Elisa and I stroll along the upper walkway above the school's main hall as we head for the study rooms, casually linked arms as the day is almost over, and we're both tired. We have a free period to do as we please for nearly an hour, and we decided to compile everything for the English essay to finish it. Once it’s done, I can stop sitting with Dane and won’t have to keep interacting anymore.Tyler and Dane, at some point, contacted some of our interviewees and got a lot of good quotes, so all that is left is to write up the sections we took and give them to Tyler to add to theirs. Dane has actually been contributing in small ways, which is so unlike him, so my decision to extract him from the credits has died a silent death. Especially after taking care of me yesterday.I rub my bandaged hand as I think of him, nowhere near as sore as it was, and carry on walking behind my girl. A few more days of the gel, and it won’t leave a single mark, and thanks to his instant care, it hasn’t g
There’s no way it can be Charmaine, as she has alone made out with half the boys in our year this semester. He’s probably asking himself who he grabbed in the dark. I swallow hard, nervous fear hitting me low in the stomach as I realize he might now go absolutely ape shit when he figures out who he was just making out with. He’s still close enough that his warm breath is fanning my mouth and chin, but his breathing has slowed and become almost non-existent as he thinks and questions internally.I should say something, but I am rendered mute and paralyzed by a sense of ‘I shouldn’t have kissed him back.’ This was so dumb. I know he is going to go crazy at me after the kitchen incident.My face flames, his hand on my throat slides up to my jaw and becomes searching fingers as he traces my cheek, then eyebrow, and I am assuming he can tell by touch this is not Charmaine's face. He’s trying to figure out if he’s imagining it and is probably confused about who else would be in here with hi
My face is sore and swollen from crying like an idiot for the past two hours, sitting on my bed, and rubbing in a moisturizer to minimize the mess I made after washing my face. I know my skin is blotchy and pale, my nose red, and my eyes are puffed up. I’m washed out, yet it felt good to cleanse my soul and give into everything that’s been eating at me for days. I am physically lighter, as though a huge weight I was unaware I have been carrying this past couple of days is lifted from my head.So much for controlling my ability to cry over the past years. I don’t think I have ever sobbed like that for that long in my life, and I feel so stupid that Dane triggered it. I guess crying that first time broke the off switch, and now my emotions are a free for all anytime I get sad.For what, really?Yelling at me, making me feel repulsive? Or because I got to kiss him, and he made it clear that this weirdness growing in me was so one-sided, and a small spark had held onto loose hope that it
“I have all those reasons too, but it didn't stop me feeling something for you……. I wouldn’t be mad at you for it. You can’t help who you like! You said that yourself! And deny it all you want and say you don’t care about me, but your actions say differently sometimes, so you confuse me all the more. I have never felt like I was your sister but at times ….. you make me think I’m something else to you.”This has always been the confusing thing about us, and maybe it’s where our constant bickering stems from.“Who said I don’t care about you?” he turns his head on me in a snap, eyes narrowed and a low simmering anger building. He seems outraged that I would say something like that, yet he’s been trying to make me believe it for so long. It’s grating that he only heard that in all those words I threw at him.I glance away from the intense gaze and return to pulling at my pillow. Pondering that by now, Dane would usually have walked away from me as the conversation was steering to somethi
“Oh, Hello…. How’re things going at school lately? It feels like I haven’t seen you in weeks,” My mom asks Elisa with a soft and warm smile at her sitting beside me at the breakfast bar as we share a plate of tacos that Monique made us. It’s early afternoon, after school, and we’re home to study together.“Good, Mrs. Masterson.” Elisa is always the model of politeness when it comes to my parents. “We’ve just been busy with some schoolwork. It’s only a few days till break, and I think we need it.”“Mom… Lees is staying here tonight. If that’s okay?” I ask as my mother wanders around the kitchen, looking for something, and gives another perfunctory smile as she tilts her head back to us. It’s obvious she is not fully invested in us and is distracted. She wanders to the cupboard where we keep the first aid and medicines and rummages inside, reminding me of that idiot Dane when I catch sight of the green box in full view, and my stomach sinks into my lap, churning up my nerves and anger o
I toss and turn, trying hard not to wake Elisa, the sleeping beauty who looks like she might be dead, and end up on my back. Exhaling heavily and flattening the sheets over my body while staring at the ceiling, I know closing my eyes is futile. By now, it has to be the early AMs, and I have not managed to stay asleep for more than short periods. I keep waking and feeling restless, with a million thoughts swarming me. I can’t stop the ongoing onslaught of mindless worries and woes, and of course, Dane is top of that list.Elisa mumbles something incoherent in her sleep, and I realize I might be disturbing her by moving around so much, so I shift to my side and stare at my desk by my balcony window instead. The clock there shines back at three am, and I deflate further. The night is ticking away, and I am wide awake.My mom and Bryan texted before midnight, saying they had decided to drink and stay at the hotel where the show was tonight. This means they’ll probably head straight to wor
I sit upright, narrow my eyes on him with severe scrutiny and start patting at his clothes, looking for the keys to his bike because I am sure he came here on it, and the accident line is bullshit. If he thinks I’m going to sit back and watch him ride off into the night, he’s got another thing coming.“What are you doing?” Dane sits up too, trying to catch my wrists as I slide my hands into his hoodie pockets, looking for them, and end up wrestling him while fighting to keep searching. Combatting his slower-than-usual responses and getting the upper hand because moving hurts him. Dane catches my hands, pins them behind my back, and yanks me into his chest so I can’t get loose. We end up nose to nose, with both of us half kneeling, half sitting, and breathing hard.“I know your bike is out front, so don’t give me this bullshit. You plan on taking your things and leaving? I won’t let you. I’ll call your dad and tell him…. I’ll stop you.” I can’t conceal the anger in my voice or the fier
“Dane, are you awake?” I rap lightly on his bedroom door, straining my ear to the smooth surface for noises or signs of life, and jump when the door clicks open, and he edges around it, so I only see his face. Cast half in shadow from the early hour, his bruises have progressed further, but much of his swelling has calmed down. He looks like someone went crazy with purple face paint.“Yeah. Did Elisa go home?” He eyes past me down the darkened hall and seems uneasy that he might get caught if he comes out further. I already know he’s safe.“Yep, she left a few minutes ago. Monique is up, but she’s cleaning downstairs before she goes to the market. She normally doesn’t come up here until after to sort the rooms. You have maybe an hour to get ready and for us to leave after she does.” I hold up the glass of orange squash in my hand and the tube of Arnica gel and wave them at him. “To take your meds and to help with your pain.” I point out and hold them out to him so that he slides back
Here I am, wallowing in pain and heartbreak, thinking that he, too, must be having a really hard time. It’s the only comfort I have been able to give myself in all of this, and yet it’s not even true. He’s over there living it up with another girl, making friends, and even going to school with her. The fact no one wants to tell me means it’s far from innocent, and I don’t want to believe he would move on so fast, yet something tells me this is his style.This is exactly the kind of shit Dane of the past would pull.Didn’t he try throwing all in with that shrew Charmaigne in an attempt to dislodge my feelings for him? Maybe knowing we can never be together, he has gone down the route of replacing me as fast as he can. Don’t they say the faster way to get over someone is to get under someone new?He slept with other girls in his past to try and forget me, and now here he has a ready-made wannabe girlfriend living in his new home. If he really wanted to get over me, she is the perfect st
School was tougher today than yesterday. I think it’s the inability to sleep and the slow loss of Dane’s belongings and possessions at home, feeling like I am trying to grasp onto fine dry sand and can’t keep it between my fingers. Every time I close my eyes, I see him, and the overwhelming sadness stops me from being able to shut off my brain and roll over this mess again and again until I feel like I'm going slowly insane.I never knew love could be so awful.“You okay?” Elisa interrupts my spaced-out mood and pulls me back to the burger in my hand that I have barely touched. Sighing as I stare back out the window blankly at my jeep parked nearby and nod.“A million miles away. Sorry.”We decided to come out and eat after we dropped off my paternity test at the lab out here, only ten miles from home. Tyler had something to do with his friends, so Elisa and I decided to hang out here, take in some scenery, and try a burger bar to take my mind off of things.It wasn't hard. I put a sw
“I know, I know…I’m working on it. I never thought your mom would take it as badly as she is and dig her heels in. I’m sorry it seems like we’re stalling but it’s just you know how she can be. She needs time to calm down and change her mind.” Bryan looks weary all of a sudden, and now my anger dims a slight tiny fraction at his attempts to douse my fire, I cannot deny that he seems unnaturally pale today.A tiny hint of empathy and maybe even concern peeks out, and I try and push it back down into the pits of hell and remind myself that these two humans deserve anything they are going through. I don’t want to feel anything for either of them.“Maybe you should ask yourself why she is stalling….maybe you need that test as much as I do.” I point out, appraising his expression and seeing real fatigue etched on his face for the first time in as long as I can remember, and I wonder how much of a mental toll it's taking on him, too. Maybe he does have doubts, or maybe losing Dane this way h
I’m tired already, and it’s only eleven AM, and another class is starting. I regret coming back today, given last night I barely slept and instead cried myself raw on Dane's empty bed. Draped in the hoody that he wore the first time we took Elisa to the cove and staring at the mountain of boxes Monique packed up to send abroad for him. A symbolic tower of everything that is him ready to be sent far away.His room felt like she had stripped all personality that was Dane from its very air, as though he never existed in this space. Even his smell was gone, and as I lay there on the uncovered mattress, I couldn’t move or leave, and sleep wouldn’t take me. Just a useless heavyweight of flesh tethered to the last place he dwelled and unable to move on.I feel like I am now existing in an eternal zombie state, caught between numb and excruciating pain at any given moment, and my mind is anywhere but on school. But I know I cannot keep existing this way. Dragging out and holding onto nothing.
“She went to the airport early to wait for Bryan…to avoid me, I guess. Things here have been strained and hard, and we have come to a silent cold war. I can’t stand being in the same place as her, yet she insists now we eat together again and won’t let me stay locked up in my room. She had a carpenter come and remove the locks….who does that?” It’s a tired accusation, lacking real vavoom, even if it still angers me that she did it. I have long since lost the fight I had to stay away from her at all costs. She is like a buzzing fly around my head, and it’s easier to obey and eat silently while ignoring her presence than have her hammering down my door.If she’s trying to force normalcy back into this house, then she shouldn’t hold her breath for it to happen.“Sounds like something your mom would do.” Tyler snorts, and I am starting to see that all these years, Dane has definitely colored his friend’s view of my mom. As polite as Tyler was when he was here before, I have never actually
“Oh my god, I missed you so much.” Elisa catapults herself into my arms, almost knocking me into our pool with the enthusiasm of an over-excited puppy, then nearly strangles me to death while simultaneously crushing my ribs. Her excitement is palpable, and her hug is overdue. I regret now giving her the silent treatment for ten days before being able to find the mental strength to tell her everything in a phone call. I had no way of verbalizing things without breaking down in hysteria until last night, and I knew Tyler would have told her already, but she needed to hear it from me. I have never gone silent on my best friend in my whole life or hidden away Dane style like his, but I needed time to process and grieve. This was such a huge thing that I spent too many days crying in bed until no more tears fell. I am exhausted and now exist in some odd dreamlike reality where nothing seems real.I think I am finally spent. Tears have dried up, and instead of the constant agonizing pain of
“You have to eat, open the door. We need to talk.”“Go away…. Leave me alone.” My anger and venom have not dissipated any; instead, it grows by the hour. Irritated by my mom’s lingering presence because she just won’t leave me alone.Her whiny, pleading voice only riles fresh anger in me, and I throw my pillow at my bedroom door in frustration. Annoyed by her presence, and go back to staring at my cell, waiting for a reply that hasn’t come. I feel like I am going silently insane, and time has come to a standstill. I don’t know what else to do but sit here and wait given my entire existence has been turned upside down and my hope for any future is so far away I cannot reach him.Dane has been gone for days, yet he hasn’t called, he hasn’t texted me back, and Bryan has been silent, too, like they were sucked into some soundproofed bubble where all contact has ceased. For me, anyway. I don’t know if my mother speaks to them because I can't stomach her at all, even for a second, to have o
“Bullshit…this is bullshit. You’re lying.” Dane erupts before I can really swallow down the words that have wounded me with a sucker punch to my heart. “You’ve always hated me, and I wouldn’t put it past you to stoop this low and lie….so I break up with Kayla.” He half yells, half accuses, straining forward to get in her face, and I can taste the growing despair and anger circling him like a cyclone. “I don’t believe you.”“This isn’t true…you would have told me…dad would have….” I trail off, whimpering the words as something clicks in my head and slices through me with speed and severity, making my legs tingle, and my limbs grow weak. “Is that why? Why has he been this way towards me for the past ten years?”I don’t want to believe this or swallow it down, but it’s like something just smacked me in the head and woke up the underlying doubts.It races through my brain and thunders through my entire body like a shocking cold wall of ice. Tingling my brain through my scalp, and even my
“Mom.” Is the only word I can gasp out as I push Dane off me at speed and scramble to right my bra inside my shirt and haul my shorts back into place. Shame flushing over my entire body that we just got caught this way, and I want the ground to open and swallow me. Mortified about what they saw us doing and yet, at the same time, hitting an all-time ‘oh shit’ moment because I don’t want this to be the end. I don’t want Dane to be sent to London. I don’t want to lose him this way.I have an urge to wail and run away, taking him with me rather than face the wrath of our parents like this. My limbs are already trembling in cold fear.Dane shifts away quickly, too, to tend to his pulled-around outfit, turning away directly to probably calm the boner, causing him an obvious trouser tent, and yet it’s like time stands still. The sudden eery, heavy atmosphere and tense silence as though the world has hushed and the only noise is my mother’s subtle simpering.Our parents are standing like a f