Memories
Ray squeezes his eyes shut so tightly he sees stars, flashes of white and blue behind his eyelids. He takes a deep breath, suddenly unable to remember if he's taken one in the last five minutes, and rolls onto his stomach. His blankets are twisted around his legs from his constant moving but he's too tired to fix them. He just wants to sleep, but he knows he won't be able to. Whether awake or asleep, the video will play over and over in his brain, and though the memory is burned there.
Lily, looking down at her shoes and telling him that they can't be together. Telling him she made a mistake, that she doesn't love him. Lily, shaking and sitting down on the couch and Travis walking into the station. Lily, looking up and meeting his eyes and smiling. And Ray, understanding.
Ray suddenly feels like he's about to cry and flips over onto his back. The glow-stars he and Lily put up when they were nine shine weakly in the darkness of his bedroom. Ray stares at them until them become a gigantic greenish blur. He thinks he's crying and he hates it. He's a guy, he's not supposed to cry, he's not supposed to show emotion.
He closes his eyes again, and the tears hanging onto the ends of his eyelash touch his cheek and leave tiny puddles. He loved her, he loves her. With all of his heart, more than Travis could ever dream of loving her. And yet, somehow, he's not supposed to let that show anymore.
Lily had kissed him and he thought that meant she loved him too, but he was crazy. Guys like him don't get girls like Lily Randall. Lily, with her sparkling eyes and her beautiful voice and her total perfection. He remembers Robbie telling him years ago that him and Lily would be perfect together, and he remembers making a face and pretending to throw up.
Now, the memory still makes him feel like throwing up. He thought they would have been perfect together, thought that what they had could have been true love forever. He can now step back and look at himself, look at himself like she must see him: Ray, the class clown, the most immature fourteen year old in the world, the guy who would have been completely un-dateable if it wasn't for her, the guy who, in reality, is still completely un-dateable.
He kicks the covers off his bed, suddenly dizzy and burning up. He has to leave, get out of his house which reeks of Lily, from the glow-stars to her Think Pink posters to her bandana that she left over his house months ago. He has to walk, to run, to run away from the memories of the perfect girl, the girl who could never love him, the one who pushed him away.
Ray doesn't grab a jacket or even pull on shoes, just runs out of his bedroom, down the stairs, and out the front door. The air is still crisp even though the days are warm and it's almost May, and Ray regrets going outside in sweatpants and an old tee-shirt. But outside, he can breathe. He can look up at real stars and forget about Lily's fake ones, he can look at the other houses, houses Lily has never touched, Lily-free zones. He can run and run until he sweats the memory of her from ever pore. And he does.
He runs past houses Lily has never seen, trees she's never climbed, cars she's never been in. His bare feet hit the sidewalk along streets she'd be afraid to drive down, he steps on glass from broken bottles that once contained things Lily would never touch. He runs and runs until he can't breathe, until his shirt is so soaked with sweat he feels like he dove into a swimming pool. When he finally stops, he's at the warehouse.
The memories he has just spent hours running out of his system come flooding back with such force that he can't breathe and has to sit down. He sits down on the pavement and presses his palms into its rough surface until his hands sting. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath and lets the memories come.
Realizing he liked Lily. Chasing Lily with a can of whipped cream. Lily oblivious to the fact that he meant that he would be lucky to have her. Lily giving him love advice. Lily helping him get Veronica to dump him. Lily singing her song to Principle Waller, staring right into his eyes. Him wrecking a date and Lily making it better by almost kissing him. Lily picking Travis.
Ray stands up and walks over to the door to the station. He wants to go inside, wants to prove that all the memories mean nothing, wants to prove that Lily didn't smash his heart into millions of tiny pieces. But he can't, because the memories mean everything, and Lily did shatter his heart.
He presses his forehead against the wooden door, closes his eyes, and, not caring who sees or wether or not it's manly, cries. Cries for the loss of something perfect, cries for his broken heart, cries for a friendhsip he thinks he's lost forever. He cries until he can't cry anymore, until the sunlight is peeking through the trees and warming his back, and he turns and walks home, to more memories.