Boy
The boy with the thorn in his side
Behind the hatred there lies
A plundering desire for love
----The Smiths
She never meant to hurt him.
Summer hadn't even known he would be there, on the train, pretending not to look at her but they both knew he was. She never meant to dance with him, and she never meant to invite him to her party. Because that was giving him false hope, and she promised herself she wouldn't do that to him. Not again.
And, when she opened the door, once again the boy with the eager grin and the naive demeanor. His face less gaunt, less stretched out, package in hand. Like always, he was daydreaming, thinking of one thing while everything else floated through one ear and out the other. She knew, just by looking at him, he would not leave this apartment happy, eager, hopeful. He'd probably leave before she could say goodbye.
Still, she smiled and thanked him and introduced him to her friends, introduced him to everybody.
But, when the last guest left and she was alone on the balcony, she realized she was right. He was gone.
He'd sit in his apartment, she knew, thinking of her like a lovesick teenager, unaware that what he thought they had was never there, was just a figment of his over active imagination. He'd sit and be clinically depressed then mind numbingly angry then depressed then angry then depressed then angry, wallowing in his own despair because she let him. She let him hope that there was something real, she let him hold her hand and call her his girlfriend and she let him think and she let him hope and she let him crash and burn. Alone.
The wedding came and she forgot about him, for a while. She pushed him to the back of her head and stopped thinking about how he must be sitting at his desk right now, at a job he hates with nothing to remind him of me but his own twisted reality. It wasn't like she loved him, it wasn't like she was secretly pining over him as she walked down the aisle. She wasn't. She knew it wasn't supposed to be serious, but he wouldn't listen.
One morning she woke up and knew where he was.
She sat on the bench, her hands folded on her lap and her wedding band glinting in the autumn sun, waiting.
And there he is.
She knows what she has to say, and she says it. She has to know he'll be okay.
And he talks to Summer like a cynical old man, like a boy who suddenly finds out Santa isn't real and everything he knew is a lie. He talks about how fate is bullshit and love is for kids.
He talks like Summer did.
And she did that to him.
She thinks of how cliche this is, the roles reversed as the days have crashed full circle, how she's telling him, no, love is real and fate exist and, yes, I know your angry. But you have to believe me.
She puts her hand on his, and he smiles, and she knows he'll be okay. Because this is a story of boy meets girl, and the boy always has to be okay.
Always.