I'm almost there. I haven't stopped for about three weeks. You wouldn't believe the distance I've covered, the roads I've travelled, the things I've seen. I just hope he's still waiting when I get there. I have one block left, only one. But, it's been three weeks, and yet, he said he would wait. I wonder if he was bluffing me. God, I hope not. I wasn't bluffing him. I left that night. I just left, got up and ran - ran, ran, ran. I suppose it was not the brightest thing I could have done. Perhaps I should have called my sister back at home and asked for the car. Maybe I could have caught a cab. I don't know. I guess... running made it feel more real to me, like I was actually going myself, instead of someone else plundering through the five-hundred something miles for me. I wanted to show that I could do it, that I still - even now - loved.
The water was freezing. I could feel the hairs on my thighs rise with the goosebumps. There was a leak in the lower-left part of my door, but I really didn't care. I knew- one way or the other- that everything was going to get wet. I was just hoping for a bit more... thinking time. The radio was running static. The dashboard lights dimmed and cut. It was so dark. All I could see were the streams of light beaming from outside the car windows, dancing, dancing, upon the sandy floor of the river. I huffed a cloud on the window: "Love You, Kiddo."
Everyday. Every fucking day. I sat on that porch every fucking day. EVERY FUCKING DAY. Today, it was the last fucking day. I'm through with waiting. I'm not impatient, but I don't like being let down. I could have been to Jamestown by now, but then again, I honestly thought that bitch wasn't lying. I used to love sunsets. I watched every day go by and end, just for her. That sun, smiling in such bright arrogance, when at night it was allowed to rest with the beatuious curves and colors of the distant mountain side. She was beautiful, but distant, like the mountainside. I hated that distance. And I now hate this fucking porch. I'm through waiting on broken promises, broken rungs. This was shit. She didn't love me.
Chapter One: Laughing Isn't So Hard, Once You Try
He was such a heartbreaker.Andrew. Andrew Denbore.
The new kid, new this year. Oh, wait - Hi. I'm Jeanne. Right now I'm running, so bare with me. This might get a little complicated. Back then, I was a sophmore in high school, and I wasn't running. Actually, when I first set my sights upon the boy they called Andrew, I was sitting in the cafeteria eating a sandwich. Funny story, I accidentally walked right into him on my way to dump my things. That's how we became friends. By accident.
"It's just like you," he said to me, once upon a class, two months later, "To take pictures of such random things."
I laughed, taking the photo from his hand, "I did not take this picture. Lamroy did, and he didn't know this was going to happen." Go figure, it was a picture of the tray I spilt when I ran into him. Who is Lamroy? Best friend. He's cool. Wait and see.
She was cute. The way she jumped at the smallest hint of an insult killed me sometimes. I almost wanted to laugh at it. Hi, I'm Andrew, and right now I'm walking. Back then however, I was running- running from a past I'd rather forget. This is the story of how I was let down, let down by the only girl that ever warmed my hardened heart. I remember that picture, that really dumb picture Lamroy took. Ah, Lamroy, the epitome of gay- and I'm not kidding.
I looked up with disdain at Jeanne, "Oh," I grumbled through pressed lips, slipping the picture back in front of her.
"Jealous?" She teased. Or- at least- she better have been teasing.
How can you be jealous of a gay kid? He's gay, "No?" I huffed, more annoyed with the awkward thought that it was snapshot by Lamroy.
I wasn't at school the day they spoke of my photo. I was home, sick. No, not really. Hi, I'm Lamroy, and right now I'm drowning, and I had been ever since that moment pivital. This story, it is not mine. It never was, but I will always wish it had been. Normally by now I would be in third block, Chemistry. I thought about how far behind I would be when I returned the next day. That class moved way too fast for me, kind of like the way Andrew was moving too fast with Jeanne.
Ugh, he made me so angry. Jeanne was the sweetest, most kind girl I knew - well, kind enough to be my best friend, that is. Anyway, she was so great. The last thing she needed was for Mr.I'm-So-Smooth to come into her life and demolish her ambitions. You see, that's what love does to people, and Jeanne certainly didn't need love, at least not from Andrew. I wasn't really sick today, I was just upset. Tonight's our Senior Prom Night, and I'm not going.
Well, I was supposed to, but -
"Lamroy? I need to ask you a favor," she said, hands on the wheel, eyes darting from the road to me and back.
"Mmm, yeah?" I mumbled, more interested in my new negatives I had just developed than hearing her talk about Andrew again. Which, by the way, she always did.
"Do you know how we have our Senior Prom in a month?"
"Yeah."
"You know how we were supposed to go together?"
"Yeah."
"Well, I was wondering.. Andrew has no one to take him, and since you said you hadn't wanted to go in the first place, I was going to ask you if you'd mind that Andrew took me instead."
I sat there, unsurprised, yet still understandably bewildered by this. True, I did tell her I wasn't planning to go to our prom, and she was the only reason I had been, but ever since she asked me to go, I was sort of... well, you know, looking forward to it, a little. But, I told myself before I even dared to sputter out that mess of thought, maybe she really wants to go with Andrew. Maybe I'll just let her go.
"No," I said with a bit of a stumbling grunt, "I don't mind. But I am definately going to the promenade now. I'll have to take pictures of you two."
Lamroy was so understanding. What a great friend. I remember when we were kids, he was always there; learning how to bike, falling, trying again, falling one more time. And he always smiled, no matter what. I envied that little boy, and I still do.
But enough of the beginning-
Enough of this. It's too far back. You probably think I'm nuts -
I don't have enough time to start this early. The levels are rising quickly. How about this: Just imagine a bunch of sappy love crap happened Prom Night, because it did.
Today we graduate, we fuckin' graduate from high school. I can't believe how little time it took, how little time it took for that silly girl-
" - Jeanne Mae Weathers - "
- That silly girl to seep into my heart. I watched with a solumn smile from behind the shadows of my graduation cap as she recieved her diploma. Her smile was so bright, so convincing, but I knew she couldn't bare half the people she had so readily shaken hands with. That was the weakness of a kind heart - always ready to please. It actually frustrated me sometimes, mostly through stories she'd told me about past boyfriends or another. I don't understand how one girl, a girl with a smile like that, could possibly magnetize such slimy good-for-nothings. It sickened me, especially when she cried about it. Then, it just made me feel useless. What better solution than to make her mine? Ah, there was none. She was great, and that's all there was to it, really.
Her eyes met mine as she reached the bleacher stairs, and we shared a split second grin. Heh, cutie.
She was third to last to recieve a diploma, and before we knew it, the crowd was scattering amongst the field to their cars, all in an attempt to escape the inevitable graduation traffic. I remained seated on the bleachers: not much of a family to see, not many friends to find, just Jeanne and her crowd. That was all I was waiting for.
"Um, really cool sitting up there by yourself," and I didn't even have to look. I knew who it was. It was Anne, Jeanne's younger sister. She was a sophmore at our school, quite the cynical clown. She clopped up the metal bars in her black converse shoes and slid to a hault beside me. She never smiled much for being such a carpe diem girl, but she was more like an energizer battery than anything. Once you got her going, she never stopped. Ever.
"Waiting for your sister," I replied, already knowing she was going to ask. She turned to the blustling crowd below us, thick, orange-rimmed glasses gleaming.
"Yeah...," she strained, "She's somewhere. Say, like are you coming over?" The spectacles turned to me as I nodded, "Yeah... Um, you definately have to watch this video I just made. I'm entering it in the competition at Anime Boston for the video contest. Yeah... It's cool, like your mom."
I broke a chuckle for the sake of being polite. Anne didn't know - no one really did. My mother never really was my mother. She left when I was young. Yet, I was so used to her exotic nut-of-a-sister, that I shrugged it off with no deal to be made. Good thing too, because I could see the top of a bouncing, blonde head aiming right in our direction. With any guess, it was probably Jeanne trying to say goodbye and hello to everyone on her way to meet with us.
Anne raised a brow, "Oh, looksie on the horizon. It's Jeanne."
There was nothing like a few cool beads of sweat running down the inside of your legs, bleh. My underdress was drenched from it. All I wanted to do was go home and jump in the shower, but I knew that was hours away. There was still a lot I had to do, too many people to see.