I could hear Tandy's laugh distinctively through all of the other laughs, yells, and sounds of lunchtime. She was at a yellow, round picnic table surrounded by her friends. I could see her sitting there with her fingers wrapped around the edges so tight that they were white. I couldn't quite make sense of the expression on her face until I saw Henry, her best friend Clare's boyfriend walked up to the table. Clare didn't notice at first because her back was turned to him but Chelsea did and pointed and said, "Looks like Henry has something to ask you." Clare turned around and gasped and her hands flew up to her mouth. Clare's boyfriend had a big, pink sign that said "Whale you go to Prom with me?" With a bunch of whales on it. Clare jumped up and flung her arms around his neck. "YES!" Chelsea, Allison, and Emily all got up and surrounded them taking a shit ton of pictures. But, Tandy didn't move. She kept her grip on the table. She looked so pale, sickly even. Chelsea turned around and said to Tandy, "Aren't you happy for her? You haven't said a damn word." "Of course I'm happy for Clare." I heard her voice crack from where I was standing. She looked away from Chelsea and stared directly into my eyes. I felt my heart skip a beat. Her eyes were filled with tears. The look on her face makes sense now, her heart was breaking once more. If I had to give a physical description of heartbreak, it would be what Tandy looked like in this moment. Pale face, red eyes, slumped shoulders, and a very deep frown. She had been waiting for the moment to be asked to prom her whole life basically and she was never going to get it. It doesn't help that I'm partially responsible for this. Just weeks before Tandy had asked me out and I had told her no because she was graduating. I had no idea how much it had hurt her. She was always laughing and joking around with her friends. She made it look so easy. To make matters worse, Allison's boyfriend walked up also with a sign that said "Prom?". Everyone was buzzing with excitement. Tandy looked like she wanted to die. No one noticed her all alone except me. "Hey Lucas are you down for Saturday night at Tiff's House?" I felt a hand on my back and turned away from Tandy. It was Jared. He must've been talking the whole time, and of course he didn't notice I wasn't paying attention, he never did. "Oh um hell yeah! 7 o'clock right?" I put a big grin on my face. "Yessiree! You're gonna love it! I know how much you love to swim," he nudged me in the ribs, ”Tiff said her parents are going to be gone all weekend and that she got a new bikini." He ran his hands up and down his sides to imitate curves. "Ah how do you know this?" A little laugh escaped my throat. "We 'talked' last night'" He air quoted the word talked and winked and nudged me again. "I hear you've been trying to hit her up so I got her ready for ya." I looked away from him to steal a glance at Tandy. It was a mistake. Chelsea was also swinging around some guy's neck that held a neon orange sign, along with Emily and her boyfriend Juan. He couldn't believe it! Tandy was such a wonderful girl how could no one ask her to prom? A pair of fingers snapped in front of my face. "Earth to Lucas! Where'd you go? Didn't you here what I said?" He followed my gaze across the lawn to the party happening around Tandy. "Oh dude. No. You told her how you felt weeks ago! You shouldn't feel bad now. She always has guys hanging from her hip, she could've picked any of them." I can't believe what I'm hearing! "You expect me to hook up with some STD hoarding skank that's Twitter famous just because of how she looks in a bathing suit? You're trippin' Jared. I crushed Tandy and I had no idea." I'm furious now and pushed his hand out of my face. "Woah there brother, did you just admit you have feeling for Tandy? The weird girl that's obsessed with you? The girl that can kill people with the flick of her wrist?" You could almost see fumes of smoke coming out of his ears. I looked quickly over my shoulder and saw Tandy looking at us. She had stopped crying but still had the hurt look in her eyes. She looked curious as to why I had raised my voice at Jared. "You can't be serious right now Lucas." "I'm not Jared. But you shouldn't call her a freak, you don't even know her." "Look dude, she only got close to you because you're hot as fuck and a nice guy. She wanted you to know her so she can manipulate your feelings from afar." He pointed his hand in her direction. She was still looking at us. "That's not even close to the truth!" "How would you know?!" Jared flung his arms into the air and let out a deep breath before pointing a finger right at me, "You haven't dated anyone since Diane broke your heart, and you didn't even date her!" "Shut the fuck up!" I wanted to punch Jared right in the mouth but I knew it would make me look like the bad guy. "Just because you bang every girl that takes an interest in you doesn't mean you know about how girls feel and think you asshole!" Before I knew it, Jared swung his arm back and clenched his fist and almost hit me, but didn't. He gasped in surprise. Tandy was standing right in front of me with his fist held tightly in her hand, inches from my face. He jumped back. "Oh shit. Tandy, what the hell! Where did you even come from!?" "Why does that even matter you jerk! I heard everything you said about me!" She was furious, I could've swore her eyes changed from green to red. "Shit, I didn't mean that. I didn't mean anything I said! Fuck." He started backing up. "You meant everything you said you dumb fuck." Her face was red and you could see tear trails down her cheeks. "And you," she turned and pointed at me, ”You fucked up everything. You have no idea what you did to me! I haven't felt my heart hurt like this in so long. You truly fucked up." I was speechless. I just thought that she liked me for my looks, I thought her crush on me was superficial. I didn't know how long she held onto these feelings for me. "Yeah okay. I don't know how you wouldn't know how real my feelings are for you. If only you knew that my heart aches every day and night. My brain hurts every time I look at you. I stepped out of my already fucked up comfort zone and took a bigger risk than I wanted to. You broke my heart. You crushed it into a gazillion pieces. You can't even look at me anymore. You can't even say hi to me!" I inhaled sharply. I just had no idea. I only knew what it was like to hurt, not to hurt someone else. "I..I'm sorry Tandy. I-" She cut me off by grabbing my face and pulling me down to meet her eye level. I was staring directly into her brilliant green eyes. "No. I'm sorry. I should've told you a long time ago how I was feeling. I should've let you know how much I liked you. I still like you..." A tear slipped out of the corner of her eye and slid down her right cheek. I placed my hands around hers and slowly brought my face closer to hers, our lips almost touching. She gripped my face harder and closed the gap between our lips. Her lips were so soft and warm. My head was clouded with thoughts of why was I so scared to do this before.