Confusion Girl

“It’s over.”

The most painful words any boy can ever say to a girl. No questions. No room for doubt. No more love. It draws a severe line under a relationship, as if until those two words everything was all just going perfectly. After that there’s no way back. Not for Elizabeth Brooke anyway; not for me.

The move back to England had been a dire idea. After those two words my entire existence in the small town of Massachusetts just crumbled away into nothing. I quit the college I had started attending because he was there. I quit all my clubs and all of my commitments that just rooted out excess pain.

For these past two years I’d drifted through an English university perfectly fine. It was a suitable act. Soon enough the fake smiles became easier to perform until they were true smiles conjured up by friends.

Real friends.

For the first time in my life I had real living breathing friends. They were all perfect. All my lecturers were perfect. Everyone was fucking perfect.

No matter how easy it was to lose myself within these new surrounding I still knew that this wasn’t really me. The girl with peroxide blonde hair chatting away with her university friends waiting for their bus to come trundling along to take them to their perfect lives wasn’t me. It was all some twisted play that I was sick of playing.

But I moved on. I moved on from Alec Bradshaw. Part of moving on is becoming somebody different. It’s evolving your character around the pain, making yourself better as if the heart break was really just some stepping stone in life. It could be made beneficial. What else was I supposed to do with the pain?

That bitter afternoon I fled home to my mother. She wasn’t a real comfort but her advice was clear and crisp. “Don’t dwell, there’s nothing for you here now.” In that moment she was the best mother she’d been to me in her entire 19 years of duty. That night I packed a bag and took a cab to the airport. The next day I was back in the UK without a shred of my past to hold up to the sun. Nobody had to know that I was so broken because of him that I should have been sent back as faulty.

But time heals everything. I was getting along fine without him. I couldn’t dwell, it wasn’t in my nature, but I could neither look at another boy the same way. They all just reminded me of the ugly side of Alec. The cheating, lying unloving side. He’d blinded me.

But life was getting so much simpler until the day I saw that fucking poster on a gigantic billboard on my ride to school. Just three days until I graduated with an English degree to my name.

“Oh my gosh Eliza” a friend squealed at me next to where I sat “it’s that new band with the number one track. I just love them aren’t they cute? Especially that lead singer, man I could just eat him up!”

In defeat I peered at the source of all this excess commotion. There he was. Blown up to a huge proportion lingering above all of London. So like Alec Bradshaw to be the main figurehead of their band. So fucking like him.

My eyes followed the billboard as we swung round a roundabout. This was the first time I’d seen him from 2 years. I’d changed my number, changed my hair, changed my personality but he’d barely changed at all. He was still undeniably gorgeous and horrifically smug about it. Tight black jeans hung to him as the poster screamed out their debut ‘chart topping’ single: “I’ll catch you.”

“No you fucking didn’t Alec Bradshaw” I muttered darkly “no you fucking didn’t.”

It was horrifying.

From then on my entire life seemed to have turned into some never ending advert shoving Alec Bradshaw constantly back in my face. My ‘friends’ nagged non-stop about concerts, billboards stalked me everywhere and his fucking song plagued every known radio station. It was as if fate wanted to fuck up my emotions; tear every strong wall apart until I truly looked at what I was: just another girl.

Maybe that was the hardest part about it all. Alec had dumped me. He was allowed to move on while I wallowed in all the bitterness. To him I was just another girl but Alec would never ever be just another boy.

I’d loved him. I’d loved how long it had taken us to realise it, how much we’d both thrown ourselves into each other and how perfect our year together was. I’d never felt so needed and special.

It was painful to shift through old memories, letting the dust float up and spark tears that couldn’t be denied. Because every emotion I’d felt for him was kept under lock and key hidden behind vaults of hate. It was safer to hate him as it kept away all truth.

But oh, how my last year in Massachusetts was wonderful. College was hard but Alec’s hand had always been comfortingly in mine. We were totally inseparable. We were infatuated with each other to the point of insanity.

Everything Alec did only made me love him more. Even after a tremendous row staged in the middle of a class his smile and tight arms were the best apology. Or after an incident involving an ex-closet girl claiming she was still sleeping with him. I’d been so distraught that only Alec’s ‘I love you’ would calm me down.

We were dysfunctional but honestly made for each other… or so I’d thought.

And then, as suddenly as a storm strikes, it had ended. Alec never did give me a reason; he just said those two fucking words and drove off. We were coming home from college: me in his car as always.

“You’re suspiciously quiet today Alec” I smiled playfully at him. There was no amused smirk or dangerous glance returned. No recognition that I had even spoke, even was there. His fists grew white as they gripped the steering wheel.

“What’s wrong?” I was concerned now, stroking his arm from where I sat in the passenger’s seat. Only the unnecessary revving of the car replied to me. “For Goodness sake Alec will you at least answer me? It’s obvious that you’re pissed about something but no need to treat me like I’m invisible.” Again he didn’t reply.

“Fine” I huffed and turned to the window so my back faced him. We sat in a pained silence for the rest of the way until we stopped outside me house. I flung open the door dramatically to step out with my bag clutched tightly to me.

“Wait” Alec called out as I’d suspected he would. We could never leave an argument standing. “It’s over Lizz.”

I was paralyzed.

Horrified, I stared at him in a mute terrified state while he looked coldly out the opposite window. It stayed like that for only another moment before he reached over to close my door, still keeping his face obscured. There was no apology or shout of ‘surprise’.

Alec Bradshaw just drove off.

I watched his car until it was gone, swallowed up by the distance and my tears. Everything that had ever happened between us felt wrong now. It felt false, dirty, so very wrong.

I turned and ran into my house to listen to my mother and pack everything that didn’t remind me of Alec. Then I was gone just as completely as Alec was.