Fifty Two Weeks

He was that strange boy at school that no one else talked to, the one with tattoos and dyed hair. He was the one that would read strange books with no titles. He was the one who played music loudest. He was the one that wore jeans with ripped out knees and that same old, battered army jacket. He was the one who would sometimes look at you so long and hard that felt you absolutely needed to hear what he was thinking but you were far too afraid to ask.

And he’s mine.

No one knew why on earth I liked him, why I even talked to The Beast as everyone called him. They all thought they knew exactly who he was and exactly what I wanted and that we were just all wrong. I doubt that a single one of the people who begged me to leave him because of how awful he was had never even spoken to him.

Sure, we had our differences: he would want to go to that concert and I would want to go out for a meal, or he would be listening to his music when I was trying to talk.
But they didn’t matter at all, not compared to how utterly sweet h was, buying me necklaces or roses; taking me to that chick flick I’d been banging on about when I knew he wanted to see the latest action film.

None of them had ever seen him with his artwork, how lovingly he would stroke the paint onto each piece. And none of them had heard him talk about amazing things that never existed, talking of riddles that have no answers but its okay because, the way he tells them, they don’t need an answer. If they had they would never have called him The Beast, they would never have whispered horrible things about him.

Sometimes when the constant pressure from everyone, from my parents, from my supposed friends, from complete strangers, got too much, you would just hold me in your arms and stroke my hair. And you’d whisper to me, “Don’t you worry, they can’t take away what’s ours. I’m yours and you’re mine and they can’t do anything about it.”

And they can’t.