Eyes Wide Shut

Every memory I have concerning a boy is absolutely horrid. Paolo was the first, but not the only.
It was as if since then, boys decided that it was okay to treat me as if they owned me. When I was just on the cusp of fifteen, we lived in Australia. I met this local named Alex. He was a friend of Mary’s, but Arian liked him, and he liked me, and right then I should’ve known better.

“You’re really beautiful, Blair.” Alex smiled, lacing his fingers into mine. “Did you know that?” He looked at me with these two perfect orbs of blue.

“Thank you.” I smiled shyly as we walked along the pebbled beach.
Alex had suddenly wanted to spend all of his time with me. We walked on the beach all the time, even when it wasn’t perfectly sunny. Still, he came to my door and asked me to go for a walk, and I complied. After all, he was sixteen, and I just fifteen. You’d think I would’ve learned something at fifteen.

“You know, a million guys would kill to be here with you.” Of course they would, I didn’t look anything like a fourteen year old, and everything was overdeveloped and changed too quickly. “But I’ve got you.”

We found ourselves behind a decaying sand dune, and he was moving closer to my face. I wanted to kiss him. I wanted him to undo Paolo from my memory, and replace it with something sweet and beautiful. He was only worse. Alex was only different at first. He had the sweetest kiss, but then it was over. His hands moved from hips to roughly groping my breasts and kissing my neck.

“Stop!” I demanded. He kept on. “Stop!” I pushed him back as hard as I could and he stumbled back.

“Come on, Blair. It’s not like it’s anything you haven’t done before.” He grinned. “You’re acting like I’m trying to pop your cherry or something.” He teased before trying to proceed back to my neck.

“What?” I put a hand to his chest.

“Well you’ve already gone and done that, haven’t you.” He laughed. “I mean what’s another one on the list? I mean you’re so goddamn beautiful, and don’t make it easy with that innocent act of yours.” He pushed to kiss my lips.

“Stop it!” I smacked him across the face.

“Little bitch!” He spat.

“You’re horrible.” I nearly cried.

“And you’re a whiney tease of a whore!” He shot back. “You can walk your damn self home!” He began to take to the opposite direction as he tended to his wounded ego and slightly stinging cheek.

Alex came up with some wild story for the media, and they ate up every word he said, but no one ever bothered to ask for the truth. My mother gave me half hearted glances, as if she were praying that “Bombshell Blair: Man-eater” weren’t true, but that was more for herself than anyone else. David was heartbroken, but he didn’t dare to bring it up. I’m almost positive that he didn’t believe it, but some part of me always objected. Samuel knew me well enough to know that none of what Alex had said was true. He was what felt like the only other person who knew the truth. From then on Samuel began to monitor everything I did, in the hopes of avoiding a vicious circle that would never come to pass.

And maybe the best thing about Henry Fletcher was that he couldn’t see anything at all.