Our Love Is Broken Veins

It was like the world stopped moving then; it was like everything I held near and dear to me depended on Kaleb’s reaction. I couldn’t help but hold my breath right after telling him, just as I couldn’t help but look away for a few seconds, as well.

When I finally looked back to meet his eyes, there expression shocked me to the core. Those eyes that I thought had loved me so much currently held a look of indifference; it was like he didn’t even care. I even blinked a couple of times; that’s how bad that look seemed horrible on him. Every time I opened my eyes though, the look was still there – an almost forced sadness that didn’t exist, along with an almost pleased air. It was as if he was happy to get rid of me.

“Awww, that sucks, babe,” Kaleb said in that deep male voice of his that I had adored so much. “I’ll miss you.”

And just like that – as if the conversation him and I had had was utterly unimportant, he turned back to the contents of his lunch trey – completely ignoring me.

“That’s it?” I asked in bewilderment. Did he really not care at all about me moving away? What happened to all those ‘your amazing’s and ‘you’re my world’s he was always saying to me?

“Don’t get me wrong Abbs,” he said in a cocky tone “Your cool and all – a great kisser – but I knew this would happen eventually. It was fun while it lasted, though.” A pang of anger shot threw my heart – stabbing me and disabling my actions for a moment – which made swallowing my flaring temper pretty near impossible. I gritted my teeth, and gave Kaleb the coldest glare I could manage.

He couldn’t even try for a long-distance relationship? No, because I was moving, he was dumping me, in turn. ‘What a fucking bastard’, I thought to myself angrily. Well fuck him, I didn’t care. I would move away, and he wouldn’t matter one bit to me when I was gone.

The truth though, was that he did matter – a lot. He had been my first kiss, my first boyfriend, and beneath all the anger I held for him, my heart was breaking. It hurt – and made me extremely angry – that he could brush me off like a clingy girlfriend, and despite all of it, I still liked him. God, I might even start to cry.

I quickly stood up, and began to make my way from the lunch group. It was with the pretense of going to the bathroom, but when I was far enough away for any of my friends to notice, I quickly slipped out the door that led out of the cafeteria.

As I stepped outside, the soft chirping of birdsong greeted me. I started to make my way towards our school’s football field, and in spite of the anger I was still harboring, I couldn’t help but smile at the sound of the chirping birds. It was such a peaceful noise; it always calmed me down when I was in the worst of moods. It did this now; even as I walked, I could feel the loosening of my tense shoulders, and the rest of my muscles started to relax as well.

When I was close enough to be hidden by the shadow of the bleachers, I dropped my bag down onto the ground, and sat down beside it. I did this when I felt like getting away from the school – or the people in it – just came outside and tried to relax. Most of the time it worked, and luckily, it did now. I could literally feel the tention easing out of my muscles; they relaxed more than they already had.

Glancing around, anyone could tell why this place was so relaxing to me. If someone didn’t think about the school that was so close by, they could see this place as simply a quiet field that had grass stretching for who knows how many yards. It was just an expanse of tranquility; so calming with the blue sky that stretched above, and the ever-present birdsong.

“Are you okay Abbs?” I glanced up in surprise to meet the worried eyes of Bonnie. She stood over me with a pitying expression adorning her face, and even though I was upset, I almost felt like yelling at her for looking at me that way. I couldn’t stand pity – especially from one of my best friends.

“Don’t look at me that way.” I told her instead. She looked like she would’ve asked what I meant, but she said nothing. Instead, she laid down beside me, resting her head on my shoulder in a gesture of comfort. I would’ve shoved her away, but I knew she was trying to be nice, so I did nothing.

“He shouldn’t have done that,” she said finally – reaching up to play with one of her blonde curls.

“I know,” I said simply. We fell into an uncomfortable silence after that; both of us tried to look at anything but each other.

“Abby, stop trying to be so unemotional,” Bonnie finally informed me. “You might think it’s weak showing emotions, but hell, no one is ice princess, and I definitely don’t expect you to be.”

I stared at her for a few moments – trying not to show how much I wanted to break down – and finally, I couldn’t hold it in anymore. I drew Bonnie into a close embrace, and began to cry silently.

“I don’t want to leave,” I whispered in a broken voice. “And when I told him, he didn’t even show that he cared. I think I might’ve loved him, Bonnie. It hurts so much—“

I couldn’t keep speaking; my voice kept cracking and shaking – making me pretty near unintelligible. Instead of trying to explain myself, I just hushed, and let the tears – the ones I had been holding back for so long – fall freely. Bonnie stayed with me through it all though – trying to keep me calm and hold me like I needed her to.

When the flow of tears finally slowed, I pulled back from the hug – trying to wipe my eyes on my jacket sleeve. “Thank you,” I murmured softly to Bonnie as I began to gather my things together.

“Any time, Abby,” She said sincerely.

The bell finally rang, and after giving Bonnie one last thankful smile, I headed in the direction of the school building. After just a matter of seconds, I was back in the crowd – shoving people out of my way, calling to friends I recognized, and laughing. When I finally made it to the choir room, I was almost back in high spirits.

I barely made it into the room before the tardy bell rang – barely escaping the detention I would’ve gotten if I had been late. Glancing around the room, I saw Beth motioning for me to go sit by her. After setting my bag down at the back of the classroom, I began to walk in her direction.

“Are you okay?” She immediately asked me – a sliver of worry trickling into her voice. I nodded mutely as a response to her question, and after staring at me for just a little longer than necessary, she finally dropped it. She looked like she was going to start gossiping about some other topic, but at that moment, the choir director walked into the room, and we all immediately hushed.

Choir seemed to pass in a blurr, just as the rest of the classes I had that day seemed to. Before I knew it, it was 3:00, and the dismissal bell was ringing, signaling we were finally permited to exit the hellhole we spent seven hours at.

I began making my way to the student parking lot – having to go through throngs of students that were still milling around – and finally made it to my car. I was about to get in and drive off, when out of the corner of my eye, I saw two figures leaning on the hood.

“Bonnie, Beth, what?” I asked – by now used to the random appearances they would pull. A few seconds later, the two figures stepped out of the shadow of my car, revealing themselves to be whom I had thought them to be. They exchanged looks as they walked, but said nothing for a few seconds.

“We just wanted to make sure your still alright,” Bonnie said finally, averting her gaze from mine.

“I’m fine,” I replied in a hard tone. Maybe it was to hard a tone, but me hating pity like I did, I couldn’t help the automatic response I felt to brush it off. “If y’all don’t mind, I think I need to go,” I amended after a pause. “I’ve got lots of homework.”

Just like that, the tention between the twins and I evaporated into the air. They both simultaneously reached forward to pull me into embraces, and after not even a moment’s pause, I let them.

“We’ll miss you, Abbs,” Bonnie said softly.

“I’ll miss you guys too,” I said in response. “Make sure to try and call me every day, okay?” We all laughed quiet laughs at that – I wasn’t good with answering my cell, but I would try, for them.

After a few more moments, I finally pulled back from the hug. I smiled softly at the twins – showing them that I was greatful for everything – before turning to my car, and opening the driver’s door to get in. After I was comfortably situated, I waved to the twins, turned on the engine, and began backing out of the parking lot.

The drive back to my house seemed to pass by pretty quickly. I wasn’t really paying attention to it in the first place, and maybe my slightly-wreckless driving helped on the speed front, as well, but it did go by speedily. Before I knew it, I was turning into my house’s driveway, and clicking the remote I had for opening the garage.

After parking my mustang in its’ normal spot, I got out, and started heading towards the garage’s exit doors. Our garage didn’t have the luxury of being connected to our house by a door, so every time we decided to enter it, we couldn’t just take a door into our house.

Stepping outside, I noticed that the breeze from earlier had ebbed a little. It seemed that there was no wind in the air; none of the leaves on trees swayed in the slightest, and my hair – which was now down from its’ usual ponytail – didn’t begin to whisk in front of my face. The air was still nice though; taking a deep breath of it, I smelled the distinct scent of flowers, and the less distinct smell of rain.

I began to walk passed the garden that my mother had planted – making my way towards the house’s front door. Finally reaching it, I softly unlocked it, and let myself in.

The soft smell of cookies drifted to me as I opened the door, along with a soft gust of warm air. The smell of choclate chip enveloped my senses, making me almost drool with pleasure.

“Mom, did you make cookies?” I asked, though I knew the answer already.

“Yes dear, their sitting on the counter by the stove.” She hadn’t even finished her sentence before I was rushing into the kitchen. I glanced around frantically for a plate of cookies, and finding it, I rushed over to it and plucked one off the pile. I would’ve taken more, but decided against it. These cookies were to be treasured, not gorged upon.

I began making my way upstairs, dragging my school bag along beside me. When I finally reached my almost bare-of-anything room, I walked in, and shut the door behind me. Glancing around, I could tell that my mother had indeed spent a lot of the day packing my things.

My desk was no where in sight; instead, there were four imprints on the carpet where the legs had stood. My dresser was gone too, and after opening my closet, I noticed that most of my clothes were as well. What a horrible reminder that I would be moving. Glancing around one last time, I noticed that my mother had spared me the pain of sleeping on the floor; my bed was still there, standing in it’s twin-sized glory.

The rest of the day passed with me doing school homework, talking to friends that had heard that I was moving, and reading. Before I knew it, it was eight o’clock P.M. This normally wasn’t my bed time, but I was already very tired for some reason. I softly closed the book I had been reading, and stood up to undress. When I was in nothing more than my skin, I made my way to my bathroom door.

The soft water falling onto my aching muscles made me start to relax immediately. After scrubbing my hair with champoo and washing myself with one of Victoria Secret’s body washs, I just stood there – letting the fine spray of water slide over my body. I most likely would’ve stood there for ever if the water hadn’t started to turn cold. I tried turning off the cold water and just using the hot, but it soon became quite obvious that I wasted it all.

I stepped out of the shower – my feet sinking into the soft carpet that my mother had placed there – and reached over to grab a clean towel from the rack. I quickly dried my hair as well as I could, wiped the remaining droplets of water off of my body, and walked out of my bathroom.

Paying no attention to anything else, my eyes locked onto my bed, and as if under a spell, I made my way directly over to it. As soon as I reached it, I sank down onto the springy mattress, wet towel and all. A sudden urge to sleep came over me, and with no thought of defiance, I did just that – letting my wet hair sink onto the pillow behind my head.