There Is No Room For Sparks

It amazed me how simply some things began.

He was full of questions today, something I wasn’t quite used to, but I couldn’t say I didn’t enjoy.

However, I cringed as he reached his arm up to grasp the tattered book from the tall book shelf, curious as to why it was nearly overflowing with pictures and little trinkets.

He handled the book with care as I watched him silently, knowing that it was about time that he see past my concrete façade, at least a little bit. Quite honestly, I doubted his pretty little head would ever be able to fully understand the importance of all the things held inside that book of pictures…

//

“Who’s that?” Danny asked, pointing to a slightly faded picture in the right hand corner of the book.

I regarded the photo, suddenly overcome with a severe sensation of nostalgia, accompanied by an awful twisting in my stomach, “John.” I mumbled, hoping he couldn’t sense the off note in my voice.

“John…?” he questioned, further pressing the topic, exactly what I’d hoped he could refrain from doing.

I sighed quietly and looked away from the photo album, staring at a small spot on the wall, “It’s not important.”

…

He was the one and only person I could ever claim to loving wholeheartedly.
He was my playground husband by the age of six.
He was my real first kiss by the age of nine.
He was my best friend forever until the age of thirteen.
He made me absolutely everything that I could claim to be today.

Which so many would tell me was nothing much.

No one would admit it to my face, but I knew what they thought of what I’d become; I had little future because high school ‘didn’t last forever’. I rebelled. I did things I shouldn’t have. I trusted people I shouldn’t have. I held few principles.

I hadn’t become a bad person, not by any means, but I was selfish and self centered, undoubtedly caught up in a life devoted to socializing and proving myself amongst my peers. It was the kind of life no one expected a girl like me to be associated with. Or the girl I used to be at least.

Usually, I liked to tell myself that none of this was my fault…

No one had ever thought to tell me that my best friend and biggest confident was leaving me.

I didn’t know until he came to give me my final goodbye: a shy kiss, a ten minute embrace, and a short, rehearsed speech assuring me that I’d always be his best friend. Thirteen years and that was the only thing I got because that was ‘the easiest way to do it’, or so my parents protested. But it wasn’t, and even as a kid, I knew that. I was given no form of contact, no visit or anything of that sort because it would have been too difficult to maintain the friendship and I shouldn’t have to hold on to something like that. I was still young. It would do me nothing but harm because I couldn’t understand at such an age.

Fuck that. I was thirteen, not five.

This wasn’t my fault; it was theirs.

Through the next four years of my adolescence, I did everything in my power to prove to myself and everybody else that every word John O’Callaghan had told me when I was a child was one hundred percent true. A boy like that wouldn’t lie to me; he must have been completely honest.

He used to tell me I was beautiful, even at times I didn’t doubt it. He told me anybody was lucky to be my friend, to hear my laugh, to see my smile. He never let me doubt myself for a moment.

Therefore, I was beautiful. I was perfect. I was worthy of everybody’s time. I had his word to prove it. And without his consistent assurance of these facts, I made it my mission to gain it from other people.

I never had many friends as a kid because I didn’t need them; John was enough for me. But that was on the contrary now. I needed everyone, everyone that was willing to have me. Because he was nothing but a childhood memory, a good one, but in the past nonetheless. I couldn’t dwell on something so insignificant. I needed to branch out past the limits John held me to.

I knew how I was viewed; I was the bitchy, popular girl who partied every weekend and held no values. None of that was true, but I didn’t do anything to convince anyone differently. For I hated the old me, the real me if you will; I hated her for being so innocent, so safe, so much like him. I couldn’t let anyone think I was even remotely close to that girl.

My life had no secrets. I was open for the world to see and I didn’t mine because ultimately, I was loved.

Because my life with him was no more. It was over, done, gone. So instead of wallowing within it, I moved on, into a new life. One that didn’t even know the name John O’Callaghan.

People change.
And so I had.