Lines

He kissed me tonight. After 3 whole years, he finally kissed me. He’d stopped being so obsessed with that blonde, bimbo, bitch, synthetic “girl”. He’d dropped the gorgeous French brunette. He’d long forgotten about the cute redhead. The curvaceous American beauty. And all the others. He’d finally chosen me. It happened all at once. It’s my fault. I started the chain reaction. I began making a bit more effort, I flirted a little more, I would peck him on the cheek as I said goodbye. And then, tonight, at the gig, he kissed me. Once on the cheek, then the forehead, and then he kissed my lips, so softly. Gently. But at the same time in the rugged, passionate way only a teenage boy knows how to. I was hesitant at first, so shy, scared of what would happen. I realised I wouldn’t have cared if I didn’t like him. I was only hesitant because I had this infatuation with him. He smiled, and held me close, and he kissed me again. I was flying.

“________,” he murmured, his voice raw .He took my hand, when all the others we were with were preoccupied by the band, and led me outside, around the building, out to an area under the trees in the back of the hall. He sat down my a tree, and motioned for me to sit near him. I sat. He wrapped his lean arms around my waist, and hugged me to him. He spoke to me, in a voice so soft, so unsure but so confident, that I was wondering if it was him. He kissed me again. And again. And again. But then, _______ and _______ came out to join us. _________ sat down on his knee, the silly little slut. It’s not my fault he goes crazy over that little ginger slattern. _________ pulled my up, and slid his arms round my midriff. Soon, everyone was with us, and that ridiculously wanton Yankee sat down next to him, deliberately folding her arms in a manner that accentuated her breasts. First she stole my friends, Then she stole my personality. Then she copied my outfit. And then, she had the nerve to practically strip for the one and only boy I’ve ever even come this close to being in love with. It twisted and turned like indigestion, writhing in my belly, this jealous snake pulsating inside me. “It hurts,” I thought. But that wasn’t real pain. Describing that feeling as pain would be an exaggeration. It was just a little twinge.

As the night progressed, he basically just ignored me, mesmerized by _________’s chest, and _________’s adorable way of enticing him in. Just how she does. I walked back over to a different part, where I laughed and joked with some other people, and watched the dance troupe busking outside the hall. I kept up the façade. I’d tried so hard to get myself noticed, the hollow feeling in my abdomen was eating away at me, wearing me down from the inside out. What’s worse is that _________, with her voluptuous body and bush-baby stare, doesn’t even give a toss about him. If he got run over, she’d probably just say “Oh well!” and carry on seducing others. And _________, she only became interest in him when he looked interested in her. So, about two minutes ago. She doesn’t even know. Nobody knows. Except __________, the only girl I feel I can trust.

___________, the redhead, pulled me into a corner. She thinks she’s my best friend. “__________,” she stated, simply. Just a name. My name. But on her tongue it sounded malevolent. It had he power to build me up, or break me down. It sounded wrong.

“_________?” I don’t know what to do. __________ keeps hugging me and kissing me and touching me, and I don’t like it. I think it’s a good thing but I don’t like it what do I do?” I felt her words cut through me, like slicing soft butter. It burned. I told her I didn’t know what she should do, and that she shouldn’t ask me. So she got out her mobile phone, and started tapping messages to all her other “best friends”. The one’s who’s feelings she doesn’t give a shit about. She just doesn’t care, she’s never cared. Happy-go-lucky __________, that’s her. I wished I was her. At that moment, I wished with every fibre of my very being that I could be her. The one he really likes.

I waited until she was immersed in her conversations over her mobile phone, and then I ran. I ran around the other side of the woods, to the gate that backed onto the woods outside my house. I ran into the clearing. I stopped, caught my breath. Then I slowly walked over to the left of the clearing, and began to walk through the woods, counting the trees. I counted six trees one way, eight the other, and four more to my right. I found my tree.
“Why did I fall for him?”
I ran my hand down to the base of the tree, stroking the intricate patterns.
“Why did I ever think I had a chance?”
I found the deep grooves about three inches from the bottom.
“Why does he always suck me back in?”
I took the penknife out from the little hollow I’d found, near to the roots.
”What is so special about him?”
I carved one more line in, underneath. A tally. Interlocking with the metaphorical scars over my heart. It hurt.