Breaking Hearts Has Never Looked So Cool

The journey home had been uneventful, and all too soon we pulled up outside my house, followed by everyone else in the other car. Our ride had been punctuated by regular, mundane conversation. All I wanted to do was bring up New Year’s Eve. If we had been a little drunker, and kissed for a little longer, then I would have been able to say ‘about last night...’ and finally gotten somewhere. But instead we considered the weather, we discussed the prospects of making trips up to the house regular occurrences, and gossiped about the recent developments of Mikey and Annabelle’s relationship. Nothing about our own relationship though, if you can call my spontaneous heart palpitations when in his company a ‘relationship.’

“I’m glad we didn’t get lost that time,” said Gerard as he turned off the engine.

“Me too,” I replied, nodding my head too vigorously and consequently looking like an absolute idiot.

I wasn’t glad, though. When we got lost we spent countless extra hours together.

“When do you go back to college?” I asked, trying to spin out the conversation as much as possible,

“In a couple of weeks,” he answered, “what about you with school?”

Ah, there it was. The difference between college and school sounded much more stark when it was spoken out loud. How could a college guy like him ever like a high school girl like me?

“Monday,” I said miserably,

“That sucks,” he said sympathetically,

“Yeah,” I agreed somewhat pointlessly.

I was aware of a sort of tension in the air, and it sort of reminded me of in films when two people were sitting in a car at the end of a date. Suddenly there was a loud knock on the window, and both Gerard and I jumped up like we’d been caught doing something really bad.

Predictably, Frank was the culprit, standing there with a huge grin on his face. “Stop pissing about!” he yelled through the window, “some of us actually want to go home!”
“Right!” said Gerard suddenly, “right,” he repeated, “your mom will probably really want to see you,”

“Yeah,” I agreed, “thanks for the ride,”

“You don’t have to thank me, it was a pleasure. Besides, it’s like I could have left you or...” he was sort of rambling. I smiled, because it was cute, but my mind was working overtime trying to work out the reasoning behind it.

“Well,” he said, as we headed towards the drunk to get my case out, “I guess I’ll see you soon,”

“I guess,” I said, looking into his heartbreaking eyes with regret. ‘Kiss me, kiss me’ I thought.

He didn’t though, of course.

“Bye,” he said, pulling me into a hug. It was unexpected, and somewhat brief, but still the most thrilling hug of my life.

“Bye,” I said again, slightly breathlessly.

“Bye!” I called to everyone else, who were still holed up in the other car, waving franticly to me.

Before I walked into my house I stole another glance at Gerard.

God, he was so beautiful.