Why ME?

“Hey J,” a familiar voice calls out behind me as I make my way to my open-top Ford.

“What? Can’t a person get some peace and quiet for once?” I throw my hands up in the air and twirled around furiously. “What do you want Tom? Can’t you see I’m not in a good mood right now? If you’re just going to stand there all day I’m going.” I glare at Tom darkly and make a move for my car.

“No, wait!” Tom cries.

“Fine.” I turn back around and cross my arms impatiently, waiting for him to speak.

“Erh... I was wondering… do you know where Al’ is?” Tom asks meekly, scratching the back of his head in consternation, squirming uncomfortably under my irritated glare.

“Oh. Right.” My tone softened considerably. “She’s in the café. Just go to the table with the huge group of starry-eyed girls staring at a useless magazine and you’ll see her. The utmost one to the right I think. You find her. Somehow. Good luck!” I say cheerily, trying to make up for the too-harsh tone I had used earlier.

“Thanks J! I wouldn’t have found her in such a crowded place if you weren’t here.” Tom brightens up considerably and gives me a massive bear hug so tight I wondered if I would ever be able to breathe properly again, then practically bounces off towards the café door.

Poor Tom. He’s a sweet guy, really. Not half bad. Just not my type. I really shouldn’t take out my anger on him so much. At least he’s loyal. Not like someone I know. But whatever. Not point wallowing in the past. I open my white car door and drive away.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Don't hang up.
Can we talk?
So confused
It's like im lost.

I’m sitting on my windowsill. Staring at nothing. Don’t ask me why. I don’t know either. It just has a sort of… appeal to me when I’m in a bad mood.

What went wrong?
what made you go?
Don't pretend you don't know.

Like, you know, how some people like going to a treehouse deep in a forest to calm down and think, and others go to the beach and stroll till the sun comes down. Too bad I don’t own a treehouse, the nearest ocean is a hundred miles away, and the forests are so dense you can hardly even look in. So it’s just my windowsill, my walkman, and me.

This is me.
I’m unchangeable.

And Lesley Roy’s husky voice as she sings the story of my life as well, I guess.

When did we
Fall apart?
Or did you lie
From the start?
When you said
Its only you
I was blind
Such a fool
Thinking we
Were unbreakable.

See what I mean?

Exactly.

It was you and me against the world
And you promised me forever more
Was it something that I said?
was it something that I did?
Cuz I gotta know
What made me unbeautiful.

Not that I will ever find out, of course.

But then again, who ever said the world was a fair place? Exactly. NO ONE. Life’s just like that, I guess. Nothing lasts forever.

God.

Now I sound like one of those black-haired emo people who write sad sappy poetic stories about love and heartbreak. Scary.

But still.

I guess my life’s pretty much like those sad sappy poetic stories about love and heartbreak, minus the love part, of course. And less heartbreak. At least not on that level.

You don’t know how much you’ve lost, how much you’ve had, until you lose that something or someone. I guess I found that out the hard way.

Stupid jerk.

I wish I’d never met him in the first place.

I wish i had never gone downstairs that day, when i heard more voices that one - my mum chatting on her phone with someone or the other - and both were women, instead of the standard mum+boytoy equation.

But of course my curiosity had to get the better of me, and i just had to lumber clumsily on my stout chubby legs down to see what the chatter was about, and my mum just had to spot me and think 'Hey my daughter would make good friends with Trisha's son and they could move in with us and we would be one big happy family'.

So that's exactly what she did.

At least me and Josh didn't exactly start of on the wrong foot and became good friends. Then, when i was 13 and everything was just fine and dandy, mum and Trisha has this big falling out over some random thing and she moved away, and Josh started going for auditions. We still kept in touch now and then, but when he scored a major role when we were 16, he stopped.

And that was that.

But hey, nobody ever said my life was perfect. I guess I’m still pretty lucky, compared to those poor orphans sleeping and begging on the streets. At least I’m not reduced to that state.

Physically, I mean.

Mentally, I guess I was worse than them. It was only Josh that helped me stay on track. Else I guess I would be long in that dark abyss by now.

Then he just had to leave.