Love Songs for the Runaway Scars

I leaned up against a concrete pillar outside of the school. I had something alike butterflies in my stomach while I waited for Frank. I was drumming on my thighs to let out some of my jitters when he walked out of the big school doors.

“Hey!” He smiled at me.

“Hi there, so whatcha wanna do?” I asked.

“Um, I don’t really want to be out in public… Could we just like, hang out?”

“Sure, but not at my house, my sister and mom’ll both be there and just no. We could go to this park I know, no one’s ever there?”

“Okay, that sounds fun.”

I drove us to a cliff-top greenbelt and parked on the side of the road.

“This is so pretty!” Frank said when he saw the view.

“Yeah, I come here to draw a lot.”

“You draw?!” He said in an awed voice.

“Yeah,” I smiled down at him.

“That’s awesome!”

I grabbed a blanket out of the trunk of my car and we made our way to sit in the grass near the fenced off edge of the cliff. We were the only ones around for miles and it felt good to just breathe in the fresh air.

We sat on the blanket for a while, looking out over the city beneath us.

“You’re always alone at school. Why? You could have tons of friends you know.” Frank broke the silence.

I deliberated for a moment.

I lay back on the blanket to look at the sky, “I guess I just don’t feel that the people around me are worth my time. They don’t mean anything. They won’t have any impact. Even the ones who think they’re different are just like everyone else. You’re the only person I’ve ever met who felt worth getting to know.”

As I said this, I was surprised to realize how true it was. For a long time I’d assumed it was me who everyone had a problem with, but, now that I thought about it, it was the other way around.

“Wow.” He said. His voice held some emotion that I couldn’t quite pinpoint.

“What?”

“It’s just, I don’t understand, why me?”

“I don’t know. There’s just something about you… it draws me in.” Everything I’d seen in his face earlier stirred around in my mind, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to describe that to him with words.

He let out a sigh and lay down beside me.

We lay there silent for a time until I heard a sniffle beside me.

My eyes darted sideways and I saw a tear running down the side of Frank’s face. I propped myself on my elbow so I was looking down at him from the side.

“What’s wrong,” I whispered gently and wiped the tear away with the back of my fingers.

“Nothing, just, how sad is it that this is the best day I’ve had in a really long time?” His answer struck me.

I looked into his deep eyes as green as the grass surrounding us and leaned forward. I didn’t realize what was happening until our lips met and my eyes closed. His lips responded to mine immediately and they moved together perfectly. He brought his hand to the back of my head and I felt myself relax around him. There was no sound but our breathing and the brush of our lips moving together. After a minute, our lips parted and my eyes opened to see Frank starting at me with a look of absolute shock, he had been expecting the kiss just as much as me. He seemed to gage my expression and then he pulled my head back to his and kissed me with more passion and fierceness than I had ever experience. There were fireworks going on behind my closed lids. When he let me go, I was out of breath gasping for air. I stared at him for a moment and then laid back on the blanket beside him.