Happy. That's how I feel as we walk down the street together, side by side. I take a quick glance beside me, his dark features strike me once again as being some of the most handsome things I've ever seen. His hair, dark brown, is long and straight, and hangs down in his face, almost covering his eyes. They're dark, too, almost black, but with a touch of softness in them, as if his heart's too good to let his eyes be so dark. He's tall, and he's wearing a deep red shirt, that completely sets off his bronze skin-tone. But that's not what strikes me most about him. He actually has a good heart, which is a lot more than can be said of most guys I know. He cares about people, he really cares about what you feel and how your life is going. In fact, if he didn't care, I probably never would have known him. We met as kids, both hopeless romantics with overactive imaginations and a love for all things beautiful. And I don't mean romantics in the modern sense of the word, I mean it as it used to mean in all the old L.M. Montgomery novels, meaning we both love a good story. Oh, we spent countless days in the summertimes, making up entire worlds and living in them, going through entire lifetimes of magic and wonder, living the way we wished life was lived. We soared through the clouds with faith, trust, and pixie dust. We battled the supervillians that threatened our world using our amazing powers of fire and earth, and then turned dark ourselves and seized control of that world. We traveled from galaxy to galaxy, exploring, seeing, searching, finding, conquering, running, flying, soaring. In the fall, we would hold meetings of the grand council in the apple tree in my backyard, and in the winter months, we built castles and forts and strongholds out of all the snow. Those were easily the happiest years of my life, I didn't need any other friends, I didn't care that other kids thought I was wierd and avoided me, I was perfectly content knowing that he'd be back tomorrow, ready to take on the next grand adventure I'd have planned for us. [video=youtube;Eo8cI-y5o6o]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eo8cI-y5o6o&feature=related[/video] Impatient. That's how I feel as I wait for the days to pass until my next birthday. I always liked him, but I had tried to hide it for a long time. Now we were older, and once he started to take an interest in me, I started letting my own feelings show. Gradually, a little at a time. Our games in the backyard were a thing of the past, we'd have long conversations about anything and everything ranging from the latest issue of Naruto to wether or not Twilight was a good read. (I still disagree with him, by the way.) Every once in a while, we'd lightly touch upon the issue of there being an Us, but I think we both knew that neither of us were ready. This went on for a year before we finally got up the nerve to consider it. We both wanted to take it slowly, make sure this was what we both wanted before taking the first big step. We went on long walks and just... talked. I remember he asked why I liked him. I said I didn't know. He said he got that a lot. I said he was different from anybody else I'd ever met, which was true. He smiled like it was christmas morning and said that he'd always waited for somebody to say that. Then I said that it was mainly his evil laugh, which was a joke. Then he laughed as insanely as he could, which made me laugh too. Before long, we both were laughing, him normally this time. I loved that laugh, too. It was nice and loud, but not obnoxious, and made me feel happy when I heard it. After a summer of days like this, he asked me to be his girlfriend. I had to tell him that I wasn't allowed to have a boyfriend until I was seventeen, and he said he'd wait for me. Now every day, I check the calander, the year of waiting will soon be up, and I can't wait for the phone call I know will come. [video=youtube;K8Wk07R4Vw4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8Wk07R4Vw4&feature=related[/video] Confused. That's how I feel at the football party, two months before my birthday, as I watch him with his girlfriend. I try to ignore them, I try to keep my mind busy with other things. But no matter what I do, they're behind me, and the silence I hear makes me afraid to turn around and see what they're doing. But still, I can guess. They've been kissing the whole time, why should they stop now? The worst of it is, I still was too naive to realize that he'd forgotten me. In my simple child-like mind, I thought he was using her until I was available. Which still hurt, but it was better than being forgotten. In fact, I thought that being forgotten was so out of the question that it didn't even cross my mind. Oh, I don't think he did it on purpose. He's too good of a guy for that. But a year is a very long time to wait, especially for a teenage boy, and I'm not surprised that he fell for her. I guess I should have known that from the start, but I thought we were perfect for eachother, and having grown up reading old-fashioned romance novels, I thought we'd end up together in the end, just like Anne and Gilbert, Emily and Teddy, all the people I had read about. Of course, if Gilbert Blythe had had the nerve to bring his girlfriend to Anne's party and then spent the whole time kissing in front of her, the story might have had a different ending. But I was still young, and didn't understand the things of this world, and so I waited with baited breath for my birthday, when he would inevitably break up with the girl and call me up. Looking back, it's a blessing he never did. [video=youtube;cLRLNUAEbPU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLRLNUAEbPU&feature=related[/video] Hurt. That's how I felt when he didn't call on my birthday. Or the day after. Or anytime within the next several months. I waited every day, phone in my pocket, but it never rang. Ever. He still was the only friend I had, if he didn't call, my phone was just a useless bit of technology. Oh, he broke up with the girl all right, a week before I turned seventeen. But he had forgotten me, and I had to face it straight on. Of course, no one in my family knew my pain. For all they knew, we had never got past the childhood crush stage. They never knew about his promise, they never knew I loved him. And yes, I did. As it says in the very last chapter of A Time For Tenderness, grown-ups should never make light of first love. I loved him deeply, and I will never be able to get that part of me back. Somewhere, deep inside me, I will always love him, even when I move on, even when I'm not in love with him, I will always remember him with love. But right now, I feel hurt. As the months went by, my hurt grew deeper as I started to catch the way he acted around my sister. The same way he used to act around me. He treated her with a tenderness and respect that made me remember the days when it was him and me, which made the sting even deeper than when I had simply been forgotten. Finally, I asked him plain out and out if he liked her. He said yes. He asked me if I still liked him. I said no. I said that while I had liked him in the past, that was all over and done with, and now I thought of him like a brother and a friend. I lied. There was no way I could face him, knowing that he liked my sister, and tell him how I felt. I knew him well enough to know what he would have done. He never intended to hurt me, he cared for me like a sister. If I had told him how I felt, he would have been miserable with the knowledge of what he had done to me. He would have hated himself for it, and I could never have let that happen. Yes, he made a lot of mistakes, yes, he hurt me, but nobody's perfect, and really, I had been too trusting. So he asked my sister to be his girlfriend. She said no. He never came back. [video=youtube;HowLEGBgxx0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HowLEGBgxx0&feature=related[/video] Dead. That's how I feel every moment of every day. I walk through life just the same as I always did, nobody can see through this mask of contentment and pleasentries. I joke, I laugh, I do everything I'm supposed to, but there's no meaning in anything anymore. As long as I had him, I was content, but now that he's gone, I realize just how alone I really am. Not one single friend to help ease this burden I feel. I don't mind the betrayal so much anymore, like I said, I still love him, but I'm over it now. The real problem now is I'm alone. Completely, utterly alone. I spend all day on a stage, people see the character I portray, and at night I take off my mask and lie awake, staring up at the stars through my bedroom window. I would do anything to be a little girl again, then I could simply close my eyes and fly off into the night sky, first star on the right and straight on till morning. But even Peter Pan grew up eventually, and forgot the secret key to his Neverland paradise, and I seem to have lost mine. Now when I close my eyes I just see darkness, and I don't like it. So I lie awake at night and smile through my teeth all day. This is a pathetic excuse for life. [video=youtube;diaHnF-zfEg]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diaHnF-zfEg[/video] Lost. Somewhere amid the acting, I lost myself behind the mask. I don't even remember who I used to be. My personality, humor, characteristics and mannerisms all reflect on whatever character I'm currently playing. In the past several months, I've been everyone ranging from Benjamin Franklin Gates in National Treasure to Murdock in the A-Team to Neku in The World Ends With You. Every few weeks I change my look, I've been punk rock, I've been goth, I've been hipster, I've been preppy, I've been a slob, the only thing I haven't been is me. And now, I've let something dark come into my life. I catch myself talking to a sort of alternate personality, a manifestation of my super-powered childhood imaginary self, that I used to defend my imaginary world and then later used to take over it. She returned as a second personality, and I fight with her constantly in my head. I don't like her, she's a lot darker now then she used to be. She's mean to me, and tells me things that aren't true, that can't be true. She says that He left me because I wasn't good enough. She tells me that no one will be my friend because I'm not good enough. She tells me that maybe if I were better, people would like me more, and she tells me that I need to be more like this character or that character, so I change again, to make people like me. No one does, and before long, she tells me that I just can't be good enough. I tell her she's lying, I say that I can be good enough, but she laughs at me. She says that I'm pathetic, and it's true. She says that I'm worthless, and it's true. She says again that it's my fault I'm not liked, she says that if I were good enough, people would like me more, and it's true. I'm pathetic. I'm worthless. I'm not good enough. I'm alone. [video=youtube;8vmMHihFWjk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vmMHihFWjk&feature=related[/video] She makes me do things I ordinarily wouldn't do. I'm yelling at my mom, I'm fighting with my sister. I'm saying spiteful things to people I care about, words that I know will cut them deep, and then I add insult to injury and twist their words around and make them out to be the bad guy, all the while maintaining that I did nothing wrong. I take sharp things and play with them, drawing pictures on my legs where no one will see them, writing words like "Friendless" and "Alone" in the stinging red ink. My head hurts constantly and not a minute goes by without a command from Her to do this thing or that thing. I am her puppet, and she is my master. I must obey. Whenever I try to resist, She bombards me with words, those dreaded words and labels assigned to me, worthless, friendless, alone, inadaquete, ignorant, ugly, undesirable. Soon I'm back under her control. My mom can't stand me. My little sister hates me. Is this going to be my life? Forever plagued by this demon of insecurities? I can't live like this forever, if I can't get free soon, I'm going to break. Oh no, please no, get away, go away, I hate you! Please! GET OUT OF MY HEAD!!! ~<>~0~<>~{SH}~<>~0~<>~ ...Hello, worthless. Miss me? [video=youtube;pZ8b4YQ-J84]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZ8b4YQ-J84&feature=related[/video]
I know you did this as a dare for Jayn but this is still great work. Towards the end, as 'you' began to get more and more depressed, I felt genuine sadness and care for you, and in a strange way; that must be how the family feels. Like they're trapped outside, unable to help but knowing something's wrong. My only issue is a couple of lines which I think would be more effective if spaced out a little more, specifically; which might be better as; since it's such a major dramatic point. I got the feeling it was supposed to be shocking, but I think it lacks that shock factor. In any case though; I really liked it. You should really write more when you have the time.
lol, thanx! It sort of makes you understand the Green Goblin a little more, doesn't it? But yeah, I actually meant to post it in the original works section, I'm not sure why I posted it here.
