Status: Finished, but never forgotten.
Live Forever
All of the time, I'm never sure why I need you.
And, in the space of three weeks, I’ve gone from never-been-kissed, never-had-a-boyfriend-wait-no-never-seen-a-boy, loser-outcast-freakshow Lyla to one half of the ultimate battle of Britpop peace negotiation couple. And, being honest, it’s weird.
For a start, I’ve never been liked by someone normal. And I can’t get used to it. I can’t get used to his constant smiling, like I’m his own private joke. I can’t get used to the weirdness that is his fingers curling round mine; the oddly comforting smell of his aftershave; the way he holds on to me for just a second too long when we hug each other goodbye.
I’m generalising from two dates in two days here. Tuesday officially sealed the end of my life as a permanent singleton, and yesterday – Wednesday – we celebrated our one day anniversary before I went to meet Stella by hanging out in that lovely park again, bathing in sunshine and kisses, in between eating strawberries. The fine line between romance and unabashed cheesiness has been crossed, but I don’t mind that. I like strawberries.
Which brings me to the question that’s plagued me for a whole 36 hours. Why did I effectively tell him to ask me out if I’m so lost in the oddness? Scratch that; I didn’t tell him to ask me out, I practically opened my heart and invited him in for a cup of tea and a biscuit! What’s wrong with me? Get your shit together, girl!
I irrationalise here, as usual; I often overreact to the tiniest of things. Even Stella threatening to kill herself when Bros broke up a few years ago has nothing on me. I become blackened inside by the simplest things, like missing the bus to school. To be fair to my dignity, I didn’t proclaim undying love or any of that patently overdramatic crap; I merely flirted with him on a scale similar to a 7 on the Richter scale. At which point he stammered out a (strangely cute) proposal involving me and him being a couple. Not quite so romantic was the way that some knobs from my area heckled him and mocked him relentlessly. However, this brief lull in the romanticism of the afternoon was soon compensated in the form of him buying me an entire box of Yorkies (possibly on the provision that I never make him “go into that crappy corner shop again. I have no problems with corner shops, in fact I’m all for them, but that one smells like a wet dog has died in there after a prolonged bout of alcoholism, and now I’m just being ridiculous but it does smell awful in there...”). I simply couldn’t refuse.
On the other hand, I wish I could refuse the dubious charms of school. The bus is chugging along at the speed of a dying snail (and it seems I’m turning into Dan, because I’ve acquired the usage of his unique ‘dead animal similes’), and yet it isn’t going slowly enough for me. I despise school. The vicious bitches who patrol the corridor with supercilious smirks and vacuous conversations, midriff-baring tops because they’re so risqué and ironic slogans on their bags which they probably don’t even understand; the scabby mongrel boys who snigger at my bust because it’s struggling to reach even a 34B before dribbling all over their peroxide blonde trophy wives and referring to them as “babe” – which as a junior feminist I find homicide-inducing; the patronising teachers who tell me that I could get into university, but not to get my hopes up because I’m not from the most affluent of backgrounds...
Few things rile me as forcefully as school does, but it’s a mess on a post-atomic-bomb Hiroshima scale. Everything that could be wrong is wrong. Why didn’t I leave? Because Stella begged me to. Why didn’t Stella come with me? Because, she said, she thought we could change things when we were in the Sixth Form. Then I found out yesterday that it’s because she has a planet-sized crush on her geography teacher. My academic journey has been the sort of thing that Greek tragedies are made of, complete with a chorus and masks. Needless to say, I am not best pleased with Stella, and she will probably trot up to me today filled with apologies and candy sticks. She knows I’m not short of Yorkies.
I can’t help but hope the inevitable trip to school will somehow turn out to be a terrible, cruel nightmare which I will wake myself up from before those dreaded iron gates roll up once more. But I’m not that lucky.
***
Lyla, you don’t need to go to university. You have a career ahead of you as the world’s most successful prophet. Two predictions this morning you made, and every single one of them has turned out correct.
Stella begging for forgiveness, complete with candy sticks? Tick.
Everyone and everything at school turning out to be truly, utterly, completely, contemptably, horrifically awful? Tick.
I’m sitting through the third of my horrible lessons; history. When I was younger, I adored history. Couldn’t get enough of it. Even now, I loan out those Horrible History book things because they make me laugh. And now...? My teacher, Mr White, has rotten stumps for teeth. I imagine his mouth resembles a little yellow Stonehenge. Not that I’ve ever seen it, owing to my lack of Southern expertise. He has a voice which drones on, but not in a soothing manner. It’s a rickety voice, not helped by the 50-a-day cigarette habit I assume he must have because he absolutely reeks of fag ash. I stare out of the window, watching the sun hide behind screens of endless grey and dashes of cold, weak rain. I long for the summer, the sun, the heat, the park...
Maybe it’s a good thing I’m not a fortune teller. I didn’t predict that...
I miss him. And although it doesn’t make sense in any way, shape or form, that’s all that really counts.
For a start, I’ve never been liked by someone normal. And I can’t get used to it. I can’t get used to his constant smiling, like I’m his own private joke. I can’t get used to the weirdness that is his fingers curling round mine; the oddly comforting smell of his aftershave; the way he holds on to me for just a second too long when we hug each other goodbye.
I’m generalising from two dates in two days here. Tuesday officially sealed the end of my life as a permanent singleton, and yesterday – Wednesday – we celebrated our one day anniversary before I went to meet Stella by hanging out in that lovely park again, bathing in sunshine and kisses, in between eating strawberries. The fine line between romance and unabashed cheesiness has been crossed, but I don’t mind that. I like strawberries.
Which brings me to the question that’s plagued me for a whole 36 hours. Why did I effectively tell him to ask me out if I’m so lost in the oddness? Scratch that; I didn’t tell him to ask me out, I practically opened my heart and invited him in for a cup of tea and a biscuit! What’s wrong with me? Get your shit together, girl!
I irrationalise here, as usual; I often overreact to the tiniest of things. Even Stella threatening to kill herself when Bros broke up a few years ago has nothing on me. I become blackened inside by the simplest things, like missing the bus to school. To be fair to my dignity, I didn’t proclaim undying love or any of that patently overdramatic crap; I merely flirted with him on a scale similar to a 7 on the Richter scale. At which point he stammered out a (strangely cute) proposal involving me and him being a couple. Not quite so romantic was the way that some knobs from my area heckled him and mocked him relentlessly. However, this brief lull in the romanticism of the afternoon was soon compensated in the form of him buying me an entire box of Yorkies (possibly on the provision that I never make him “go into that crappy corner shop again. I have no problems with corner shops, in fact I’m all for them, but that one smells like a wet dog has died in there after a prolonged bout of alcoholism, and now I’m just being ridiculous but it does smell awful in there...”). I simply couldn’t refuse.
On the other hand, I wish I could refuse the dubious charms of school. The bus is chugging along at the speed of a dying snail (and it seems I’m turning into Dan, because I’ve acquired the usage of his unique ‘dead animal similes’), and yet it isn’t going slowly enough for me. I despise school. The vicious bitches who patrol the corridor with supercilious smirks and vacuous conversations, midriff-baring tops because they’re so risqué and ironic slogans on their bags which they probably don’t even understand; the scabby mongrel boys who snigger at my bust because it’s struggling to reach even a 34B before dribbling all over their peroxide blonde trophy wives and referring to them as “babe” – which as a junior feminist I find homicide-inducing; the patronising teachers who tell me that I could get into university, but not to get my hopes up because I’m not from the most affluent of backgrounds...
Few things rile me as forcefully as school does, but it’s a mess on a post-atomic-bomb Hiroshima scale. Everything that could be wrong is wrong. Why didn’t I leave? Because Stella begged me to. Why didn’t Stella come with me? Because, she said, she thought we could change things when we were in the Sixth Form. Then I found out yesterday that it’s because she has a planet-sized crush on her geography teacher. My academic journey has been the sort of thing that Greek tragedies are made of, complete with a chorus and masks. Needless to say, I am not best pleased with Stella, and she will probably trot up to me today filled with apologies and candy sticks. She knows I’m not short of Yorkies.
I can’t help but hope the inevitable trip to school will somehow turn out to be a terrible, cruel nightmare which I will wake myself up from before those dreaded iron gates roll up once more. But I’m not that lucky.
***
Lyla, you don’t need to go to university. You have a career ahead of you as the world’s most successful prophet. Two predictions this morning you made, and every single one of them has turned out correct.
Stella begging for forgiveness, complete with candy sticks? Tick.
Everyone and everything at school turning out to be truly, utterly, completely, contemptably, horrifically awful? Tick.
I’m sitting through the third of my horrible lessons; history. When I was younger, I adored history. Couldn’t get enough of it. Even now, I loan out those Horrible History book things because they make me laugh. And now...? My teacher, Mr White, has rotten stumps for teeth. I imagine his mouth resembles a little yellow Stonehenge. Not that I’ve ever seen it, owing to my lack of Southern expertise. He has a voice which drones on, but not in a soothing manner. It’s a rickety voice, not helped by the 50-a-day cigarette habit I assume he must have because he absolutely reeks of fag ash. I stare out of the window, watching the sun hide behind screens of endless grey and dashes of cold, weak rain. I long for the summer, the sun, the heat, the park...
Maybe it’s a good thing I’m not a fortune teller. I didn’t predict that...
I miss him. And although it doesn’t make sense in any way, shape or form, that’s all that really counts.