It's Not You. It's Me. And No! He is Not My Boyfriend!

Ellis stared at me, her face blank. He mouth hung open ready to catch every fly in the tri-state area. I held my breath, waiting for some kind of, any kind of, response. She almost seemed frozen, the only thing that convinced me she wasn’t a statue was the movement of her chest rising and falling with breath.

“I..I..” she finally sputtered, a whirl-wind of emotions cascading over her face.

I watched wordlessly, waiting for some kind of reply to what I had just said.

“I” she started to only stop after the first word.

“I what?” I couldn’t stand the suspense. “I love you too? I hate you? Please just say more than I!” the situation was nothing like a pictured it in my head. I was supposed to say I love you, and she was supposed to become mush. That’s how it worked in the movies. Plus, didn’t she feel the same way?

After a few more minutes of agonizing silence, Ellis’s eyes widen to a size in which I thought her eyes might fall out.

“I can’t do this!” she squeaked, before running back inside the school.

I didn’t even have time to process what had happened, let alone try to stop her from leaving me there. In fact, I couldn’t even really breath. I always thought having a broken heart was a figure of speech, but I knew in that moment that I was wrong. The aching that came from my chest was not a heart attack, but what I could only imagine as my heart shattering into a thousand pieces. I placed my head back into the confines of my hand, not really sure what to do and, even though a few minutes had lapsed, still not even being able to really breathe. I weighed the options in my mind. Before I had a chance to truly make up my mind, I heard the door swing open behind me.

“Carter?” Carmen’s voice timidly sounded slightly louder than the cheesy pop music that pounded from the gym.

I didn’t respond, but Carmen took that as a cue to sit next me. She tenderly rubbed the arm in which she sat closest to. I kept my face buried in my hands. I felt that was the only way to keep my composure. I laughed at myself a little. It felt like my world was crashing down around me all because of some girl. The ridiculousness of it was almost comical.

“Ellis told me,” Carmen practically whispered, enveloping me into a hug.

“I figured,” my voice came out mono tone and cold. “Shouldn’t you be comforting her? You’re her best friend.”

“I know,” a slight sympathetic smile formed at the corners of her mouth. “But I know you’re the one that needs comforting more.”

“What do you mean? I was the jack ass that screwed everything up? You should be mad at me for being a dumb hormonal boy.”

“Normally I would agree, and if I honestly didn’t think you weren’t in your right state of mind when you hooked up with Caroline, I would be the first in line to kick you in the balls so hard you’d find them up around your lungs.”

“I wish Ellis would believe that,” I sighed heavily, fighting back the tears that were fighting their way to my eyes.

“She just doesn’t get it,” Carmen rolled her eyes, something that was a bit out of character for the best friend of a girl that just broke up with her boyfriend. “But I,” he eyes begin to sparkle as a real smile spread across her lips. “I can see the way you look at her.”

“I look at her a certain way?”

“Yeah. You look at her like...” Carmen searched for a good comparison. A few seconds lapsed before her shoulders slumped, obviously at loss for the right words. “It’s indescribable almost. You look at her like she’s the only thing you can see.”

“Really?” I stroked my chin pondering this though. “I thought I kept my feelings pretty well hidden.”

Carmen rolled her eyes accompanied with a wrist flip, “Please! The only person you managed to keep your feelings hidden from was Ellis. Everyone who saw you and her together for five minutes knew that you were hopelessly head over heels for her. I’m pretty sure the teachers had a pool going to see when you would finally get up the nerve to ask her out.”

“Geez,” I rubbed the back of my neck, I could feel the heat of embarrassment rise to my cheeks. “I get it. I wasn’t that sly.”

“Well I’m not out here to make fun of you. I’m here to tell you not to let Ellis decide this. She’s being ridiculous. Who cares what everyone else thinks?”
“I can’t force her to be with me if she doesn’t want to.”
“But I know she does. Just fight for it. And don’t think I already haven’t told her how stupid she’s being about this whole thing. It almost seems as if she enjoys the drama of this.” Carmen stood up, brushing her dress off. “I’m going back inside. I hope you make the right decision,” with that Carmen was gone, and I was back to being alone outside Saint Judas’s High School gym.
“Now I know why I never come to these stupid things,” I muttered to myself before throwing the door open.

I walked back into the gym, music pumping through the speakers. I searched the surrounding for Ellis. I laid eyes upon a slight black clothed figure at the top of the bleachers sitting alone. I knew that had to be her. I moved closer, not really sure of what I was doing, but just letting my body move for me.

My breath caught in my throat, as I came close enough to confirm the figure on the bleachers was in fact Ellis. Her appearance was always shocking to me even though a photographic image of her was burned into my brain. She was by far the most beautiful person I’d ever laid my eyes on. From the first day I laid eyes on her to the very moment my breath was stuck in my chest on the bleachers, I thought so. Even through the acne, braces, horrendous style choices, all the other girls paled in comparison. Especially as I looked at her in the skimpy black dress that she decided to wear that night. I had to shake my head to rid myself of the nasty thoughts that began to form as I focused on her evident cleavage coupled with the bare patched of skin that ran from her lower ribs to her hips.

She turned to face me as I took the seat next to her. She stared into my eyes, and I could tell she had been crying. None of her make up had been smudged, but her eyes were bloodshot, causing her honey brown eyes to almost look golden. I tried to search for the right words, but nothing came. I did the only thing I could think of, and that was to take her head in both of my hands, and kiss her as if I could transfer all my feelings for in one kiss. My heart beat wildly as I broke away, both of us shocked and gasping for breath.

“Hey!” she shouted over the music with anger. “We just broke up!”

“Well I was always told you shouldn’t care what people think, and you’re a people.”

“It doesn’t really work that way when it comes to kissing people. Unless you want to be accused of rape.”

“You kissed back,” a small smile formed at my mouth.

“Well that’s not fair!” she shot back shoving her hands on her hips. “I’m a woman with needs!”

“Well it’s also not fair for you to forgive me for my...mistake, and then break up with me for the same mistake.”

Ellis turned her eyes to the ground muttering, “I know, but I just feel so dumb.”

I scoffed in reply.

“If anyone should feel dumb it’s me for sure! I got drunk and made bad decisions, and it sucked. However, I don’t think we should break up because other people might think you’re weak. What do you feel?”

“I don’t know,” Ellis sighed heavily, once again meeting my eyes. “Everything has just happened so fast. We’re dating Carter! DATING! I would like to believe that if I was asked in June this past summer if I would ever consider dating you that I would say no. Unfortunately though, I know that I wouldn’t ever truly have been able to say that.”

“Unfortunately,” I threw a hand over my chest. “First you shatter my heart into a million pieces, and now you’re shoving those pieces through a shredder.”

She laughed a little before continuing, “I guess unfortunately isn’t the right word, but what I’m trying to say is that us dating as made me come to realize that I’ve always had feelings for you,” she bit her lip nervously as she said this.

My heart did about five summersaults. Her biting her lip was quite a turn on, but I think I was reacting more to what she had just said.

“And that scares me,” she continued again. “What scares me even more is that you like my so much. So much that...you love me. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I’m willing to risk you hurting me to be with you. It’s more important that I experience us together rather than worrying about what will happen if you don’t feel the same way.”

I took both of her hands in my. She studied our interlaced hands intently, while she practically chewed her lip of. She seemed to be searching for the words to say.

Finally she said something, it was barely audible above the cooing love song that blasted from the DJ’s station. She kept her eyes locked on the floor as she stated,
“Well...I...I think I feel the same way, but I’m just not ready to say it yet.”

I gasped slightly, my heart beating frantically. I chuckled lightly. I would think that my heart would beat the strongest at a physical encounter between us, but my heart reached a new state of pounding with the words that came out of her mouth. I couldn’t even speak. All I could do was stare wide eyed practically gasping for breath.

“Say it when you’re ready,” I finally managed to utter. “I don’t want to pressure you.”

“Good,” she looked up with a huge smile plastered to her face. “I really want to be with you,” she stated.

“Fine,” I pulled her chin towards me to envelope her lips into another kiss. “But no more of this crap. I don’t think my heart can take this again!”