When I figure it out, I’m sixteen.

          She sits behind me in statistics and has full lips that curl up to all my bad jokes. I find myself swallowing back my pride to give her my number—but no, now she’s dating my best friend. My hands sweat.

          When I figure it out, I’m seventeen.

          I ask him on a date because I’m ‘leading him on’. He’s my best friend in the world, and everyone tells me that we are perfect together. I lie back in my pool and wait for my skin to burn and don’t text him back. We are both teary-eyed when it ends.

          When I figure it out, I’m eighteen.

          I wasn’t prepared for this.

          When I figure it out, I’m six.

          There’s a girl I detest in my class because she’s pretty and always has a comeback prepared. At eleven, she tries to be my friend, and at sixteen, she succeeds.

          I never stop talking about her though, not when I’m six. I hate her. She’s plotting against me.

          My parents tease me about boys and my latest obsession goes unnoticed.

          I spend hours writing scratchy poems about her stupid blonde hair and her stupid blue eyes. My fingers itch to slip one into her backpack. I find myself melancholy when I dump them in the fireplace despite the fact that they do, indeed, burn.

          She gives me a note on Valentine’s Day and my name is spelled wrong. I chug a Sprite on the deck of the portables and she calls me weird and romance has never felt such heartbreak in the entirety of the human race.

          I figure it out.