Todd can’t help the way he feels about you.
You’re kind to him, always nice, so patient. Never getting annoyed when he stumbles over his words or goes quiet as he gets lost in his head trying to think of the best response, forgetting to answer.
It’s why when he overhears your friend teasing you about a crush, his heart instantly sinks to his stomach, feeling sick, because there’s no doubt in his mind that it’s not him.
It could never be someone like Todd who would hold such attention from you.
Things like that didn’t happen to Todd.
He should leave it alone. He should forget he ever heard anything. He should really leave you alone, his senior of one year, and find friends his own age.
But he doesn’t seem to click with anyone else.
He felt desperately like a puppy scorned of any attention when you first smiled at him, all kind angles, nothing malicious in the way you talked to him so nicely.
You’re overcompensating, with your kindness. For all the bad things that have happened to you. You’ve let him into your life, sharing things that not a lot of your friend group knew (not that Todd knew this, to him it was common knowledge). And he’s surprised that your life isn’t perfect.
For all the shitty, horrible, terrible things that have occurred, you’re just as determined to be the opposite. To be a light instead of the darkness that is so easy to succumb to.
“I didn’t have a lot of friends growing up,” you whisper to him one night, sneaking away from the party with your lukewarm drink and his soda that’s beginning to taste flat.
Your head leans against his shoulder and he tries to breathe evenly, to be the perfect shoulder for you.
“I was really lonely. It felt like no matter what I did, I never fit in. People liked me, but no one wanted to be my best friend. So, I guess I never want anyone else to feel like that.”
Todd thinks about that night a lot. The weight of you against him, how the air was crisp, and the scent of your shampoo drifting into his senses.
He wonders if you’ve brought him into your circle out of pity. If you don’t see him as a friend, but as a past version of yourself laden with no friends. If you’re trying to reach into the past and rewrite the story. He doesn’t like to think about it too much because it hurts.
Really, he should try to spend less time thinking about you. But the more he tries to forget, the more he thinks.
He can’t stop thinking about the word crush. His dictionary has been opened to the C section so many times that it has a natural crease there now, flipping to the page as soon as he opens the book.
Crush: a strong but temporary feeling of liking someone.
It could be just a harmless tease from your friend. As far as he knows, there is no one who you could have a crush on. He watches you a lot, and there’s not a lot of people you spend frequent time with outside of your friends and him.
This endless thought that could be nothing that is leading him into a slow descent into obsession. It bothers him.
Someone who could yield your affections must be someone special, worthy of such attention.
But what if it’s not? What if it’s someone who wouldn’t be careful with your heart, wouldn’t take the time to learn the workings of your mind? What if your feelings are not temporary?
Todd loses sleep over it, worry gnawing at the edges of his thoughts until he’s become edgy.
You notice, of course, that Todd will withdraw into himself. With gentle coaxing, he’ll return but sometimes he stays stuck.
Lately he’s been stuck and nothing you’ve done has been able to break through.
He shocks you by finding you in the library, clearly still caught in the webs of his overthinking mind. Appearing normal as he pulls out a textbook and notebook, pen tapping against the palm of his hand.
The words blurt out of his mouth, rushed through in a painful exhale that sounds more breathy than he intended. He hadn't even meant to say that.
“You have a crush?” He asks.
And then stops, breath hitching, heart beginning to race.
He doesn’t want to know. Can’t bear to watch the way your lips form the name of someone who isn’t him.
Instead, you smile at him. Shrugging your arms and sighing.
“Not you too! Everyone is pestering me over it.” You avoid the question, Todd is quick to notice.
“I overheard Meeks.” Todd says.
“He’s such an instigator.” You roll your eyes.
Todd knows you well enough to know that you’ve purposefully not answered him. It brings a small flutter to his chest.
“Do you?”
It’s painful, to dig in and search for an answer that he know will hurt. Rubbing salt into the wound that is his aching heart. But he has to know. It’s like an itch he can’t reach.
“Yes, Todd, I do. Although calling it a crush is silly. It’s much stronger than that.” You say, very quietly.
Or maybe Todd can’t hear you well over the sudden rushing in his ears.
“Oh.” It’s all he can manage.
Crush, is simple and small. Temporary.
Stronger than a crush? Well. That’s not so simple or small.
“Todd, can you look at me?”
He can't. Eyes glued to the floor of the library, feeling his cheeks flush with warmth and his stomach twist into knots. Slippery and hot as he tries to calm the sudden urge to be sick.
You reach out to grab his clammy hands, giving them a firm squeeze. He manages to squeeze back.
“It’s okay, breathe.” You count out the breaths for him until they’re no longer shaky.
His cheeks are still flushed, but not with anxiety. Feeling the sweat on his neck begin to cool. Stomach settling.
“Todd, I really like you. A lot.” You grin. “I have a crush on you.”
“Why me?”
“Because you’re you.”
Todd has another fitful night of sleep, but this time it's because he can't stop thinking about the moment in the library. Flushed with embarrassment, but also with a giddiness. Thinking of what you had said, to him alone and him only:
"I'm infatuated with you, Todd Anderson."
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I feel like people tend to forget that the reason children are on websites they really shouldn't be on, like Twitter for example, is because there are no spaces on the internet anymore specifically designed for children, unless it's for babies or toddlers.
The death of Flash also meant the death of thousands of games and websites specifically designed for the 9-13 demographic. Now granted, several games died long before Flash did (like the Holy Disney MMO trio - Pixie Hollow, ToonTown and Club Penguin) but there were other websites designed around what kids would enjoy. Sites like Kongregate, Sploder, GirlsGoGames and others were designed with kids in mind.
These sites were special in the sense that it gave fun games for children to play without even really needing to interact with other people directly. They could play the games and have fun. If they wanted to make friends they could, and oftentimes these sites had moderation to prevent kids from having full control over what they could say so as to prevent bullying and potential cyberstalking.
But now Flash is dead, and there's barely any hangout spots for that demographic anymore. I think the last remaining game you can play that doesn't require Flash that was a major part of the 2010s game nostalgia was Wizard101, but that game comes with the flaw of membership programs, similar to all the other MMOs that existed at the time.
Needless to say, the next time we ask in annoyance why there's so many 12 year olds on Twitter and Tik Tok, remember that it's because there's literally no online spaces anymore solely for them and only them, that majority of adults wouldn't step foot into anymore.
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