New Beginnings

“Why do the birds go on singing? Why do the stars glow above? Don’t they know it’s the end of the world? It ended when I lost your love.” The voice of Skeeter Davis played through the gymnasium, reaching me in my spot under the bleachers.

It probably would have struck me as ironic how close this song fit my life at the moment if I weren’t too sad and angry to find any humor in this situation. My boyfriend and I just broke up, at junior prom less than twenty minutes ago.

--

“Where are you Richard?” I mumbled under my breath as I stumbled over a tree branch. I was walking through the woods beside the school, headed towards the clearing about five minutes in. Richard and I’s spot, the place where we met. It might seem strange that I was walking through the woods at prom night looking for my date. But him and I got separated in the dance and I figured he’d come out here to wait for me. This after all is, scratch that, was our favorite meeting spot.

I stop suddenly in my tracks because if I didn’t know any better I would’ve swore I heard a moan. “Umm-Rich.” No, that was definitely a moan. But of course this can all be brought down to the fact that somebody else must have found our spot and one of those some bodies must also be named Richard. A little coincidental I’ll admit but weirder things have happened.

I decide to keep going; maybe they’re not even in the clearing at all. “You know Richard, you could have just waited in th---” I hear a gasp which was probably my own and a high pitched squeal.

I barely had time to question what I was seeing before Richard was walking towards me with his hands held out in from of him saying, “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.” I hold up one finger and make small sputtering noises as I take in the scene before me. Richard is in front of me with his madras around his ankles and his shirt on the ground beside our tree. Our tree which trampy mick tramperton is showing utter disrespect for as she leans her skanky ass against it.

This girls name (if it’s necessary to call her anything other than the nasty names I call her in my head.) happens to be Paulina Appleton and we used to be best friends in middle school but after eighth grade when she stole my boyfriend Donny Summers we stopped associating with each other. Looks like she wasn’t happy snagging just one of my boyfriends because here she was leaning against a tree which holds meaning well beyond her grasp in nothing but her whitey tighties and black strappy heels.

“Wha-whats going on here?” I ask in a last attempt to believe something happened that wouldn’t break up my relationship with Rich. I don’t know what I expected him to say ‘Oh, I’m sorry if you got the wrong idea but Paulina chocked on a marshmallow and I had to take her clothes off so she could breathe better. Mine are just off because she got cold and I was going to give her them to wear.’ I probably would have believed it if he had said that to because that’s how much I trusted him.

He had tears brimming in his eyes now and I almost felt bad for him. I turned to Paulina, “Can you leave please?” I snapped at her. She made a noise of indignation but made no further move to go.

“Paulina!” Richard turned to her and screamed. He was angrier than I’d ever seen him and it was kind of scaring me. “Okay, okay.” She mumbled before turning and walking away as she pulled her purple satin dress on over her head.

He turned back to me. “Baby” he whispered so low I almost couldn’t hear it. He started coming closer to me but I shoved him away. “I can explain Dawn.”

“Really? Because I’m pretty sure I can figure out for myself what was going on between you to. How could you do this to me? You knew how much I hated her after what she did to me. Not to mention the fact that you were cheating on me in the first place.” I stopped suddenly and took a sharp intake of breathe as a thought entered my mind. “How long has this been going on?”

"Dawn.”

“Richard!” I shrieked. “How long, has this been going on?” This time I announced each word carefully, making sure he didn’t miss any part of the question.

“For about two months now. But Dawn, you have to see it from my point of view. You won’t let me make love to you; you hardly let me touch below your neck for god’s sack. And then Paulina comes along saying she doesn’t want a relationship just someone to fool around with and it sounded like such a great idea. Besides you’re moving away once school ends next month and I know you say we can make the whole long distance relationship thing work, but do you really thing that’s true? Unless of course I have someone here to do all the intimate stuff with.”

“Rich…” I whisper with an edge to my voice.

“Yes?” he asked slowly.

“Do you think I’m fucking retarded!?” I scream as I run towards him and push him into our tree. I scream things at him between slaps, shoves, and kicks. “You said you were a virgin!” Kick. “You said it didn’t bother you if we waited till I was ready!” Slap. Shove. “You told me you loved me!” After saying this I stopped everything and took in another gasp. Tears started to pour down my cheeks and I sobbed out “You said you loved me, Rich.”

And then his lips were on mine and I was pressed hard into the tree. He kissed me forcefully and I felt like at that moment he really did love me. He put kisses all over my face and neck which he then nipped lightly. Between kisses he whispered “I love you so much baby.” “I’m sorry sweetie” and finally “I want you Dawn, now.” After saying this he stopped and looked deeply into my eyes. He reached to the gound to grab his pants and pulled out a condom which he held in front of my face.

And that’s when I lost it. I slapped him hard across the face and pushed him off of me. I took him in, his pants now off with his shirt, he stood there with just his boxers on. And it hit me, its not me who took his clothes off him and who was going to have sex with him, it was some other girl. At that moment I felt dirty.

“I fucking hate you Richard. I can’t believe you of all people would do this to me.” I said in a calm, almost even voice full of hurt. With that, I turned on my heels and started running away with tears running down my cheeks. I looked over my shoulder once and saw Richard walking towards me with his hands out in front of him calling my name. I didn’t care, I just kept running.

--

So here I am now, under the bleachers crying to myself as if the world was ending or someone close to me just died. Because that’s what it felt like, like a part of me was taken and I’d never be able to get it back. And to make it worse, as if my brain was naturally inclined to make me feel even shittier than I already did, I kept thinking of all the other things I wouldn’t be able to do anymore. Running to Richard when I was upset was at the top of that list, because now he was the one causing me pain and stress.

I lean my head back against the wall. He’s probably looking around for me right now to. Unless of course he really doesn’t care about me anymore and went looking for Paulina the whore.