosen me, you wouldn't be hurt this much."

What kind of person had I become?

There's a saying that goes "time heals everything," but I think it's a lie made by people who can't think of something comforting or original to say. There are certain wounds that never close, and she and I got better at hiding them after a year.

I was seventeen then; she was sixteen. She began smiling again. I began dating other girls. Many of them were attractive and fun to be with, but it just didn't work out. Just like the broken crayons, Autumn could never be replaced by any other girl because I valued her more than I could say. They looked ordinary beside her. There left in my chest was a void, which made me emotionally unavailable throughout the remainder of my youth.

Autumn and I still talked occasionally. We only shared one or two classes during junior and senior year, and our conversations had just been that of trivial chitchats that you'd share with a stranger at a bus stop. I never heard her speak of Michael, but I'm sure every night she thought of him as much as I thought of her.

Sometimes, I regretted telling her what I felt.

Maybe I had told her too soon. Or maybe I had told her too late. Maybe if the timing had been different, we could have worked it out. That was what I said to her on the rooftop. That was what I kept telling myself almost every day.

For a long time, my mind was stuck in another life where I was the one that walked her home.

The last time I saw Autumn was on June 8th, graduation day. I was going to UPenn, and she, NYU. The distance in between might not be too wide, but I knew we'd never really go out of our way to meet up and hang out, considering things were still quite awkward between us.

We only congratulated each other and exchanged good wishes for the future. I wanted to throw my arms around her and tell her in so many words that I still loved her, but I never did. It would be selfish of me. I thought it would be better to keep my place.

As she said goodbye, she grinned at me, her eyes glassy, cheeks pink, face picturesque; the auditorium lights were creating an orange glow around her head and shoulders. The world suddenly stopped on its axis, and she was all that I could see.

I felt full. By just watching her smile. I felt full.

And when she walked away and blended with the crowd, the world went back to its perpetual spin, and I was once again overcome with my own grief.

Then she was gone.