Even If No One Believes Us

I stood in the shadows as I watched Ryan on his front porch. His legs were pressed into his bare chest as a cigarette hung loosely from his lips. I watched as he stretched his legs out in front of him and ran a hand slowly down his chest, then looked up at the sky.

The night before, I set my alarm clock for an earlier time so I could get out and into the arcade to win Ryan’s tickets back but as I stepped into the lawn, my hair wet still and dripping onto my sweatshirt that read, “I’m freaking wonderful” right across the chest, something caught my eye. As Ryan sat on his porch, something about him seemed stressed and lonely. His eyes seemed to be looking far into the distance as he pursed his lips and blew the smoke out then coughed like he didn’t want to be smoking, he just needed to get away.

I tugged up on my sweatpants, before they fell off of my hips, and drug my feet against the wet grass covered in dew and when I finally stood in front of him, he didn’t look up.

“I didn’t know you smoked,” I whispered to him then leaned down to kneel in front of him. He looked up at me and laughed loudly, looking back at the cigarette in his hand. He smashed it into the bush next to him and smiled.

“I guess I don’t,” he smiled, with a shrug in his voice. He stood up and brushed the back of his jeans off and shivered. The air whipped around us, drying my hair slowly and giving us a slightly warm taste of spring. “I’m not sure why I picked this up again.”

I nodded as if understanding and watched him as he ran his hand across his chest again then looked up at the sky in thought. “She broke up with me.” he looked back down at me and smiled a bit.

“Who did?”

“That girl you met. The one who was talking to you? There is no way you could have forgotten who she was, Lilly. I mean…she really is unforgettable.”

“Oh, her. Why did she break up with you?” my voice sympathized with him, but I was giggling on the inside. I couldn’t understand what a girl like her was doing breaking up with a boy like him. I could not figure out why he didn’t break up with her first.

“I don’t even know,” he mumbled and looked down again, shaking his head. “I can’t understand why…”

Before his sentence was finished and he had a chance to start bawling, my brother yelled across the street, phone in hand.

“The phone is for you, Lilly!”

I nodded and turned back to Ryan, smiling down at him sympathetically and he nodded wordlessly as if understanding then whispered, “Go ahead”

I smiled and turned away from him, sprinting back across the street to grab the phone and disappearing inside my own house and tossing myself onto the couch in the living room.

“Hello?” I yelled loudly into the phone excited as to see who it was. I secretly hoped it was my boyfriend finally.

“Hey, Lilly. How are you? You seem really happy.” I could almost see her smiling on the edge, as she was most likely on her couch, curling the phone cord around in her hand watching television.

“I’m actually liking this place a lot better. I mean, Ryan and I are actually becoming friends I think. He took me to this Arcade yesterday,” my voice ventured off as I realized what I had just set myself up for. Whenever I started talking about a boy, Megan took it as if I liked them and wanted in their pants. Now that I told her he took me to an arcade she’ll think I like him even more, because arcades are probably the best place in the world according to me. She once claimed that if I could pick a place to loose my virginity, it would be in an arcade because according to her I practically orgasm when I hear the electronic voice screaming, “Winner!”

“Lilly, do you like this Ryan boy? You have a boyfriend, you know. I know you guys are really far away from each other but you’re still dating him, you know,” that’s another thing about Megan, she always said ‘you know’ after almost everything. The line became silent, then a loud noise from the other end of the phone.

“Megan! I passed the test! I wanted to tell you sooner but I had to go to work and stuff,” a familiar voice sounded in the background and I recognized it as my boyfriend’s, but shook it off. I heard Megan’s quiet voice shush the male voice and there was shuffling and Megan came back, talking into the receiver.

“Lilly, I have to go,” she rushed, and I heard a light thump and then a giggle. “It’s late, I’m going to make my friend leave and go to bed. Goodnight, Lilly, I love you!”

“Wait,” I yelled and I heard the phone click and sighed, mumbling, “Tell Kyle to call me when he isn’t busy.”

I stared at the phone resting in my hand. The one-sided conversation hung in the air until I clicked the phone off, leaving myself with a confused mind and an aching heart.

The first thing that confused me as I began slowly dragging myself up the stairs and back to my room to write in my stupid diary, that I found actually quite relaxing, was that it was late back in California and why would Kyle even be there that late? My feet hit the landing and I turned to start up the next small flight of stairs, counting them slowly.

I shook my head as if ridding myself of the possible thought that my boyfriend back home could be cheating on me with my best friend. Simple and as possible as it sounded, I couldn’t bring myself to admit it but that didn’t mean I wasn’t ready to bite any ones head off if they got in my way today.

And of course, speaking of the devil, I find Ryan sitting on my bed as soon as my door slowly opens.

And to make matters worse, in his hands is my diary.

Despite the fact that I hated that diary, I had still written some entries in it and those entries were not exactly what I wanted Ryan to be reading. It was my dreams and my hopes and also the name that I named my stuffed tiger.

I stopped short as Ryan’s voice invaded my angry thoughts, “And then, in my dream, he took my legs and pushed them to my chest and…”

“Ryan!” my voice pierced through the air, shattering the silence surrounding the house and Ryan’s head snapped up quicker then ever as his brown eyes stared into mine with a horrified expression as if he was a twelve year old boy and his mom had caught him masturbating. “What the hell do you think your doing with that? Are you insane? That is a girl’s personal journal and here you are carelessly reading it. What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“Hey, stop yelling at me first of all. I was just reading it because I got bored, I didn’t know it was a journal until I started reading and I had literally just opened it when you walked in so don’t get your panties in a bunch. For a sixteen year old, you sure have perverted dreams by the way.”

A small smirk formed across his lips as he tossed the journal back to me and watched it land on the floor due to the fact that I was practically about to lunge myself at him to claw his eyes out. I bent down and picked the book up and chucking it back at him, hoping that it hit his hands hard when he lifted them up to protect himself, but instead it flew past his hands hitting him square in the eye and I watched as he cried out in agony.

“You fucking bitch! What the hell, you could have blinded me! I think you blinded me you stupid bitch!”

If there was one thing I didn’t like, it was when someone called me a bitch and if he wanted pain, then he would have felt it when I threw my body into his and our bodies mashed together in a heated clawing fight.

Well, I clawed my nails at him while he held his arms up in a desperation to get me off of him. I screamed and I kicked him in the side as he yelled in pain, yelling for someone to get me off of him.

A pair of hands slid under my arms as someone dragged me off of Ryan and held me against their chest as I screamed louder and then slowly began to relax as I looked at Ryan who was laying still on my bed, his eye already forming a small blue ring around it and his arms had claw marks, a few of them bleeding and getting onto my sheets. His chest was rising and falling as he breathed deeply and slowly the arms behind me let me go.

I glanced at Ryan again, regret in my eyes and mumbled, “Go.”

His legs flipped over the side of my bed as he walked around my brother and I and disappeared down the steps.

I flicked my hair nervously and turned around to face my brother, who had a disappointed look in his eyes as he just shook his head and left, shutting my door leaving me as I sank to the floor and cried.