There was a boy I used to love who was always in love with somebody else who, except for a few fleeting exceptions, never loved him back. He pined after them as I pined after him. There is a decade-old picture of us and friends that I don't even need to see again to remember: he stands apart from us, wearing his tie-dyed shirt, looking at his watch. I remember this picture because we weren't on good terms that night; the camera had captured him hurting and wanting to go home. I don't remember why we weren't on good terms, as I don't remember at all any of the tiny little fires that went between us. I suspect it is because I, being in love with him the way I knew how then, blew more meaning into these tiny little fires than were worth smarting about. Ordinary love is biased, and while I was so convinced back then that what I felt for him was the most beautiful wasted thing in the world, I know now the way I loved him was ordinary. If it hadn't been, I would