He’s Mine

“So who else is getting together?” I asked my friend, Lisa, as I nibbled on the end of my pencil. Darn surds, darn them to freaking hell.

“Oh, I heard Bowen is warm for Theresa’s form.” Lisa waggled her eyebrows at me suggestively and went back to looking at her nails, as though it was no big deal what she had just blurted out to me. But it was a big deal. It was a very big deal. Bowen McArthur had been my best friend since prep, and until now he hadn’t shown much interest in girls.

“What?” I said, staring at her. She had to be wrong, or just bored and making up stories. I mean, Bowen, warm for some girl’s form that wasn’t a cartoon character or from a video game? Yeah right! “What did you say about Bowen?”

“Uh, that he’s got the hots for little miss smarty pants over there?” She lifted an eyebrow at me, and then nodded pointedly over to the other side of the room where Bowen sat next to Theresa, copying her answers (or so he said he was).

There was a lot of smiling going on over that side of the room, and a lot of hair tossing done by Theresa van Housen. “So, what’d you get for question 5?” he said, leaning over her and her work, placing his hand on the back of her chair. I eyed the hand with a frown and narrowed eyes. He’d never put his hand on a girl’s chair before, no girl’s other than mine, I mean.

“Is it normal for boys to lean all over girls like that?” I wanted to know, I mean, I could be misunderstanding.

“What are you doing this weekend? I was thinking we could go down to the beach, in our special spot? The one with the little caves that we sit in till the tide comes in?” she said, putting her polished pink nails to her chin in thought. She brightened, and I thought she was going to answer my question – but she didn’t, “We could go shopping tonight for my new bathing suit, I need a new bathing suit. Don’t you think?”

His hand had moved further up on the chair, and was almost touching her back. I never knew my best friend was so sleazy, pulling the moves on a girl on the pretence he needed help with his maths work. But I guess he wasn’t very experienced in the ways of dating, the poor girl – she’s probably getting totally turned off by it.

“I think so, I mean my last bathing suit was a little too primary school, it looked like a total uniform and I know I said that men and women alike dig uniform – but I think I was going a little overboard with the bathing suit, don’t you think?” She said, and I was too busy watching Bowen’s hand crawl up the chair, unbeknownst to Theresa, to hear her.

But she went on anyway, I have a feeling the girl could talk underwater.

“Is his hand on her back now?” I thought aloud, and Lisa stopped talking about ‘going two pieces and perhaps a pink to match the colour of her nails this year’ and stared at me. I didn’t notice the staring though, and instead watched his hand brush over the back of Theresa’s button-up purple top. She’d pulled the sleaves up, and though one could say it was because of the heat – it was totally because she wanted to show off some skin.

“Um, do I care about what little Bowen McArthur is doing to Theresa van Housen? No!” Lisa said loudly, causing Bowen to look over with a raised eyebrow. But she just went on, talking about her new bathing suit.

I looked at Bowen and shrugged, but also gave him a look, a look that I hope displayed my dismay at having witnessed my best friend practically rape a girl he wasn’t even going out with. Atleast, with the way he was looking at all that naked arm before, he was eye raping her.

Bowen smiled and shrugged too, and then went back to flirting with Theresa van Housen. I frowned at him even harder, he hadn’t even heeded my words, or in this case – my looks. I so clearly gave the impression I was not impressed, even if I were smiling.

I looked down at my arms, wondering what Theresa’s had that mine didn’t. Not that I cared, or anything – but I’m just saying, Bowen’s given ample time to look at mine all the time, what made hers so special?

“Are you even listening to me?” Lisa demanded, crossing her arms and sticking her eyebrow way up at me.

I looked to her. “Do my arms suck really badly, I mean, in the looks category? I mean. They can’t actually suck, because hah, they don’t have sucking things to suck with – but you what I mean. Do they suck?”

“You are so weird.” She said, shaking her head at me, and as the bell went, she collected all her books. “We’re going shopping tonight, and beach for the weekend – there are also some Valentines Day events running, maybe you’ll find a catch!”

She patted my ugly arm and then left the room without a goodbye.

I looked up to see Bowen coming my way, but he wasn’t even looking at me, he was looking at Theresa. Theresa was looking at him too, over her shoulder as she walked out of class, giggling with that stupid grin on her face. It was stupid, because it made every guy that laid eyes on her go ga-ga...

...and apparently my best friend was no exception to that.

Not that I cared, and all, but with the popularity that that girl is used to, it can’t be good with someone whose ego will be so easily bruised – such as Bowen’s. I mean, yeah, Bowen’s tough, Bowen’s always been tough. But it wasn’t like he’d been rejected before, not by a girl.

I just didn’t want to see him get hurt.

“Hey, white-ass,” this is what he calls me, because even though I spend tons of time at the beach – my skin remains a little on the pale side, because I insist on wearing sunscreen. But that doesn’t mean I want my best friend calling me white-ass, especially since he had never actually seen my ass. “I’ve got us some answers for you to copy down so we don’t have to be doing homework tonight!”

“What else did you have in mind?” I wanted to know, and then my thoughts turned to going bathing suit shopping with Lisa – I could invite him to come, I mean, he might need a new suit. It would certainly make the trip a lot more interesting, having Bowen’s half-naked bod to stare at as he tried on swimming shorts.

“Well,” he paused. Not that I like him in that way, but the guy tans up pretty good, and he does laps around the water so he’s ahem, quite deezed. “I just wanted to help out with the Valentines Day stuff, Theresa’s co-organising it you know?” I stared at him. Theresa. He wanted to go help out Theresa. Perfect armed, non-pale, pretty and co-organising Theresa. “You don’t have to go. Stay home. Vegetate.”

Stay home. Vegetate. You don’t have to go, Blaire, you don’t have to go when I have Theresa there, Theresa’s so much more entertaining then you, Blaire. He didn’t say it, but I knew he was thinking it. Or atleast, something along those lines.

I had license to be a little peeved. I mean. I was his best friend. I was the one he should be spending his free time with. I was the one who did all the theory work in science for him.

But it wasn’t like he was going to stay single forever, Blaire.

“No, no, I want to go.” I found myself saying before I could help myself. What was I thinking? I had to go swim suit shopping with Lisa and she would be totally pissed if I cancelled on her, even if I hadn’t technically agreed in the first place.

“No, its fine,” he patted my ugly arm like Lisa did with reassurance. “You wouldn’t have fun; you’re never into all that Valentines Day stuff anyway.”

That wasn’t true. I mean, just because I had neither given nor received a valentine, didn’t mean I couldn’t be into it. I believed in love, I believed in happy endings – I believed my own happy ending was pretty damn unlikely, but I still wanted one.

“That’s not true,” I protested, crossing my arms in front of my chest, “that’s totally not true. What’s the real reason you don’t want me to go? Is it because of Theresa? Do you want to spend some time alone with Theresa? Do you want to make love heart cards with Theresa, and then put messages on them for Theresa?”

The same love heart cards we’d always thought were so lame. We’d only ever liked the strange and out-of-ordinary kind of cards, never the totally lame and cliché ones.

“What are you talking about?” he wanted to know, looking at me incredulously.

“Are you going to buy Theresa a rose, a bouquet of roses, and have them put one of those little notes and ‘I’ll love you forever, xoxo Bowen McArthur’ or ‘Kiss me now, Bowen McArthur’?” I continued as though he hadn’t started talking in the middle of my impassioned speech.

At that moment Theresa stuck her head in the door and said, “Oh, can I borrow him this lunch, Blaire?” with a sweet little smile and a tilt of her head.

“I’ll be out in a second,” Bowen promised her as I was about to go ‘no’. I frowned at him, and Bowen turned to me, giving me a bigger frown than I had he. He wagged his finger at me, “now I don’t know what your mum put in your cornflakes this morning, whatever it is; tell her to stop.”

“She hasn’t put anything in my cornflakes!” I told him indignantly, sticking my hands on my hips and preparing for a fight.

But he just went, “Are you going to the beach this weekend?”

“Yes.” I answered out of surprise. He nodded, waved and left the classroom, leaving me standing there on my lonesome. “Hey!” I called after him. “Wait!”

I looked to see our maths teacher, Mrs Rose, eyeing me curiously after witnessing my argument with my best friend.

“What?” I said, and she turned back to correcting peoples work.

OOooooh! Damn him!

I started out the door for him.

I didn’t catch him that day of course; he was too quick for me. But there I was, at the beach, sitting beside a content Lisa – and her new bathing suit, pink as her nail polish – in the caves, sipping at lemonade. I should be happy, should I not?

But I wasn’t. Bowen had spent the entirety of the rest of the week following Theresa around and going over to her table to ‘copy her maths work’, like he had any left to copy!

“I’m out of freaking lemonade,” I exclaimed, throwing my can down into the sand. Lisa turned her head to look at me, mid-reapplying her lip gloss.

“God,” she said, rolling her eyes and shoving the lip gloss back into her bikini top. “Like you need the extra calories anyway,” she said looking down at the three sticks I had leftover from eating fairy floss, “drink some seawater.”

I eyed the seawater that lapped up and started taking my can away with a frown, “Ew.” I said and picked up the can, standing up. I can’t have the can hurting our dolphins, can I? Or whatever the heck we have here. “I’m going to go get some more, I’ll be right back.”

“Whatever,” she said, and crawled up further on the bank to get her mobile from her bag and start texting people.

I sighed and walked along the beach, into the water, to swim back to where all the Valentines’ events were at. I thought about going to say hi to Bowen, who was ‘helping Theresa with events’ today. I don’t understand why he even asked me if I was going, if he wasn’t even going to hang out with me.

But as I reached shallow water, I spotted Theresa standing on the beach, waving her arms around and talking to Bowen. I felt bile rise up in my throat at the sight of her, all this week; she had been hanging around my best friend. Instead of me. Was it going to be like this, if they actually started going out?

I then saw she had been writing something in the sand with her foot, I couldn’t really read what it was; I didn’t really bother trying. But I could see it was all perfect, all nicely laid out in the sand – even when Theresa’s having fun, everything she does is perfection. I also saw a big, smooth, perfect heart at the end of the sentence.

I couldn’t stop myself; I walked up onto the beach from where I sat myself in the shallows, and then walked over to Theresa’s work.

What was I thinking? I couldn’t possibly do what I was thinking of doing. It was so mean; it was so rude, so – so completely jealous of me. What was I doing, being so jealous over something that should be making me happy? That’s what I should be, right? Happy over him finally getting himself a girl. Happy for him.

But I wasn’t. I felt like punching her in the face, but it wasn’t like she’d done anything wrong – but I did kick the sand right through one of her words, stopping, and looking at her with shock, “Oops.” I said.

Because even though I’d totally done it on purpose, I was a little shocked at myself for actually doing it.

“What the hell, Blaire?” Bowen demanded, walking himself right to the edge of Theresa’s precious writing, as not to damage it even further. Theresa, instead of looking angry, just looked a little amused, and excused herself with a, ‘I’ll leave you two alone for a second...’ She smirked, and walked off.

“What the hell, me?” I wanted to know, sticking my hands on my hips and burning with frustration. He’d hardly spoken to me all last week, and now he was going to yell at me, for getting a little peeved, a little...jealous? “What the hell, you, Bowen? Where have you been all this week?”

I still didn’t understand why I was so jealous, I mean; he was my best friend, nothing more, nothing less. She was just some girl he had a crush on, so why was I so mad? Why did every time this week when Theresa van Housen came up and gave me that stupid smile of hers, going, ‘can I borrow him for a tick?’ why did every time she did that, why did I feel like chucking up all over her?

Why did I feel like punching her in the face, or pulling her hair, screaming at her that no, no she couldn’t borrow him. She couldn’t borrow him, because he was mine.

He was...mine?! Oh my God. Oh my God. I think I’m in love with Bowen.

“What have I been doing?” he laughed humourlessly, but I wasn’t even listening to him anymore, struck with the sudden realisation that I was in love with my own best friend.

He was my best friend, nothing more, nothing less. But apparently, I wanted more than that. I started thinking about all the times I’d missed the signs, like that time, back three weeks ago that we’d never actually mentioned again – the time when he’d kissed me. Okay, so it was to save my life; I’d fallen asleep in the caves, and the tide had came, so I had started to drown, and just when everything started to go black...

...I woke up with blinking eyes to Bowen’s own closed ones, his lips on mine, and I’d liked it. I’d never understood that funny feeling I got in my chest three weeks ago, until now, and so back then I’d just shoved him off and wiped my mouth. But now, I realised, that I had liked it.

A little too much.

“What have I been doing?” he repeated, laughing maniacally now, though in a pretty sarcastic way, if you ask me. “I’ve been doing work for Theresa all week so that she’d do this for me!”

He pointed to the writing.

“Read it,” he ordered, still pointing at it. “Now.”

I didn’t want to read it; I didn’t want to know what it said; what if it said something totally lovey-dovey about Theresa and Bowen? I didn’t want to read that. Especially now that I know what I feel for Bowen isn’t exactly friendship.

I looked away from him, “You know what? I’m a little thirsty, I’m going to get myself some lemonade, and maybe we can continue this conversation later?”

“No.” he said, as I tried to walk past him, and he sidestepped in front of me. “Read it.”

“Can it wait?” I said, with a gulp, swallowing my feelings and sending them back inside me, where they couldn’t erupt and make me say things I didn’t want to be saying, or admitting to.

“No,” he said again, and then shook his head, looking down at his feet for a moment. “No,” he echoed, looking back up at me and crossing his arms, looking a little nervous. Why would he be nervous? What could I do about his feelings for Theresa, anyway? It wasn’t like I could tell him to reject her, after he’d made her write them all out in the sand like that. “I’m sick of waiting; I don’t want to wait for you anymore.”

Wait for me? I looked at him confused, and with a heavy sigh and roll of my eyes, I turned my eyes to the writing. The perfect, neat –

Roses are red,

Violets are blue,

I’m so in love,

And I hope you are with me too, Blaire.

...

!!

The perfect neat writing that claimed that he was IN LOVE WITH ME!

I was so surprised, I screamed, and then started to think it was some kind of joke. As soon as I thought of him teasing me like that, my eyes filled up with tears.

“That’s not funny.” I said, choking back sobs, swiping an arm across my eyes and glaring at him. “I’m going to go get my lemonade, Bowen.”

I went to walk off but he caught my arm, and brought me to face him. He stared at me, and he didn’t look like he was laughing. In fact, he looked dead serious.

“It wasn’t supposed to be.” He said.

“What?” I said with a sob, but he grabbed me by the shoulders, moved his face close up to mine, and kissed me. I blinked, and then my eyes fluttered closed, and my hands went to his waist. I kissed him back. Oh man, did it feel nice, why did I waste all my time, fantasising over Clark Kent, or that guy from that band? Bowen was so much better.

I could see fireworks and not the fake; computer generated ones like they did for the Olympics, real fireworks. Little birds were singing, as my hands went to his head, feeling at all his soft, blonde hair. I would have smiled, but it was hard to smile at the same time as someone was frenching you.

He pulled away to catch his breath, and rested his head on mine, looking into my eyes and sending all kinds of shivers down my spine. He grinned down at me wolfishly, and I grinned stupidly back, “So, how’s your weekend so far?” he said, tapping his fingers on my sides to where they’d slipped down around me.

“Um,” I said intelligently, and pulled one of my hands from his hair to tap my cheek in thought, “it could be better.”

“Oh, yeah?” he wanted to know.

“Yeah, you see, there’s this guy I really love, and he’s been spending all his time around some other girl this entire week – and I’ve been really jealous.” I told him, with a mock-sad look on my face.

“Oh?” he said, and tugged on my waist, pulling me even closer to him. “Well, that’s really stupid,” he pecked me on the lips and grinned so hard I thought one of his cheeks would burst, “because who’d spend time with any other girl, when they have you?”

“See,” I said, shaking my head, “now that’s what I thought!”

He was kissing me all over again. It was really wonderful, the way he kissed me. I could feel it all the way to my toes.

He chuckled as he broke apart our kiss, “I love you so.”

He scrunched up his nose with a grin and squeezed me tight, “So I won't hesitate no more, no more. It cannot wait, I'm sure. There's no need to complicate, our time is short. This is our fate, I'm yours.” He sang to me. Then he smiled at me, “and I always have been.”

Damn straight.

Bowen McArthur’s mine, he’s all mine. All six foot one, blonde, tanned and shirtless hotness of him.

“And I’m yours,” I pulled his lips back onto mine.

oOoOoOo

My friend Mal has a new boyfriend! They’re real cute together, and he’s not a jerk, so that’s good. Her last one was a real...crybaby. And I’m sorry for being sexist, but it kind of disgusts me when boys cry for no reason, or well there was reason...but the boy had cried before because he was moving down a street!

I hope you liked this oneshot, because it sure was fun to write! I’ll try and update my other stories soon-ish.

Mal’s really lucky, she always gets the guy!

You know you love me,

Xoxo.