She stood there underneath the streetlight, auburn hair
illuminated, a flame burning too brightly, too quickly, I couldn’t keep up. I
held my breath. Fuck, she was beautiful, the kind of girl who would chew you up
just to see how you taste, then spit you out once she was over you.
She was everything I wanted and everything I knew I couldn’t have, the
unattainable dream.
My eyes fixated on her legs, her impossibly long, pale, smooth legs. I found
myself wondering what it would be like to touch them, to run my hands over them
again. But I couldn’t. She was so many leagues ahead of me that I was no longer
in the game.
I took another step closer to her, another step closer to this inaccessible vision
of perfection. This was as close as I could get. Even at two, maybe three
meters away my breath still caught in my throat. I wanted her. I needed her. I couldn’t have her.
I continued to trace her body, my eyes following the curve of her hips,
promising me things I knew would never come true. I longed to put my arms
around her, to feel her skin close to mine, her heart beating in time with my
own, to lean in close and whisper in her ear how much I needed her.
The corner of her lips tugged at a smile, and for the briefest of moments I
felt filled with hope, like I was a balloon that had been filled with too much
air and I was finally being set free to fly high above and touch the clouds,
but I couldn’t get high enough, something burst me and I came plummeting back
to earth.
I met her eyes, her cool blue eyes like ice to my heart, snapping me out of my
reverie. She knew as much as I did that this could never happen. We were two
ships passing in the night, only not close enough; the waves were drifting us
apart. I couldn’t touch her.
“Hello.” Her bubble-gum lips beckoned me.
“Hey.” My voice was hoarse; barely audible.
She looked at me, really looked at me. As if she was seeing me for the first
time.
“Listen. Sera, we can’t-“ She cut me off.
“Shh. I know. Don’t say it; it’ll make it too real.”
Her eyes held mine, from this distance it seemed that they were pleading, but
that wasn’t possible. Sera didn’t plead for anything.
She took a step toward me, pulling her cardigan around her fragile frame as she
approached.
“Let’s just drive.”
Her hands reached out to touch mine, I flinched but I didn’t back away. How
could something this wrong feel so right?
“Where would we go?” At least the rational part of my brain was still working,
although the part of me telling me to get in the car with this girl and never
come back to this shitty town was threatening to take over.
“I don’t know- somewhere no-one can find us. Please. I just really don’t want
to be alone right now.” She tucked a stray strand of amber hair behind her ear
and dropped her gaze down to the floor. Maybe I was wrong, maybe that was
pleading I could detect earlier. Or maybe she just didn’t want to face the day
tomorrow, all those judgmental eyes, the hateful glances. To tell the truth I
really didn’t want to either.
“Okay. I’ll drive.” I fumbled in my pocket for my car keys.
I agreed for three reasons. One, because I really didn’t want to deal with
tomorrow and the hope of delaying it for a few more hours seemed a lot easier
than facing it right now. Two, I wasn’t tired and I don’t think I could handle
another night of lying in bed listening to that god damn village clock strike
every hour like it was mocking me. Three, I was completely in love with this
girl, this girl that I could never have and I suppose I really couldn’t resist
a few more hours of self-loathing and torture.
My car was a crappy little ’94 Nissan Micra. It was
virtually the same age as me and man could you tell. The once red paint had
faded in places to this weird salmon colour and the wheel arches were rusted.
Basically, it was a complete and utter shit box. But I kept it because it felt
like I did most days, beat up and a little fed up with life.
I walked over to the passenger side door and held it open for her. Sera looked
completely out of place, a rose amongst the thorns, she was blooming too
brightly and it only made the car look more like a heap of junk.
I sat in the driver’s seat of the car, I had absolutely no clue as to where we
were going and at this point I didn’t care. I just wanted to drive until we
both forgot about everything that had happened in these past few months. I just
wanted to drive until I didn’t care anymore.
I drove the car forward, the only destination I had in mind was out of the shit
hole of a town. I couldn’t stand to be here anymore. We passed through the
middle of town, I glanced up at all the shop fronts on the pathetic excuse for
a high-street. I thought about how I’d known everyone who’d owned them since I
was a small child and that made me want to leave town even more. All these
people that supported me when mum was going through chemo and now they just
threw me away like last week’s trash. Oh how fickle people can be, I make one
small slip up and they treat me like the villain.
I pushed my foot to the floor and didn’t let up until I saw the sign that said
we were heading out of town. I didn’t care about speeding tickets or the
potential points on my license. I just had to get out of there before it took
hold of me and refused to let me go, like it had so many people in the past.
“Whoa, slow down.”
Sera’s voice brought me back to earth.
“Sorry, I just had to get out of there you know.”
I turned my head to face her ever so slightly. I forced a smile but it didn’t
meet my eyes.
She smiled back lightly but I could tell that she didn’t mean it either. She
nodded her head in form of a reply.
We didn’t speak for a long time after that, we just drove. We passed the old
church just outside of town, the one my mum used to go to every Sunday, even
when the cancer had taken over her. I remembered the last time we went as a
family. Mum had been so sick that she’d barely managed to stand up, but she
still insisted on going. She said she had to make peace with the lord’s
decision. But it really wasn’t some greater power that had chosen her to
ascend, it never was. Mum was sick because she’d chain smoked every day since
she was 13. But no-one seemed to see that, they all made their peace with it
and said that it was her time, but it wasn’t. If she never had picked up a
single cigarette she would have gotten so many more years than the pitiful
forty, and people were crazy enough to say it was fate.
I looked out of my window at the rolling hills that promised to take me away
from this place. There was nothing left for me here, mum was gone, dad had
practically turned into a hermit and now my best friend hated me. I desperately
wanted to forget this place and in return I wanted it to forget me. I wished I
had the power to glamour people like all those vampires do in films and TV
shows, I could make the entire town forget that I even existed.
I glanced across at the exquisite girl sitting in my passenger seat. She was
wringing her hands in her lap whilst staring down at them, wearing the most
broken expression upon her face. She looked like her entire life had just gone
up in flames and now she had nothing left but the ashes. I wanted to reach
across the gear stick and grab her hand. I wanted to tell her that everything
was going to be just fine and she shouldn’t worry. But I couldn’t. I had no
idea what was going to happen, we’d both screwed up and now we had to deal with
the consequences.
The silence encircling us only made it seem more intimate. Like we were sharing
this huge secret that only we knew about. But everyone knew now and neither of
us knew what to say or do.
I started to loathe the silence between us, because I started thinking about
her hands, more specifically what it had been like to hold her hands. Then I
started to think about what it had been like to hold her hands and kiss her,
and even for me that was too much self-inflicted torture.
I shifted my eyes toward her, trying to gain eye contact but failing miserably.
I could never say what I needed to whilst looking into those azure eyes.
“He’s my best friend Sera.” I began, not really knowing where I was going to go
with this. I just felt like it needed to be said, to remind us of what a shitty
thing we’d done.
“I know.” She stifled a sob, I could tell because her voice cut out on the last
word. I felt my chest tighten.
“We can’t do this. It’s not right.” I stared at my hands on the steering wheel;
they were positioned perfectly at ten and two.
In my peripheral vision I saw her bring the sleeve of her cardigan up to her
face.
“But that’s the problem. It’s too right.” I almost had to strain to hear her;
she’d whispered it like it was the only true thing she believed in at this
moment.
