The One That Got Away

It was the summer after high school when we first met, I remember how frightened I was when I first met him. He was what the girls would all consider a bad boy and I knew from his dark wardrobe and icy stare it could be very true. His blond hair wasn't like mine, which was bleached nearly white by the constant sun exposure, but a true gold that sat spiked on his head. The first time he approached me that was the first thing I noticed. He was sitting in his mustang, cigarette ash flicked from his fingers, while I doodled in my sketchbook from a distance. When I saw him looking at me, I jumped but I couldn't stop looking back until he decided to leave his car and approach me with the same caution that I looked up at him with.

"You were staring," he said bluntly, throwing the cigarette to the ground and stomping it out too close to me.

"I didn't mean too," my eyes stayed glued to the dead cigarette at his feet.

"Was it 'cause of the smoking?"

"No, I honestly meant nothing of it but it a bad habit- smoking I mean," I looked up at him and I thought he must have felt it too.

"I know," he scratched his head lifting the black shirt he was wearing to expose a bit of his toned stomach, "I'm Roxas."

"Naminé," I reached up to shake his hand and that's where it all began.

The first months we unconsciously decided to be just friends though it seemed to ill us both at times when we were around other couples. It was a force we tried to resist, both of insisted we harbored no feelings for the other but it was all a lie. Our first kiss was in his mustang, caused by accidental means as he reached for the handle to let me out after a small argument we were having. He threw the door open angrily as he pulled in front of my house.

"If you're so certain that I'm wrong then you can get..." we noticed the distance was not as uncomfortable as it should have been.

"I will," but instead I leaned forward to that my lips were on his.

I remember the kiss last longer than any other I had had in my whole life before that. That kiss was deadly and it sucked me into a trap that love would never be able to pull myself out of, even now years later. It was the romance every good girl has with a bad boy, we spent many nights in his car kissing and listening to his bands. Occasionally I got him out in the day and we sat at the park while I drew and he praised me with loving words and kisses that felt to true that my heart sped up at the thought of is presence. His kisses were intoxicating and his words were like a drug; I was so addicted to them, I believed every word he said. I listened to whatever he told me. Did whatever he said. It wasn't healthy, I know now, but what do you do with your first love? He was the one who convinced me to get the tattoo on my eighteenth birthday, the one that my parents frowned upon.

"What if you aren't together in the future?" my mother pointed to the plastic on my collarbone that matched the one on his wrist.

"You don't know anything, Mom!" I held up his wrist.

"Naminé! You don't think we know? You think this first love bliss lasts forever?" my father bellowed, "It's not always sunshine and rainbows, or in your case flying hearts!"

I cried and ran to his car and ordered him to drive. He wouldn't let me get away that easily. He kissed me and let me sit in his car until I was done crying hysterically and he carried me in as I heard him apologize to my parents in my groggy state. He wasn't a bad guy, my parents thought, he just made bad decisions and maybe it was true. I didn't know. I loved him more than anything I had ever known and it wasn't my fault that I wanted to be with him because it was his mysterious charm that drew him to me.

We hung out as his house often, with his mom working all the time and his dad away on business nine times out of ten. He had figured out a way to break into his parents' liquor cabinet and that's where I got my first taste of alcohol. The way we talked you'd have thought he was softening up with me around. He was always the 'what if' kind of guy, bringing up the future like we knew what would happen as we sat on the roof of his house.

"You know, if I became famous I'd get your own gallery and display all of that beautiful artwork you have!" he hoisted his beer happily, "And then I would be the rockstar with the artist wife living in a big house on the beaches of Destiny Island!"

"Roxas, darling, fetch the butler, I need a new set of paint brushes," I spoke in a bad British accent, "And tell the maid to clean my sponges, thank you!"

"Anything for my beautiful artist," he kissed me, alcohol on his breath, "We'll have a dozen children!"

"How about three?" I giggled.

"Okay... three. And we'll be married for fifty years and we'll retire to our own private island in the sea."

"Sounds beautiful," I smiled.

I did that a lot then. I smiled, and laughed, and planned. We were never apart and I still have the sketch book from those years. Remembering him made me tear up. When I missed him the most I pulled out the sketchbook and look at loving eyes that once looked at me. The constant reminder of my first love was everywhere including the winged heart on my collarbone. Someone told me that he covered his up with other tattoos and I didn't want to believe it. But I saw him in a jazz club downtown and saw his sleeve of tattoos and realized it was true. I wanted to talk to him, and a part of me knew that he knew I was there, but I couldn't bring myself to talk to him.

There are days I wish I had told him all of my feelings. I don't draw as much anymore, I wrote music because of him- my own muse. He was gone but I didn't want to lose the music he left me. I sung around town and slowly gained a following. When I gained a record deal and put out a few CDs, I still couldn't leave his memory behind. His music was still in my heart, all the pieces I had with me. The money would never bring him back, it could never replace him, it wouldn't fix my wounded memory. I always said if I had a time machine then maybe I could go back and tell him everything. All of my true feelings.

Maybe he wouldn't be the one that got away.

A/N: Katy Perry's song by the same title inspired this.