A/n- school assignment. It was a Valentine's Day project, where we had to use the contents of a Candy Hearts box in our story!

Summary: From the male's P.O.V.

Love Story

When the heat wave struck, the sun beating down what seemed like a thousand times stronger; the town blacked out completely during the day. Now after sundown, that was a different story. Not to say it wasn’t still sweltering at night either; but that three degrees change in temperature felt like the difference between some kind of parched hell and cloud nine.
So when the rest of the world was sleeping, our town was crowding around down Main Street; packed into burger joints, and milling around that new club down on Thirty-fourth, the new place to chill.

Out in the street boys would lounge casually against their convertible cars and trucks awaiting their girlfriends… or waiting for girls to be their friends, if not only for the evening

Now, unlike my other mates, I was not drawn to this mess of lights and alcohol and music by my own will and power. I was drawn to the strange sights and sounds of Thirty-fourth by her.

It was around midnight on the Tuesday after Red Hamper crashed his pickup into the interstate guardrail and got himself killed. Now the whole town was either out on the streets or, if you were over twenty-five, at Saint Holy’s Church. I was with neither group. I was not praying for a fellow townsman’s soul nor was I dancing the night away in his memory. I was instead heading down to the Liquor Store to pick up a new pack of Menthols.

But as I rounded the corer towards the Store, I stopped dead in my tracks. There, sprawled beautifully in the gutter was a woman, her tangled red hair clashing vibrantly against her silvery dress, the sequin-like scales transforming her into the image of a rather large, emaciated fish.

Her head rolled back, her arms lying rather limply against the faded fire-lane. Her long makeup caked eyelashes blinked heavily over at me, the reflection of the flickering streetlight shadowing certain lines of her face.

I had never seen her before in my life.

“Uh-“, I began, uncertain.

She smiled. Her lip was split, a marring red gash against pink. “Ask me,” She spoke softly.

I blinked at her. “Who are you?”

The girl said nothing but a soft laugh escaped her lips as she turned her head back to the street, her fingers curling and uncurling. From the angle I stood I saw she was outstandingly beautiful; in that heartbreakingly destroyed kind of way.
From somewhere up the street car lights flickered as someone turned the corner. They drove pass on the opposite side of the street, hum of the tires drowning out what the girl had said next.

“Sorry?” I inched a little closer.

“Lover boy, lover boy, lover boy.”

Was she singing now?

Tentatively I crouched down next to her. The blue nail polish practically dumped upon her fingers seemed to be peeling and chipping off; she clicked them as she hummed softly to herself.

“Are you hurt?”

She just stared at me.

“Alright, well, let’s get you up, okay?” I bent down and hooked an arm under her shoulders and behind her knees. Her flesh was ice cold and slightly damp. My t-shirt stuck to her bare skin as I hauled her into my arms.

“You are kind, my love.”

I bit my lip but didn’t’ reply. I just watched her head loll back onto my shoulder, her cheek pressed against the tattoo I had inked there a few summers ago. Her lipstick, or what was left of it, smeared upon the arching back of the black and white marlin.

Hidden behind the blackness of her mascara I could see her eyes were a pale hazel-green; staring at nothing and yet everything at the same time. Her lips moved soundlessly against my skin as I stepped back up upon the sidewalk away from the dirty road, Against my chest I could feel the scrape of dirt and grime that she had picked up from the road and had smeared upon me. I could feel her breathing slow and long and deeply.

She was beautiful, and I couldn’t understand why anyone would throw away a girl like that. If she had been my girl I would have treated her better; thrown away the makeup and harlot dress the first chance I got. It was unbecoming to her beauty.

“Be mine… won’t you?”

I looked at the frail woman in my arms. Her eyes were pleading, her lip thrust out just a bit.

“Alright.”

She smiled, closing her eyes as I walked back down the direction I had come.

“Love him.” She said softly as sleep took her. “Love him, love him, love him.”

I didn’t understand.

fin