He knew that he loved her, but he wasn’t sure if she felt the same. 

After class, the two high school seniors were at a park sitting crisscrossed in the back of his beat-up Honda Civic. A couple of months into dating, he still found it difficult to make direct eye contact with her. Having had a boyfriend previously, she was more experienced and found it amusing to tease him about this. He was firmer with his words than his actions.

“It’s hard to know whether or not you love me,” he told her. “But I guess I’ll just have to take your word for it.”

“You know, there’s actually a way to prove it,” she replied. “Our eyes can tell the truth for us.” She pulled out her phone and began typing rapidly.

“Says who?”

“The internet.” She showed him a list of search results found with the line, ‘do pupils dilate when you look at someone you love.’ He scanned the variety of sources with a scowl: reddit, the National Institute of Health, Buzzfeed. He handed the phone back to her.

“They can dilate for many reasons. How can you know it’s because of who you’re looking at?”

“I have a plan. First, we’re going to find a spot for you to lie down. You’ll stare up at the sky, which will cause your pupils to contract. Then I’ll come into view, and I’ll let you know if they changed.” She moved her thumb back and forth over the top of his hand in a windshield wiper motion. He wondered if an act so simple had caused his eyes to expand.

He told her that he’d indulge her, though he urged her to try and not read too much into it. Just in case. She promised him she wouldn’t.

They walked over to the section of the park with metal picnic benches situated around a blossoming plum tree. He felt the incessant need to rub his eyes, a malady that plagued him around this time of year. He worried that she’d find him repulsive after gazing into the evermore reddening white of his eyes. To him, no other acts of intimacy compared to staring into another’s eyes. Unless, of course, he didn’t find the other person attractive. Then it wasn’t romantic, just off-putting.

He sat and positioned himself so that his legs hung off both edges. As he lay down, the twisting grooves and oval impressions of the seat shocked him on the nape of his neck. She instructed him with haste to look up at the sky, to let his eyes acclimate to the light.

It was nearing the end of spring, and with an hour remaining until sunset, the clouds were stained in pink and orange hues. The colors melted into one another; billows of cotton dipped into fiery dyes. From his periphery, white petals fluttered down in cursive strokes. The sweet breeze that caressed the branches brushed the tip of his nose. All of these are extraneous variables, he thought to himself.

Without warning, she peered over him. Her eyes−the color of espresso beans−had a tinge of sparkle to them, moist like she was always about to cry. Ripples of light danced across the surface of umbral pools with unknown depth. Intimidating, yet fascinating to him. 

After a minute or so, she flicked him on the forehead. “Nothing changed. Your pupils stayed the same.” She sat on the opposite side of the bench and crossed her arms. 

He reassured her of all the factors beyond his control, pleading with her to try and not take it to heart. Although he felt he had properly warned her, it was clear to him that she was disappointed by the result of the experiment. Disappointed in him. He massaged the groove between his eyes apologetically.

“My turn.” She mirrored him and lay down to adjust her eyes. By now, he was sure that nothing would change. If he, who was so certain of his feelings, had no significant shift in the diameter size of his pupils, then why would hers? She only told him that she loved him a week earlier. He had known how he felt about her long before, and he made a note to constantly remind her of this.

Though he wondered if an underlying issue would arise if neither of them were to be successful. While he believed their desire for one another exceeded the limitations of their anatomy, the silliness of it all felt oddly pivotal.

He sat up and kneeled next to her body. Once he felt enough time had passed, he copied her and leaned in with only his face covering hers. Observing her, he was overcome with both joy and sorrow. In quite obvious fashion, the black inner circle of her eyes increased dramatically in dimension. Her lips remained pursed, still disheartened by her earlier findings, but her eyes operated separately. They were doting, and only for him. The crease in her forehead softened, for she must’ve witnessed something of concern on his face. A realization too serious for the intended occasion.

He conceded in revealing to her what he saw. She playfully shoved the evidence in his face, getting up and running a victory lap around the tree. She seemed elated to have her feelings acknowledged, for her love that he doubted was proven to be real. On the other hand, he was stricken with a puncturing hollowness; an inability to attest to possibly the only truth he claimed to know. Shortly after, they walked back to the car holding hands.

The two broke up the following year.

While her feelings seemed to grow for him over time, he began to doubt the sincerity in his affection for her. The guilt of being unsure became suffocating, and he felt as if she were wasting her youth on him. Someone could be surer than him. Someone should be. 

But insecurity is a complex reason to justify a breakup, so he instead told her that he had fallen out of love with her. Although she was visibly shaken, she didn’t question how it had come to this. Without demanding any further explanation, she left him.

When he heard the news that she had moved on and found someone else, he was confident in his assumption that she loved this new person. She had already proven to him that she was capable of being certain. She would always be able to hold this over his head.

He reminisced about that afternoon in the park. He wondered why he had chosen to pay such close attention to the scenery above; the clouds, the petals, the breeze. He wondered whether there had been a choice to begin with.