1
People speak of high school as if only in Meeger bump in your life. Nothing will really happen then that will change the way you will live. No relationship will lead you to your life and then tragically end because you don’t want to change the other persons life with your quandaries.
All the way through my high school career I have had to deal with being picked on. I was used to being called horrible things, such as monstrous, massive, and worthless. No one ever seemed to be there for me except, my little brother when he was old enough to understand what was truly going on. Though at times he seem to act worse than the guys my age. I could never even tell my mother about this like the other girls my age could, in her defense it’s hard to listen to your daughter’s problems from all the way across the country, hidden deep in her new husband’s extravagant home. My father seem to put up an act that he cared for what I had to say until it didn’t sound like something that he wanted me to say or do. Whenever I spoke of something he did not agree with here yelling would start and once it ended the whole house would be sound less the rest of the night. Most nights my routine consisted of homework, dinner, and then bed. Though as I was supposed to be sleeping I would stay up only a little later to write, it seem to be my only escape from the reality I was living.
Though, when I was younger I used to write all the time, no matter who is around me. I did it because I thought it was fun when I was a child. I thought it was the best way to remember all the adventures that I went on in my mind. With all my friends that others could not see. How I would be the brave princess who rescued her self from tower by befriending the fierce dragon.
Until one day, I have been at the park that was only a few minutes from my house, my twin sister had been at a friend’s house that day, so I was only with my brother. I was about 12 years old and he was only five; we were both still super shy and didn’t talk to many people. We have been told by our father to get out of the house for the day so this was where we headed. I let him run around on the hot playground equipment as I sat on one of the old rickety picnic tables writing one of my first romance stories.
I have been so focused on my writing that I had not noticed a group of boys about my age waltz over to me at the Grammy picnic table. I hadn’t even lifted my eyes from my page until one of the boys cast a shadow over me.
I had looked up to find the boy was what you could consider handsome for his age. Tall and slender frame, and slightly sharp and face framed by short brown hair that seem to match his eyes. His smile is what I remember the most because it was charming and yet devilish at the same time. When I first had these thoughts I didn’t know that this little boy had planned on trying to embarrass me. I smiled at him sweetly until my notebook was no longer in my hands. It had been there one minute and gone the next. And before I knew what was happening I was hearing the words that I had scratched onto the paper being announced to all of the playground to hear. The parents seem to ignore my desperate attempts to get my notebook back, where is the other boys were laughing at what they were hearing and my face seem to turn red and hot tears rushed down my face. At that moment I had wanted the world to open up and swallow me whole.
So I had always consider my brother to be a bit selfish and conceited never worrying about anyone else other than himself; this time he stepped up to protect me. He noticed the tears streaming down my face from across the playground and rushed over hearing the boy as he read aloud and seem to make a beeline straight to him. He didn’t seem to think as he acted at all, he knew that I was upset and the words the boy was saying were mine. He didn’t do anything until he was less than a foot away showing my brother’s height because he was only a few inches shorter than this boy who is almost 6 years older than him. Finally moving into action my brother swung at the boy with all he had and hit him square in the nose. I could hear the crack as his first collided with the boy’s face. Before I could ask if anyone was okay my brother had picked up my notebook and handed it to me. I thought it appropriate to start walking away before the situation escalated more than I already had.
Somehow though I find myself in a similar situation as I was in four years prior. I was sitting in my English class waiting for the teacher to arrive, everyone else was rambunctious and talkative trying to let everyone know what they had done the past weekend. Except of course me I was sitting at my desk quietly writing yet another romance story. I have gotten stuck writing romance after what happened in the park that day. As bad to turn the page when it was ripped from my desk and seem to find his way to Georgia’s hands. She was the queen bee of our high school. One word from her can make or break your social life, she seem to have broken mine.
“Georgia, can I please have my notebook back?” I asked quietly, scared to upset her because behind the fake tan and acrylic nails her punch was hard and she never once missed.
“Oh, Heaven. Have you learned not to make up stories, because that would make you a liar,” Georgia questions me with a smirk on her face and her voice being forced a few octaves higher to match mine.
“Actually that makes me an author and you a liar,” I risk saying with fire in my voice. Though as I say it she moves my notebook further back so that my attempt to grab it back fails miserably.
“Oh sweetie that’s not how it works because I probably lie a lot less than you,” she replies back in her thick southern accent. Then somehow she manages to stand on top of the old desk that she was sitting in in heels and a miniskirt. And begins reading the romance out loud losing her southern accent and seeming to copy my voice without flaw. The words on the page seem to roll off of her tongue with ease. Though she was speaking like me her voice was still full of venom as she read.
“Oh little Heaven are you trying to write a romance that you know nothing about?” She questioned me followed Buy a snarky laugh; everyone laughed with her; mostly the boys in the class that she had screwed with, which explain why the teacher, who is now standing in the doorway, was laughing as well.
Finally, after reading and agonizingly long passage of my writing Georgia handed me back my tattered notebook. I was beyond embarrassed, I was furious and needed to leave the classroom before hot tears could fall down my face again. I raced for the door and fling it open with a few stray tears sliding down my face as I ran through the off-white hallways. As I reach the girls restroom I broke down and let the waves of nausea come as I cried along on the bathroom floor. I was alone with no one around who cares whether I let myself get sick here on this empty bathroom floor.
I cried and cried not able to control the tears that ran down my face. Hot against my skin showing my weaknesses to the world. I tried to take a deep breath, but the only result I get is an overwhelming feeling in my gut. I wanted to be able to do more than sit alone on this floor, but I couldn’t the only thing I could do was wallow. I heard teachers walking down the hall and passed the bathroom, they seem to be enjoying themselves with all the laughing that I was hearing. I smiled lately to myself thinking about some of the best memories that I’ve had and then the smile falls away as I realize that those were all with Summer. She had looked just like me matching dirty blonde hair that always matched each other matching. Vibrant blue eyes that you could drowned in. The only difference was that she always had perfectly tanned skin and I only burned, so is usually pale beyond believe. It is been the two-year anniversary of her death a week earlier. It affected me each year that she was gone my therapist believes that it has gotten worse each year.
My anxiety would cause me a sudden panic attacks, and at first, the panic attacks seemed to only be around the anniversary, but after the first year, it seem to get worse. I had panic attacks once or twice a month, and now I seemed to be having them weekly. I tried to stay calm, but it was hard to when people set their goals on making you miserable.
I noticed that the tears had slowed to maybe only one or two as I sniffled and force myself to stand up. I still land my back against the cold wall for support. I took a deep in hell of breath and unlock the star that I have been hiding in. I looked in the dusty old mirror that hung over the sink and see my blue eyes surrounded by red puffiness from the crying I had just done. My blonde hair musssed in the back from where I had leaned in on the wall. I tried rubbing away the redness but it only seem to make things worse it caused a little make up I had been wearing to smudge and crossed. I finally gave up on fixing the smudges and wiped my face clean.
I refuse to allow myself to stay here and weep more so I grabbed the notebook that had been forgotten on the floor beside me and headed out to the hallway. But, as I stepped out of the girls laboratory I ran right into a rock wall. Or at least I thought it was a wall until I looked up and spotted a pair of amazing eyes. They were light brown with specs of green that you could see a mile away. His smile was familiar and soft. I scanned his face more looking for more familiar qualities and found dimples. Those damn dimples and his smile combined had me swooning over him.
“Whoa, are you okay?” His smile softening even more as he grabbed my waist to study me. I took a sharp intake of breath as I felt the heat from his body on me.
“Yeah, I I’m fine,” I managed to say before a thought popped into my head. He looks oddly similar to the little boy from the park for years ago.
“Really cause it looks like you were crying,” he says not letting go of my waist his brows furrowing in a sort of worried look. I didn’t seem to be able to focus on any thoughts that seem to flow through my mind at that moment.
“Yeah. I’m sure,” I finally snapped, trying to focus my mind and squinted my eyes at him as if he had just tried to make a joke that backfired.
Finally, he let go of my waist and I felt unexpectedly cold, “Okay,” he says. Then he said something I’d never have expected to hear from him. “See you around, little Heaven.”
“How do you know my name?” I was confused because the only way he knew my name was if you were there and heard Georgia say it.
“Well, what else do you think I would call you?” He paused and looked as if he was thinking really hard, so I could tell that he wasn’t and I knew that it was on the tip of his tongue, “Maybe notebook girl?”
“I knew it,” I said noticing that his nose was perfectly straight and that he still had the same smile as he had at the park.
“Know what?” He asked playing dumb and seeming to be enjoying this little encounter.
“You were that little boy from the park who humiliated me,” I paused taking a deep breath and then stared at his nose. “How is your nose not crooked?” I asked in pure curiosity.
“Oh, that’s because I had surgery to fix what that ass did to my nose.”
And the. I snapped “No one gets to call my little brother an ass except me! And if you do it again I will make sure your nose stays crooked for good!” I said getting in his face pointing my finger at his chest and scowling at him.
“So I take it you’d prefer, little Heaven?” He says without hesitation as if our lips weren’t millimeters apart.
“You are so irritat-“ is all I manage to say before I felt his soft lips crashed to mine. I just completely melted like an ice cube by heater. And somehow my arms ended up around his neck, and his hands on my hips and my back against the cold lockers. Though I couldn’t feel the cold, all I could feel was his heat radiating off of him.
Then without warning, he pulled his lips away from mine. I peaked at him through my lashes and see his chest rising and falling heavily and his lip still parted imperceptibly.
Before I could understand what he was doing his hands were no longer on my waist and his body heat no longer envelope me like it had before and this time his hands were pressed to the lockers behind me as he towered over my short stature.
“ Why why’d you do that?” I stuttered at every word still flustered and enjoying the pleasure that only a kiss gave me, not knowing why I know craved more.
“Because,” he pause still breathing only slightly heavier than what is normal and spoke once his eyes, filled with a feeling that no one had ever looked at me with, raising to meet mine, “maybe I wanted to.”
“What?” I spat back loud enough to make him jump back away for me, but only slightly. So I graded my tone instantly.
“Hey, you seemed to be enjoying it so, what are you complaining about?” He asked in a deep, husky voice that would make any girl melt including me.
Once the words sunk in I was shocked at how misogynistic they were and countered with, “ because you’re not a particularly smart person if you first, go get someone cross with you, then proceed to kiss them.” As I shut this all out at him my face turned a bright Scarlet in anger or humiliation, I’m not entirely sure which.
“Too late I already kissed you,” he stated as he turned around gracefully and left without any hesitation. I scheduled my face at the back of his leather jacket and couldn’t bring myself to quarrel at him anymore.
As he walked in the same direction that I come I tried to recall back in my memory searching through our two rather short and counters to retrieve his name. Though I had no success reviving it because we had not introduced ourselves, therefore my first kiss belong to a nameless stranger with wonders eyes.
