Hearts Recycled But Never Saved

I woke up when Jimmy started shaking me, not very sensitively.

"I'm sorry to wake you up", he whispered. His warm hand stroke my cheek. "You okay?"

I nodded, but still very tired.

"Come on", Jimmy reassured and gave me his hand. I pulled myself up and rubbed my eyes again.
I hate Mondays, I tried to cheer myself up.

"I have a... special surprise today", Jimmy said with a secretive smile.

"What?" I automatically asked.

"Won't tell you, silly. Let's go now, you can have the breakfast on our way."

"Breakfast?" I yelled, longing for a good old plate of bacon. More than I ever even dared to dream about, usually.

Jimmy smiled skewly.

"Uh... no." Before I had time to protest, he continued. "But I got some fruit! Apples?"

Presumably, he had already been up for a while, since he had time to steal. He picked up a green apple from his pocket, as though he was trying to entice me.
I sighed. This guy was hopelessly charming.

"Thanks." I received it, took a bite and started to follow Jimmy. "Where are we going?"

Jimmy groaned.

"I'm not gonna tell you anyway. But I promise, they're waiting absolutely not far from here!"

"They?" I teased, smirking widely.

"Oh shut up, bitch!"

"What? You call your girlfriend a bitch?" I grinned and threw the half-eaten apple at Jimmy, who faked a mad expression.

"That apple took a long time to find, young lady! And who ever said you're my girlfriend?" he laughed, answering me by bending down, snatching up some grass by its roots and throwing it straight to my face.

"You did!" I giggled and escaped Jimmy's second grassbomb.

"But you're still a bitch!"

"Am I?"

Jimmy got too much, roared and tripped me over. Both of us fell down on the lawn, shrieking with laughter. He threw himself at me.

"You're the sweetest fucking bitch in the world. Ever", he whispered and kissed me.

I took my chance, rolled over Jimmy to sit on him.

"Is that the way you want it?" Jimmy beamed, forcing me to turn again.

"Give it up you bastard." I slapped him jokingly over the face.

"Never."

"Jimmy!" I moaned.

Grinning, he turned us around one last time; his face only inches from mine.

"Whatsername." He swallowed, and all of a sudden he had gone serious again. "I love you."

His smooth, three words spread a feeling inside me. A feeling I never had felt before.
I had no idea what to reply. "I know" was too selfish. So I just smiled. That was all that came to mind.

We spent the following three minutes laying next to each other on the lawn, smiling in silence, until Jimmy broke it.

"We better leave or they'll go crazy, I mean, they're already desperados and you don't want them worse."

I was just going to reply, when someone else suddenly cut us off.

"Oh you don't need to. We're already here."

I gasped and turned around to see a group of about ten people: all of them were boys, but in different ages.

"Uh, surprise!" Jimmy cheered to me.

"Aw, that's some serious puppy love, boys!" one of them chuckled teasingly.

"Fucktards", Jimmy cursed. He got up from the ground. "The Underbelly, meet Whatsername. Whatsername, this is the Underbelly."

I forced a smile to my face and started high-fiving.

"Well..." Jimmy doubted, aware of that he was the only one who knew everyone, so he'd better speak. "Should we just hang around town?"

"Um, yeah, sure", I mumbled, since his friends didn't say anything at all.

"Okay... let's go then! What's been up lately, man?"

"Nope. Where have you been all damn week long?" a guy with a mohawk quickly interrupted by changing the topic. The others agreed with the question in mumbling voices.

"With Whatsername", Jimmy dismissed them, as if it was the clearest thing in the world. "What have you been up to?"

"Are you together? She's your girlfriend?" The questions hailed from a boy who couldn't be older than ten years old. I felt a sting of compassion for him, a ten years old, lost kid. I was sixteen when I ran off to live on the streets, but this kid wasn't even a teenager. He had no ground to stand on; no background, no future.

"That's a huge fucking nagging!" Jimmy shouted and added a groan. "Yes, we are." He put his arm around me, and I smiled, a little forced. This was not the Jimmy I knew.

The Underbelly was a pretty weird gang; they were all snot-nosed, childish and cheeky, but really funny. They didn't talk to me very much though, they all worshipped and wanted to be around the central point; Jimmy. To them, he was the sun, and they were like the planets.
When the darkness started to paint the sky, we all decided to make a bon fire, which not too surprisingly was illegal there, and grill everything the Underbelly had stolen during the morning.

"Can I have another marshmallow?" I asked, and one of the spike-haired guys around my age handed me the plastic bag.

"Thank you", I smiled, pierced it and held the stick close to the fire.

I stared into the flames of the fire, as chewing the marshmallow, that only seemed to swell in my mouth. I was in some kind of ecstasy.

The small boy got me back to reality when he carefully touched my shoulder.

"I'm sorry, what did you say?" I asked and winked to see clearly again.

He shrugged and just handed me a pack of something.

"What's this?"

"Take some and pass it on", he snorted and rolled his eyes.

"Oh okay", I said stupidly and opened it. It took me five seconds of staring into it to realize what was inside.

First, I looked at him again. Sifted him. Then, I glared at the pack of drugs that he just had eaten from.

"Anything wrong, honey?" Jimmy, who sat on my right, asked smoothly.

"Oh, I'm... I... I got over those", I managed to squeeze out from myself.

"I can't live without them", Jimmy said matter-of-factly. When he saw my distrustful expression, he added: "Oh yes, I do, trust me. It's true. Life sucks, I know babe." He kissed my cheek, picked up two of the pills, and was just going to put them in his mouth when I prevented him.

"Wait! Wait, what are they?" I yelled worriedly.

"It's just... drugs. I don't care." Jimmy bit his lip for two seconds, before making his decision and swallowed the pills. "Don't worry", he reassured me, but he didn't sound very promising.

"Yeah, but I care. No matter how much you stopped to care about yourself."
I shook my head and left him alone, still not very satisfied with our conversation. His sudden personality change disturbed me.

That night was scary and tempting. Jimmy and the Underbelly drank booze, took drugs, smoked pot and cigarettes. I knew what it was about. I knew drugs. I had been fighting for so long to give them up. And then all of a sudden, just when I thought they were out of my life for ever, I was surrounded by them again!

"Jimmy?" I shouted to get his attention and drench the sound from the kids who were all loud and busy laughing and drinking.
He turned around on trembly legs, with his eyes blinking uninterruptedly.

"Yeah, baby?"

"I'm taking a walk. Um, I, well, I'll be back soon." I swallowed when I saw the ten-year-old as drunk as he even fell. Poor thing. The other boys, who weren't much more sober, laughed and pat his back after helping him up on feet again, as if he his effort was heroic.

"Where are you going?" Jimmy asked, walking up to me, leaving the others a few metres behind us. "You're leaving?"

I grinned. Until I realized Jimmy wasn't joking at all.

"What?" I panted. "Jimmy. I love you."

That was the first time I ever told Jimmy those three words. I had imagined so many times before, that when I come to the point of ever saying that to someone, it will be such a special moment. That's probably why I've been kept waiting for so long, I always thought.
But I was wrong. So wrong. Jimmy didn't even react, he probably had heard it before, from other people, and then they had betrayed him. He had even stopped to care about 'I love you'.

"Yeah sure. Just leave me, everybody does, do it, do it you too! Just when I think I get something, it slips away!"

He was loud, gesticulated wildly, and all of us around him got scared, especially me. He turned his back to leave me all perplexed.

It felt like my heart sank in my chest. I was serious. What I had said was true.
But before he was all gone and lost in his way too drunk thoughts, I decided to get my voice heard.

"Hey!" I shouted. "Jimmy! What's the matter?"

The noise from the Underbelly vanished. All I heard was my speeding pulse, my breath and Jimmy's deep sigh. He took a tottering step.

"Nothing! Get your fucking face out of here!"

In the light from the fire place, I could spot how his cheeks were wet with tears.

"I won't leave you, Jimmy! I just wanna clear up my mind! Tell me what's wrong now!"

Jimmy looked for the words. He mumbled something beyond audibility. His eyes blinked like crazy, and he took a step backwards to keep the balance.

"Jimmy?" I threw my cigarette away and started running for his rescue.

Too late. He fell down backwards, smashing his head straight onto a stone.

"NOO!" I howled shrilly, the next second standing by his side. I got on my knees. "Jimmy... oh holy shit... Jimmy, you hear me?"

Panic slowly took over. I had my pulse up in my head, starting to feel dizzy.

I stroke Jimmy's cheek.

"Sweetie?" I swallowed to escape the tears. "Sweetie?" I repeated.

But Jimmy didn't answer.