Severed Feelings

The first day I met Imilee wasn’t anything spectacular. In fact, it happened to be a rather ordinary run-in, the awkward chat and the silence that often ensued included. But our conversation at the lunch table at our too-crowded public school obviously had struck a chord somewhere in her tiny body, because it seemed that after that day that I couldn’t go anywhere without seeing her.

Despite the funny, bleached hair and the rugged looking denim she always wore, I couldn’t help but to find myself liking the time in which we spent together. As time progressed, as it does in most healthy friendships, we found ourselves having more in common with each other than we could have ever imagined. She became my confidant, my best friend, my entire reason for actually wanting to go to school; we gossiped, we stayed over each other’s houses practically every weekend; we were practically joined at the hip.

I liked her in the envying kind of way, too, I suppose. She had the coolest knick-knacks. Along the walls of her bedroom she’d hung her multitudes of photos, and lining a single wall was a shelf that her father had custom-built her and painted white to match her room. The cubicles held her vinyl collections, her random ticket stubs and journals that were lined with her poetry, her thoughts, and her ideologies on how the world should appear through the eyes of a barely sixteen year old girl. Her room was chaos, to be completely honest, with clothes she never really wore spilling from the closet into the blue carpeting, but it completely encompassed Imilee and all that she stood for at that age.

She was a middle child of four, but it wasn’t that often that I actually saw her siblings. Of course, with the amount of time I’d spent in her house it was impossible not to notice the family portraits that lined the hallways and that were set up tidily on the living room coffee tables next to her mother’s prized potpourri and unlit candles.

Imilee had pointed all of them out to me at one point, giving each face a backstory, even if it was brief and clearly a bit biased.

She was the second child. John was the first, only a year older than the both of us. Ross was the third child, a baseball fanatic, and Shane was the baby of the family, and therefore the whiniest and the one that got away with practically murder.

Nothing seemed unusual about her family, and there really was nothing unusual about the O’Callaghans.

It wasn’t until probably the tenth time of me spending the night at her house, after I’d become practically the second daughter Jenny O’Callaghan never knew she wanted, that I actually ran into John in practically the literal sense of the word.

It’d been early in the morning, far too early for Imilee to be awake and actually functioning, so I found myself wandering the quiet house in search of a glass of water – not an uncommon thing for me to have to fetch for myself.

What was uncommon was the fact that as I turned into the kitchen, another much larger body was turning out, and nearly tossed me to the ground in the moment. It took only one startled glance to know that this was the infamous older brother that I’d never actually met: John.

And he had his long fingers wrapped around my arm to prevent me from toppling over.

“Shit, I didn’t even hear you,” he grumbled, obviously not pleased with the encounter. By the bloodshot eyes and the smell of liquor on his breath I could only come to the conclusion that he’d thought I’d been his mother and had scared him half to death with the whole run-in scenario as he was probably trying to slip unnoticed back into the house.

I could only flush bright red at the mere fact that he had his hand on me yet and that I had not mastered the whole flirting with boys skill. That, and the fact that he would probably always be that girl – the one that scared the shit out of him, that he would forever have to be awkward around.

I could only mutter out a meek apology and awkwardly brush my hair away from my face.

We lapsed into a silence that I couldn’t find in myself to break.

I was the epitome of socially awkward. With braces, uneven skin, split-ends and frumpy sweatshirts as my staple closet item, there really was no winning in my case.

We separated, him taking a step back to let me by, and me taking the opportunity to get myself the glass of water I’d first left Imilee’s room for.

There was an undeniable tension between John and me. I could feel his hesitation, as if his mildly intoxicated brain was trying to decide on what he wanted to say as I pulled a glass from the cabinet.

It wasn’t until I’d poured myself some water straight from the tap and took a gulp of it that he finally took some sort of action. “This can be our little secret, right? Like, no one knows that I went out last night…”

I only stared at him, me in my knee-high socks and flushed cheeks. “Uh… S-Sure.”

“’Kay. Thanks. You’re Savannah, right?”

I could only nod. I was too dumbstruck to say anything even slightly intelligent.

John O'Callaghan was not exactly the boy portrayed in the photographs decking the house. In fact, he was so much more than just a picture. He was undeniably cute, and to say he was my first love - or at least crush - at first sight would be pretty accurate.

Even with bloodshot eyes and a blood alcohol level that was probably nearing a dangerous high, I couldn't help but to actually find myself attracted to him.

I was nearly sixteen when John O'Callaghan had given me my first dose of heartbreak.

I classified – and still classify – it as heartbreak as we stood there in the darkened kitchen solely based on one reason: he was forbidden.

John was off limits not just because he was my best friend's brother, but because he was on a totally different level than what I was.

I knew the first time I actually looked at him that he was a partier, a little bit reckless and more than likely restless. I was quiet, I was comfortable with the familiar pattern and hum-drum of my everyday life and I didn't necessarily want that to change. He was cute, almost handsome, really, and I was really not. Too gawky for my frame, with braces that were absolutely stunning I’m sure, I was the epitome of a loser, of the little sister’s best friend that a boy would have absolutely no interest in whatsoever.

But John O'Callaghan was not my last nor was he my most painful heartbreak. Another O’Callaghan was, and it was years later but much too late for me to change the way in which it shattered.

No, Imilee held that specific title and it would take a whole lot for anyone to be able to top the amount of pain she’d so kindly bestowed upon me.