Alright so this is a chapter based off personal experience because wheeoo and i having a time at school right now jesus fuck

~Phil~

Crushes are very much like birds of prey.

At first, they sit upon their perches, unnoticed, waiting and biding their time for unsuspecting prey to pass below. They begin to circle overhead, drawing in for the perfect kill, and the victim may be vaguely aware, but no real threat is posed.

All of a sudden, warranted by no particular time or item, they decide it's time to strike, and dive downwards for the attack. The poor unfortunate target now must deal with the immediate danger and peril, and still they hold very little chance of survival. The rush of the moment is terrifying, exhilarating and exhausting, and most times, fatal.

Let me tell you a thing, a lot can happen in three days.

It might not seem like a big deal, but there's a huge difference between liking someone, and liking someone. I probably sound quite a bit like a brick stupid teen romance protagonist, but right now, I really don't care. It's not one of those the-stars-are-exploding kinds of things, but rather a I-now-understand-why-people-in-content-relationships-don't-get-celebrity-crushes kind of thing. This is really becoming quite a problem, and honestly, I'm not sure how to deal with it.

Fucking crushes tend to take over your life, and suddenly 'all the love songs are about him,' yeah yeah, I understand all of the hype now. I've had crushes before, but they were mostly the temporary kind, like the Starbucks coffee kind of bubble crush that dies down once you leave the shop. I've had other varieties, the Unattainable, the Cool Kid, and the Sweet One, but this is entirely different, and Jesus, fuck. This is one of those full-on-death kinds of things, and the funny thing is that I don't even know where it came from.

A while ago, I became aware of the real dating conundrum. When you're young, you tend to think that dating is what ensues when your crush just happens to like you back, but unfortunately that is not the case. Dating is more of a trial program, you have a limited amount of time to decide whether or not you like them at all, and even then you may not feel the same butterfly feeling you have when you get crushes. The reality of it all is that, unfortunately, your crush probably doesn't like you back, and you'll have to live with that fact for as long as you live, probably (or at least until you stop liking them).

I now understand why they're called [crush]es.

Sadly, though, I've never exactly been the type of person that people get crushes on, I'm the type of person that people get 'mildly interested' in, and that's not really the best romantic advantage to have. It's also really fucking annoying when you're trying to get yourself in a stable relationship and actually lead a happy romantic life.

In my experience, this kind of crush tends to die down a little after the first day, but it doesn't go away. Kind of like how if you fall four stories from a building, the shock will hurt most in the first few seconds, but you'll still break bones. Alright, a bit of a gory metaphor, but you catch my drift. It's like that feeling you get when listen to the beginning of Panic! At The Disco's 'Memories'. Really, though, it's just a fuzzy warm feeling that consumes you until you can't breathe for thinking about them, and you start to realize that the butterflies in your stomach have claimed permanent residency.

It's terrifying and interesting and strange all at the same time, and you start to wonder if having a crush is really worth all of these nerves and nail-biting.

I bite my lip, swinging my legs off of the bed and crossing to the wardrobe to pull on a blue button up collared shirt. Slipping into a pair of shoes and a coat, I open the door and walk down the corridor and stairs, stumbling a little in the winter chill. It's still just as shitty and cold as normal, but the air buzzes around me, nervous energy collecting in the frost.

I'm not sure where to go, so I let my feet drive me, apparently leading me to one of my favorite haunts, a small diner on fifteenth street with excellent interior lighting and a tendency to attract a wide variety of dog walkers (and their dogs). Another bonus is that they always happen to be tuned to a particular radio station that frequently plays my favorite bands.

Unfortunately (a word coming up in my life a little too often for my liking), the aforementioned diner is not open, and I seem to have missed operating hours entirely, as the lights are off and there's no familiar warbling coming from the loudspeakers. For a few moments, I ponder what to do, because I honestly have nowhere better to be.

In what's probably a lapse in proper judgment, I make a snap decision. Anxiously checking behind my shoulder every few seconds, as this isn't exactly the best neighborhood, I cross to the back of the building. I find a respectable-looking patch of ground and set down my bag, leaning against the wall.

I have absolutely no idea why I'm here.

I guess that sometimes loneliness can drive you to do some pretty crazy things, but I'm not... doing anything. Maybe simply being here is something, but I feel like I'm just waiting. I don't really know what for, but I'm waiting.

I've noticed that a lot of my life has been spent waiting, waiting for high school to be over, waiting for college applications to come back, to move out, to get a job, to this and to that. Waiting gets awfully boring after a while, but at the same time there's an odd sort of comfort in it, the illusion of productivity. Like you know you should be doing something but this is an acceptable excuse not to, because waiting is supposedly a necessary thing that all people need to do. But I've lived my entire life like this, and it starts to get to you, you know? At first, you think-

I stiffen, staring to the right in an attempt to see whatever had just made that noise, a shuffling noise from just around the corner. Taking a deep breath to steady myself, I inch forward, terrified of what might lay beyond in the shadows, but all I can hear is the crunch of approaching footsteps.

"Who's there?"

AY it's shameless self promo time go check out my other fic To Hell And Back [wink wink] I've spent a lot of time on it and I'm very attached and invested, so if you want to strap yourself in for a ride of tears and emotional train wrecks then click that add to library button and yeah

(please read it, I will give you much gold, the blood of a virgin, that toothpick from eBay that zayn malik apparently used, and my firstborn son)