My best friend and I were walking through the mall one fine summer day, when I noticed a very attractive boy watching us as we were walking by. He was about 5' 11", so he was not short, but not excessively tall either. He had chin-length straight black hair, with snake bite piercings. His eyes were a royal blue, surrounded by very long and dark lashes any girl would be jealous of. He was wearing a nice pair of dark blue jeans with a untidily tucked in dark blue band t-shirt that made his eyes stand out even more. He had on a nicely tailored black pin-striped vest that wasn't buttoned and a black belt with a fair sized buckle, holding up his pants. His shoes were a very worn and old looking pair of classic black and white converse.
He was attractive, I had to admit that. But unfortunately, he definitely wasn't my type.
"Oh my goodness. Look at that fine boy specimen over there. Mmph." My dear friend bit her lip in an emphasis to her point. She was staring at him longingly with absolutely no shame in the action. I couldn't believe that she could be so blatant about her admiration for a boy. Never in a million years could I be so outgoing towards boys. They were a species that I would never quite understand and I believe at this point in my life that little fact doesn't bother me so much.
"Yes, I suppose. If you go for that…" I replied blandly. I was quickly losing interest in the boy across the mall with every step closer we got.
"Oh believe me, I go for that. But please explain to me what you mean by calling him a that, what exactly is he?" Of course she would go for a guy like him. If I liked boys like him, I would be drooling over him also. But personally, I prefer the preppy jocks who wear Pumas and collared shirts and look like they just got off the golf course. Mmm, that just makes my body melt…
Lucy was different than me though. She was a small person at only 5' 2" and a size zero. But the awesome part about her being naturally a small person, is that even though she's a size zero, she still had curves. So she never looked emaciated like most size zero's. Lucy had piercings up and down both of her ears. She had a nose ring, and plans to get lots of tattoos once she graduated high school. Lucky for her, that was only a year from now. She didn't have to wait that much longer. Today she was wearing a dark wash jean skirt with knee high converse boots that had purple, hot pink, and blue stars all over them. Her shirt was black with a purple screen print of a silhouette of a girl standing in the wind, with her hair and dress flying everywhere. Next to the silhouette was the phrase "All dressed up, with no where to go.", it seemed to fit her. She was always dressing to impress but never really seemed to have any reason to be so dressed up.
"That is a, hmm… punker/ emo guy. You know I'm more of the type that prefers the athletic pretty boys. Yes, I know I'm shallow for liking pretty boys. Please don't rub it in…" I tried to brush off how shallow I felt as just another fact I was stating. But it really bothered me how shallow I could be sometimes.
"Oh." Lucy was desperately trying to sound like she got what I was rambling on about. "But then how does Jay fit into that category?"
Jay was a boy I dated last year. He was a huge jerk, with absolutely no soul. When I first started dating him, he seemed really nice and charming. I thought I had met the perfect boy and I couldn't believe he liked me. But after about three months or so he began to have these mood swings. I started to wonder if he was bipolar… One of his crazy mood swings was when he decided to cheat on me with one of my not so great friends. Needless to say, I'm not friends with that girl anymore… That moment was one of the not so few times I decided that Jay was a jerk and needed to perish. Ironically, I didn't break up with him for the cheating though. I forgave him. When I did eventually grow the balls to break up with him, it was for a much bigger reason… One I didn't talk about to just anyone.
I tried to justify my actions by saying, "He was on the wrestling team… He had muscles."
"He was also a punk, not just in looks either. I sincerely hope he was bad at wrestling. That boy deserves to get the s..t beat out of him…" Her sentence trailed off, I swear I almost saw a hint of drool coming from her mouth. We were way too close to the other boy. It was making me really uncomfortable to be talking about Jay right now.
I looked at the ground, "Unfortunately… He was pretty freaking good at beating the stuffing out of people." I mumbled my reply. We had stopped moving, thank goodness. I didn't want to get any closer to the boy that Lucy was drooling over. I kept my gaze firmly on the ground, this subject was making me uncomfortable.
"Oh my! Oh my! Hottie's coming over!! At 11 o'clock! Mmm, cut me a hefty slice of that pretty please." Lucy literally licked her lips when she said that. Her infatuation was hitting the point of ridiculous.
I looked up to see the boy with the piercing blue eyes walking towards us. I whispered out of the corner of my mouth to Lucy, so that he couldn't hear me as he was getting closer to us, "Oh no… It's too late now to walk away very quickly. He's too close. He's one of Jay's friends. I really don't want to deal with this right now…" I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and counted to ten slowly. When I opened my eyes, I plastered on a fake pageant queen smile and greeted Jay's best friend, Chris. "Hey Chris! How are you doing today?? Well, I hope." Not.
The corners of his eyes crinkled from a warm smile that appeared on his face. "Oh just dandy. And you?" He replied with just a hint of dry humor that was fitting for the situation.
I wasn't going to be able to get past the fact that he was Jay's best friend. So no matter how kind he was being to me, I couldn't take out the blatant, pungent tone of sarcasm from my voice. "Mm. Fine. So what do I owe for this lovely occasion in seeing you??" I stared at him with a hard cold glare that was evident even behind my glued on smile. I'm glad that I didn't have a mirror anywhere conveniently showing me what I looked like at that moment. It must have been a pretty "special" expression.
"Well I saw you over here and I felt that I needed to apologize somehow for my friend's behavior. He can be a real jerk at times. I tried to convince him to treat you better, but as you can see, my opinion didn't mean much to him." He seemed sincere in his apology. He seemed like he cared. But I couldn't be fooled by this, he was still too sketchy. I couldn't trust anyone or anything closely tied with that idiot I dated. I didn't even trust myself because I, for whatever reason, dated him. I'm still trying to figure out what it was I was thinking… Not much, obviously.
My reply was bland and lacked good humor, "Hm, yes, well… I personally have forgotten that he even exists. I even heard a rumor that he got run over by a truck. I really do hope he's unwell." My voice was dripping with fake mocking concern for a boy that I hated. I was sure that my fake plastered on smile was taking a sort of malicious turn.
"I cannot say that was uncalled for. Even though he's my friend, he can be a complete jerk-off. Sometimes I wonder why in the world I stick around with him…" Chris faded off. He got a distant, confused and frustrated look in his eyes. I was starting to believe that maybe this boy wasn't really so bad after all.
"Ah, well I wouldn't put it in those exact terms…" More like an a-hole who deserves to die. But I didn't say the second part out loud. I felt that no matter how nice this Chris guy seemed to be, he was still Jay's friend. I was not going to let myself get chummy with this boy. But I'd at least cut him some slack, he had never really done anything to me.
There was a moment of silence, obviously Chris got the hint. Lucy took this lapse in conversation as a prime moment to interject, "Hello, I'm Lucy. Charlie's best friend." She waved to Chris, and made sure she emphasized the best part of best friend. She was insane, in my opinion, if she thought she could get with this guy by telling him that she was best friends with me. Being in close relation to my name isn't going to help her at all. But hey, whatever floats her toboggan. Personally, I thought being in acquaintance with me was going to hinder her more with this boy than help her.
Chris waved back and smiled politely, "Hello Lucy, it's nice to meet you."
Lucy was beaming like some sort of loon who just caught the biggest fish of her life. Sometimes I wonder how someone could be so boy crazy and have not imploded by now…
"Well, ahem. Sorry Christopher, hun. But, ahem, we were just leaving." I grabbed her arm by the elbow tightly, and pulled her closely to my side.
"Ow!" She exclaimed, tearing away her intent gaze and concentration in getting Chris's eyes to look directly at her and only at her, for just a second. Now her kohl-lined eyes were boring holes into mine.
"AHEM!" I stared back, with both my eyebrows raised, hoping like no other she would get the hint. When she softened a bit a second or two later I turned back to Chris, "Sorry Chris, honey, but we really must be going. It's been a pleasure, honestly. Lovely talking to you, take care. Buh byee now." I waved lamely to emphasize that we really were leaving. I pulled the reluctant Lucy away from him. I was pulling so hard, I might as well been dragging her across the linoleum floors.
Chris yelled to our departing backs, "Bye Charlie… Nice meeting you, Lucy…" He sounded almost disappointed and sulky. But I told myself that wasn't possible because he was Jay's friend.
When we were finally far enough away, Lucy managed to shake off my vice-like grip from her elbow. "Ouch, why must you man-handle me like this? You act like I'm some child who can't talk to strangers or something obscene like that." Lucy was not happy with me at that moment, obviously.
I shook my head, "It's not that dear, it's not that at all. I think you can talk to as many strangers as you want. Just as long as they don't have a connection with Jay. I really want to eventually manage to cut out Jay from my life completely. Sometime in the near future would be fantastic. Which is exactly why I don't really want to talk to Chris that much. It's just not in my plans."
"Ohh, but he's so cute… And nice. He's really very hot. I can't believe he's friends with Jay. I mean, Jay is so mean and gross, his friend is very different, so different…" Lucy got a distant twinkle in her eyes. In the back of my mind I was wondering why in the world everyone seemed to be spacing out on me so much today. It was very aggravating. Luckily, Lucy this time managed to snap back to her senses pretty quickly, "So did Jay really get run over by a truck?" Or… maybe not so luckily… I think I preferred the far-off look much more than the really stupid questions.
I suppose that's where I have to hand it to Chris, at least he understood that I was just being sarcastic and mean when I said Jay got run over… I blankly stared at my friend, baffled that she would ask something so stupid, "No, Lucy, he didn't get run over. It was a joke."
Lucy took a good couple of seconds to think over what I said, then replied, "Oh, okay…" She laughed nervously and made a valiant effort to change the subject. "So why are you pulling me to the exit and telling Chris we are leaving? We just got here. I don't understand why we have to leave so soon."
"We're not leaving the mall. We were leaving him. I was tired of trying to politely smile and make small talk with him. Frankly, my cheeks were beginning to hurt. Not to mention that, but you were also making a bit of an exhibition of yourself…" I trailed off, waiting for my words to sink into her mind.
She was becoming a bit quicker at catching onto the comments. I think the dumb bit she plays when she's around attractive boys was finally wearing off a bit. "No… I wasn't being that silly. I wasn't throwing myself at him or anything… Was I??"
I raised my eyebrow in reply.
"Oh gawd. I'm such an idiot sometimes. Gawd. Why do I do this every time? I see a cute boy and I become a complete and total freak. Let me go drown myself in a pond please?"
"Oh come on. Don't be so hard on yourself. You're always a source of entertainment for me. That's got to be something, right?"
Lucy was boring holes into my face again with her eyes.
"All right, all right. It's really not that bad. Endearing almost. You have no reason to drown yourself in a pond. You're a sweet girl that just gets a little infatuated with the male sex a little too easily." How was I supposed to sugarcoat what I was really thinking? Honestly, I think if she didn't still hold her V-card, I'd secretly think she was a little easy. But surprisingly she only flirted. She never did anything with them.
Again, her eyes softened, "You have to admit he was cute."
"Yes, he was very cute. But not my type."
"He's mine."
"Good, you can have him." I replied indifferently.
"He seemed mighty interested in you though." She accused.
"Seriously. I'm not interested. You can have him. I want nothing to do with Jay. I don't want to consort with him or his friends. That's final."
Lucy looked at me skeptically, but decided to move onto another subject. "Hey looks! Barnes and Noble!! Let's go spend a small fortune in there!"
I looked where she was pointing, and true enough there was a B & N. "Yay! I always love to do that. I never have money because of those nasty beasts. It's like you walk into the store and ten seconds later they have sucked you dry of any cash you ever had, including any savings you might have had. It's really very sad, but very pleasing when I look at my book shelf at home. Oh how I love to look at it and feel like I have my own small library right at home." It was my turn to have the far off look. It was also Lucy's turn to grab a hold of my arm this time around and jerk me towards the Barnes and Noble to spend any and all money I have.
Next week school started again. For the fourth and final year, I had to go back to that school. I figured I might as well enjoy my time with Lucy when I got the chance, because once school started things were probably going to get pretty freaking interesting. The school may have 3,000 students but it's still too small, definitely not big enough to avoid Jay.
I walked into Barnes and Noble with a concerned but determined look on my face. Things would be different, I wouldn't let Jay get to me and I would enjoy myself from now on...
Author's Note:
I hope everyone enjoys this. I try to update regularly. Reviews are seriously appreciated. Constructive Criticism is more than appreciated.
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