Amor que Poena
By Acacia Thorn
It is a curious sensation: the sort of pain that goes mercifully beyond our powers of feeling. When your heart is broken, your boats are burned: nothing matters any more. It is the end of happiness and the beginning of peace. – George Bernard Shaw
II
She reads the sign once, twice—yet she still cannot make sense of it. She stands there for what seems like an eternity before it dawns on her that she is supposed to go inside.
The first steps are the hardest, since she knows that once she goes inside she's stripping away her own identity. She's going to start fresh, and even though she can't forget, she might as well try.
When she makes it indoors, the faculty welcomes her warmly and is friendly with her. They tell her that she'll have lots of fun and make tons of friends. She is only nine, and she believes them. She believes that nothing will harm her, here at Yancy Academy, where she is bound to stay until she goes to college—if she goes to college, that is.
They make sure she is well and prepared, and then she is left alone with a secretary.
"You're Nancy, right?" the secretary asks.
She manages to produce a shaky smile, but it feels false on her face. "Yes," she says, trying to be cheerful. This is her new life, after all. "That's me."
The secretary nods and points to the far corner of the office. She turns to look, and even though she is only nine, her breath catches and she feels the blood rushing up to her face. Her cheeks are clashing with her hair horribly, but the secretary doesn't seem to notice.
"That's Tristan—he will be your 'buddy' for the day, okay? He can show you around the building."
"Are we in the same class?" she asks before she can stop herself. She can feel her cheeks heating up even more, if that is possible.
The secretary laughs. "Yes, he is. Now, why don't you two get going?"
She nods, trying to calm herself down, and wordlessly she walks out into the hall with who she thinks is the most beautiful boy in the world.
She doesn't want to be a bully, and in all honesty, she doesn't know that she is a bully. She's just doing whatever pops into her mind, being reckless and wild, and she doesn't know how to control it—not that she wants to control it.
Yet, she doesn't understand the expression on Tristan's face when he breaks her supposedly invincible heart.
He doesn't scream the words like she expects; he doesn't say the words the same way they do in movies.
When he does say them, it's sunny outside, and she is near the art supplies in the classroom. He sidles up next to her, and she smiles, not trusting herself to say any more. When he doesn't smile back, however, she is worried.
She and Tristan aren't good friends; any smart observer would've seen that he goes out of his way to ignore her and that she does not bother to make her attraction to him subtle. She, however, sees none of this, instead dwelling in her own thoughts and dreams.
There is an odd look in his eyes, something like determination, but she is too busy wishing for a smile to appear on his face to notice this.
He whispers the words quickly, cuttingly, and his voice is brutal.
"I hate you."
She is eleven when she meets him.
It is nearing the beginning of the school year at lunchtime, and she is looking through a sea of faces, both familiar and unfamiliar, for her friends.
Finally she spots them sitting under a large tree, laughing as they cool in the shade while everyone else bakes in the heat. Wiping some sweat off her brow, she began to run over to them.
She is stopped halfway there by someone she doesn't recognize, and just as a snide remark is about to roll off of her tongue, she looks at his eyes—blue, a bright blue, just as Tristan's were. The insult is caught in her mouth, and all she can do is gape.
"Uh, hi," he says nervously, hands shaking and cheeks pink. "I'm new around here, and uh, I was wondering if, maybe, I could, uh, sit with you, and, uh, yeah, I—"
She cuts him off. "I'm Nancy." She smiles sweetly at him, and he manages to smile back, though his is embarrassed and nervous.
"I'm Alex," he mumbles, and she has to strain to hear him.
"Nice to meet you." She doesn't know where all this sweetness is coming from, but it's helping her so far. "Do you want to sit with us?" She points to where her friends are stationed, seeming oblivious to their missing friend.
At first he looks at her oddly, as if she has three eyeballs and two heads, but then he nods and says, "Sure."
She is still eleven when she suffers, once more, from the mystery known as heartbreak.
She and Alex are good friends, maybe even best friends. She trusts him and he trusts her. He knows that soft side to her, the one that doesn't bully people constantly and is shy and awkward. She thinks that this side of her is the only thing remaining from her so-called previous life.
"I love you."
Her eyes snap up to meet his, and she feels a funny tingling in her chest. Her throat is thick, and she doesn't know how to answer.
A part of her is screaming those same three words, but another, smaller part is holding her back. She takes a moment to listen to it.
They are only children, after all, and he doesn't know what those words mean. He doesn't know that he is essentially vowing something to her. To him, they are just three more words that escape his lips, and they come easily, with no hesitations. They mean nothing.
Instead she is quiet, and she tries to show that she is just as happy as him without saying the words, but the diminished look in his eyes says enough. He knows that she is not going to say the words back, she can tell, and it hurts to see him like that, but not enough to make her change her mind.
The next morning, she wants to reconcile with him, and despite her efforts, she cannot find him. Asking around, she gets her answer from Brittany, the daughter of the principal.
"Oh, he moved away."
Brittany says it so casually, like it doesn't affect her in the least. It probably doesn't, she admits, but she is too busy panicking to dwell on it.
By nightfall, she realizes that those words were not a promise, but a goodbye.
It is not lust at first sight, when she first meets the boy. He's rather annoying, actually, and impulsive, and she views him as a threat to her pride and nothing more. They squabble and scream—both lost in their own world, unaware of the hinting smiles that play on the faces of bystanders.
They are young and impudent and oblivious, and that seems to be their downfall. For there is a look of ache and puzzlement on his face whenever she shows him even the slightest bit of kindness, and there is always a look of deep regret on her face when she insults him, and there is a dark, whiplashing agony that plays across her features whenever he manages to snap back. Neither notice the other, yet they're so focused on each other it is agonizing. They are friends yet they are enemies, and that friendship is held together by their similarities. They are both brash, both ignorant, both lost. But it is impossible to rush these things, and so they stay in their universe, alone with only each other.
She is unsure, when she hits the fountain water, why her chest aches and why her eyes are burning with tears she refuses to shed. She isn't sure why she's screaming at him, because she knows that he didn't do it from the look of utter disbelief on his face, but there is no other thing to do. And she can't quite get his hurt expression out of her head, but she supposes that she is being too soft and mentions this to no one. As time goes on, she nearly forgets about him.
Nearly.
For there are two things she cannot get out of her mind, two things that she knows will haunt her for as long as she lived.
His eyes—his eyes were the color of the ocean, the exact shade of reminiscent green. That is one unforgettable memory of hers.
The other is not so much his fault, but she associates it with him anyway. A letter, the letter—the short, terse letter that ends any hope she has, the one that is plain, ordinary, yet so precious.
For it is that letter that tells her that her mother is dead, gone, and though she hadn't been a major role in the girl's life, it still feels like a chunk of her heart is missing—what is left of her heart, that is.
A/N: There. Some romance. Go crazy. Sue me. I do not care. :3 Same as always…R&R. This gets tiresome to repeat.
