Lost

She walked to school thinking about it the whole way. “He has been so nice, he hasn’t run off like all the others. But give him time, he will; they always do.” So she continued to act as if nothing had changed, and until lunch everything had remained normal.

Today he sat closer to her than he ever had before, and her traitorous heart fluttered again. She continued to ignore him, no matter how hard it was, she refused to let her heart be broken again

He didn’t care that she was ignoring him; he now knew that she did care about him, and that was enough to keep him going. He just had to help her along a bit.

Pretty soon their arms were touching. She couldn’t help herself; she glanced up. His eyes were so warm, so caring, so loving. She couldn’t resist his gaze. She felt like he was being open with her, revealing his soul, showing he had no bad intentions.

Her eyes dropped, she gathered her stuff and left, she refused to be fooled again.

“Can’t he see how much this hurts me? Ugh. I hate him; I hate that he keeps reminding me of those that came before. Can’t he just go away? All those memories, I hate how they haunt me.” She stopped in the hallway and sat down in a corner where there was no one. She once again pulled out her music and drawing utensils and went to work. And as she drew, her thoughts wandered, and she drew them, complete and unabridged, she let them flow. She didn’t know how long she was there for before someone accidentally kicked her. The hallway had been empty when she started, now it was crowded. She grabbed her stuff and went to class. It wasn’t until she got in there and seated that she took out her paper to look at it.It was a self portrait, and a beautiful one at that. There was only one thing wrong with it... She was dead.

She glanced up, suddenly aware of everyone around her. No one was paying attention to her, as usual, but she felt that strange feeling, like someone was watching her. She scanned the room with her eyes and her brow furrowed when she saw the reasoning behind her paranoia. It was him. He walked through the classroom to her teacher, not so much as glancing at her. But she knew, of course, he was as aware of her as she was of him.

“This is just too much. He’s everywhere!” She looked away and closed her eyes, pretending he wasn’t there; but she could feel those eyes on her.” It must be my imagination” She opened her eyes and saw him looking at her, but he looked away so quickly it could have been her own imagination that he was looking in the first place. Soon enough he was gone; he had finished talking to her teacher and left as suddenly as he had appeared.

From then on the day progressed just like every other day. The class took forever, she went home, and did her thing. He yelled and screamed, but it wasn’t so bad. At least it kept her mind off of him. But unfortunately when she was lying in her bed, she couldn’t help but think of him. He was all she thought about lately.

The next day she woke up dreading school more than usual. She was extremely sluggish while getting ready. Suddenly he called her. She heaved a sigh and went to see what he wanted. She gasped at what she saw. It was her ex-boyfriend standing next to him. She became frightened; he had a tendency to be violent. She began to back away.

“How dare he!” she thought. Her heart was racing. “Wh… what are you doing here? What’s going on?” she stuttered.

“I’m here to pick you up, babe” The ex said with a casual shrug and a flick of his cigarette. He sauntered over towards her, leering at her the whole way. Then the unexpected happened, the last thing she thought possible; he bent down on one knee.

“What’s going on?” she asked again, with a shocked expression.

“You’re moving out.” He spat “I’m sick of using up my hard earned money on a moocher like you.”

“What? Dad, please no! Don’t do this, I’ll get a job.”

“It’s too late, I’ve already decided, you’re old enough to go out and live with someone else, you don’t need me anymore.”

“I never needed him.” She thought smugly. Then she turned and glared down towards her ex. He was smiling up at her, not his usual self. “What does he want?” she thought curiously.

“Will you marry me?”

“No.” she said forcefully, she had been stupid enough to be with him before, not again. There was no way she wanted to marry this jerk. She remembered when he used to beat her. Her mind was still trying to process all this new information when her ex stood up and forcefully kissed her, unfortunately, she had to comply.

“Fortunately, you have to. You have no where else to go.”

She looked at him. “But you’re only 19, why would you want to marry me?”

Now he looked nervous, not his usual character, something was definitely wrong. “Umm… Well I…” he stammered, watching his hangs wring each other. He looked up, serious now. “That’s my own business.” Now he sounded like the old him, never giving out too much information.

She looked down at her feet. “Now, what do I do?” She immediately thought of him. “No, stop doing that.” She inwardly scolded herself. So she did the only thing she thought of, she ran. She ran past her ex and her father, she ran down the same roads she had taken on an unpleasant night not too long ago. Of course she didn’t realize what she had done until she was standing there, right in front of him. He was standing there looking shocked, his backpack in hand. “He must have been on his way to the bus stop.” She thought. He dropped his backpack, reached over, and hugged her. His embrace felt so warm and nice, without thinking she put her hands around his waist. She rested her head on his chest and cried. He just stood there and held her, resting his chin on her head. For once she didn’t care that she was subjecting herself to someone else possibly hurting her. She needed someone to open up to at the moment. They stood there for a while, and the bus drove by without him on it. She pulled away, sniffling. “I’m sorry” she said softly.

He shook his head “It’s okay, what’s wrong?”

It was pointless; she didn’t even know why she did it, yet she replied “nothing” He laughed, she had never heard him laugh before.

“I don’t think that’s true, but if you don’t want to talk about it, it’s okay.”

“How can you be so understanding?” she thought. She turned away and started walking home before she remembered why she couldn’t go back. She turned around again to face the guy with a pleasant smile staring back at her. “What do I do?” she thought. “Tell him?”
Then she broke down. She spilled her guts to him right there and then. She was babbling like an idiot but she couldn’t stop. Everything that had happened, she told him. She left out nothing, and it took forever before she finally finished.

After she was finally done, she collapsed on her knees. She was exhausted, from all the crying, all of the running, and all the talking. She could never understand what she had just done. Why had she told him? She had never told anyone. She could not understand what in the world was happening to her. “Why.” The one word was racing through her mind. And she didn’t realize she had spoken it aloud until her answered her question…

“Why what?” he asked, kneeling down in front of her so they were at eye level.

“Never mind” she mumbled, refusing to look at him, she was downcast, always had been, always would be. She kept her eyes where they belonged, on the ground.

He smiled. Yes, he actually smiled then. “Oh come on now, you can’t do that to me.” He put his hand beneath her chin and gently pulled her face up so that she had to look him in the eyes. They were wide and curious, with a sort of laughter in them, not like they were laughing at her, but laughing for her, so that she didn’t have to.