I Don't Want to Miss You

The world was filled with seven billion people, seven billion people you will never know nor care about. In your life time, you will meet nearly four hundred. That's a total of six billion, nine hundred ninety-nine million, nine hundred ninety-nine thousand, a six hundred people you will never know, and they will never know you. Doesn't that make you feel completely insignificant?

Out of all of those people, those billions of people, there will be maybe ten that you will deeply care about at one time. Out of those ten, two of them are your parents. Your parents that will always adore and love you, no matter what. They would risk their life for you. They would do anything.

My life wasn't that simple.

People assume strange things, very strange things. When I walk around school with bruises on my face, they think it was my parents. When I don't talk to anyone, they think I have emotional scarring that I don't want to talk about. When I don't look people in the eye, they think that people were so cruel to me that I was terrified of them now.

The thing these people forget is that they have never once spoken to me. They don't really understand anything about my life. When I have bruises, it's because I walk dogs for money, and I don't walk the easy ones. I get paid to walk the rowdy ones, the ones that no one else could handle. They pull a lot, and I fall over quite a bit because I'm not that strong. When I don't talk, it's because I am genuinely not interested in what you have to say. And, when I don't look you in the eye, it isn't because people scare me, it's because attachment scares me. The thought that one day you were going to step out of my life, well, it terrifies me.

But still, they all think I'm some broken doll that they need to fix. Girls come up to me to ask me how I was feeling. Guys give me sad looks in the hall. I don't know why they do these things. I never asked for them, and I didn't want them.

There was this one thought. The thought that just because they knew my parents skipped town on me, they had to take care of me. They thought that maybe they would take place of the people who were supposed to be there. I don't even know why they care so much. There were other orphans at the school, plenty, in fact. But, just for the fact that my father was a famous businessman in this town who had strong ties to the community skipped the town that he so dearly loved, they thought I was sad.

It wasn't always like this. My parents loved me, still do, I think. But, my father wasn't a good man. He wasn't as good as everyone though. Don't get me wrong. He wasn't abusive in any way. He was just shady. Money was one thing he knew well, too well. He could make it disappear, but he did it in secret.

Long story short, he skipped town when the cops started sniffing around and took my mom with him. I still live in the same house. I still live the same life. The body count just became smaller.

There was one thing that he taught me when he left, and he taught it so well, that I live my life about by it. Don’t ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody. I learned that the hard way, and I wasn't going through that again.

"Max Green! Would you please bring your attention back to the front of the classroom?" Mrs. Myers screamed. My father stole some of her money. She still took it out on me to this very day.

I shifted my gaze from the window where I was watching the familiar body, to the math equations on the board. It wouldn't be long until I saw him, so there was no reason to really stare at him.

The bell rang after a short moment of time, and I slowly packed my bag. These people moved too fast, too quickly. There was no where they needed to be besides their homes where they would be doing nothing but sitting on their asses anyways.

When I got out to the parking lot, I saw what I was staring it nearly five minutes ago. He was tall with a nice build, not too small, but nowhere near too big. Tattoos covered everywhere from the neck down. I had seen all of them. A cigarette was dangling out of his mouth that he would occasionally take a deep drag of. His hair was shoulder length and dark, very dark. He was what scarred people away from me, and I was glad. Once I started to hang out with what people thought was the local drug dealer, they left me alone to deal with my own shit.

I didn't know his name, and I never told him mine. But, it was likely he knew it because of my father.

We had a strange relationship. There were a total of maybe fifty words we had ever said to each other, but we had seen every intimate part of each other. There wasn't a patch of olive skin that my hands hadn't skimmed over. And, there wasn't a corner of my mouth that his tongue and felt.

I didn't bother to say a word to him as I slipped into the passenger side of his beat up mustang. He dropped his cigarette and sat in the driver side only to take out another one. His clothes reeked of smoke, and he always tasted like it. I didn't mind all that much. It never bothered me before. He was ruining his life, fine by me. We only had a physical attachment, and that was the way I was going to keep it.

When he reached my pale grey, beaten down house, he parked in front of it.

"Do you want to come inside?" I asked. If I didn't ask, I would just get out and he would leave. He always came back the next day, and most of the time he would come in, if I asked him.

"I suppose." He replied. He dropped the cigarette when he got out of the car. That was a rule. No smoking in my house. We didn't have many rules, but the ones we did have were always followed to the t.

I dropped my keys on the table next to the door before dropping my coat and bag. This was how it always started. The second he closed the door all of the way, we were on each other like green on grass.

Our lips smacked as his tongue pushed its way into my mouth. I was objecting. He tasted like smoke, like always. His hands ran under my shirt as I tugged on his hair. This was how it always started. A line of clothes made its way over to the ugly couch in the living room. Him on top of me.

The rest was how it always was. Groans, moans, pants, tugs of flash, pulls of hair, rubbing chests. It was always usual. It wasn't bad, never bad, but it was typical. Everything about this sexual encounter, we had already done one time or another. I wasn't complaining. I always longed for a connection with someone, even it was only this with the handsome bad boy on top of me.

"You should leave." I said once we finished. I started to pull my clothes back on while he did the same.

"My name is Ronnie." He said. I looked over at him while he pulled his shirt back on.

"What?"

"Ronnie," he said, turning towards me. "That's my name."

I was still confused. "Why are you telling me that?" I asked Ronnie.

"We've been doing this for what? Four months now? I thought you should at least know who was fucking you." He shrugged.

I said, "You should go now."

"Why?" he scoffed. "This getting too emotional for ya?"

"What are you talking about?" I sighed.

"Oh, come on. Everyone in town saw what happened to you. You shut yourself down from everything. Your emotional breakdown was this town's entertainment."

"Why are you doing this?" I asked.

"Doing what? Talking to you? I'm sorry if this is too deep for you, seeing as you hardly do that now." He said.

I shook my head. "You are ruining a perfectly good thing."

"What perfectly good thing? We're fuck buddies! And, you didn't even know my name until today! That doesn't sound very healthy to me. You letting strangers into your house, letting them do things that should only be between people who care about each other." He exclaimed.

"You obviously don't believe that," I said. "Because we don't care about each other, and we still have sex."

"You think I don't care about you? Are you serious?" He asked with a look on his face. "I met you outside of school every day. I've based my entire schedule for the fact that I see you at two o'clock every single day."

"It's not like I knew that!" I yelled back at him.

"No, you didn't because you don't really care, do you? You are so wrapped up in your own pathetic world, that you never once thought what other people thought." He said.

"There is no one I need to think about. They all left. You said it yourself. It was your own personal entertainment." I spat back at him.

He sighed and shook his head. "I kind of thought you would think about me. Oh well, I've been wrong before." He said before slamming the door shut after him.

~ ~ ~

I didn't see him the next day, or the one after that. A week went by, and I hadn't seen him at all.

A while ago, I thought that I wouldn't miss this when it was over, when it ended. But, did it end? Did it really? There was no formal good bye. He didn't tell me it was over, but then again, he stormed out of my house.

He had to ruin a good thing. We were doing fine. We didn't need to know the other's name. We didn't need to know things about them. All I needed to know was what color his car was, and all he needed to know was how to get to my house. That was it.

~ ~ ~

After a month, I didn't know what really to do. There was a part of me that felt the same when everyone else left. I didn't know why. Every time something reminded me of him, there was this feeling in my stomach that was comfortable. It was like a low ache in my chest that was there for no reason. I could hardly look at smokers anymore.

~ ~ ~

This was pathetic. I didn't need him. He was only a good fuck. That as it. That was all he was supposed to be. So, why was I standing out here in the cold weather besides a lousy bar? I hadn't seen Ronnie in a total of two months, and it got to me. Maybe the fact that there were only four hundred people I was ever going to know in my life was getting to be a smaller number. Maybe it was pathetic that I would probably never know more than ten people personally in my life time. Maybe Ronnie was interesting enough that he could just one of those ten.

Who am I kidding? This world was nothing more than a game and my dice were thrown out long ago.

I shook my head as I drug myself into the hole in the wall. The music was blaring when you entered. No one looked up from their beers or their pool games when I entered. It was probably difficult to see me, with this fogged out lighting.

There was a possibility he wouldn't even be here. I didn't really know he even came here.

A beer was placed in my hand in exchange for money as I looked around the small room. I spotted a man sitting alone in the far corner. I should have known he was a people watcher. That was all he did when he waited for me.

I sat across from him without a second glance. He looked up briefly before stubbing out his smoke. I took a sip of the poisonous nectar in my hand.

"Are you old enough to drink that?" He asked, sipping his own.

"Are you?" I countered. He just shrugged.

We sat there sipping our alcohol for a while before he spoke up. "What are you doing here, Max?"

"I don't know." I replied honestly.

"How did you find me?" He asked then.

"A card for this place fell out of your pocket once. I kept it for some reason." I answered.

He nodded his head. "What did you want?" He asked.

"To see you."

"Why?"

I shrugged. "I never thought that I would miss you, never wanted to."

"But, you did." He stated.

"But, I did." I repeated, looking down at the bottle.

"New rule," he said. "We talk as much as we fuck."

I nodded. "New rule," I said. "No more smoking in the car."

He came back to my place after that and stayed the night for the first time.

Six billion, nine hundred ninety-nine million, nine hundred ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine to go.