Bigger Boys & Stolen Sweethearts - Alex Turner

22. It's Hard To Get Around The Wind

  When my dad got sacked from his job when I was eleven he went into this sort of depression where he would toss a blanket over his shoulders and always have a cup of English Breakfast tea in one hand, re-using the same cup until Mum got mad at him. He wouldn't speak, barely left his and Mum's room and looked like he was floating in the middle of the ocean in melancholy. This was me now.

  I spent every hour I wasn't at school sat on my bed in my room, depression blanket over me shoulders and that same slowly cooling cup of tea in one hand as I stared aimlessly at my floor and contemplated the ways in which I could disappear.

  Arabella's note remained folded out on my bedside table, staring me in the eye the moment I woke up and the moment I fell asleep. Her handwriting tattooed into my mind, the harsh capitals conveying her anger every time I saw it.

  I'd been wrapped in my depression blanket with my depression tea for a whole two weeks now. Every day passed by a blur. I basically said 'fuck you' to my appearance and no longer bothered gelling my stupid hair in the mornings or trying to look cool by tossing on my leather jacket. I just got up, existed, went to school, tried my best not to hopelessly search for her anywhere and everywhere and then got home, existed, cried, and went to sleep.

  As if having been dumped by the girl of my dreams weren't enough, knowing how much she obviously hated me was the bitter cherry on top.

When I came into school the following day after she broke up with me, all hollow and broken inside, I crumbled to pieces when I saw her motorbike pull up. That girl was instantly as impossible as she seemed in the beginning. Her eyebrows drawn tight together as she stormed toward the school in those deadly motorcycle boots looking like she'd never lost a war. I could tell she was hurting and that's what made it worse. She was covering it with a dark, angry persona but that didn't mean I also knew how to hide my feelings.

Matt didn't bother asking me if I was okay once he knew what had happened. He left me to my own devices, silently standing by my side as I hid inside my grey hooded jumper, the hood pulled over my head to obscure my face as best as possible. My eyes looked blood shot from the night before. It was so damn obvious that I'd fallen into the pits. I didn't even tell Nick or Jamie and they both knew the second they saw me.

"C'mon Al, we've got to get to Purgatory," Matt said, softly patting a hand on my shoulder and making his way from the car park into the school.

Arabella didn't sit in her usual seat in first period. She got to class early and sat all the way at the front as far away from where I sat as possible. She must've known that if she sat anywhere near me I would've tried to talk to her.

Some guy went up to her and told her timidly: "that's where I sit."

"Not anymore, fuck off," Arabella shot back at him, scaring the poor boy off immediately.

She didn't want to associate with me. If I saw her in the halls she would tilt her chin up and strut passed as if I wasn't there, ignoring me completely and entirely, shrinking me to the size of an ant that she could crush under her shoe without a second thought. There were several times where I knew she knew I was looking at her and avoided eye contact and acknowledgment at all costs.

  It was pain like I've never felt it before.

  It was this constant lump in my throat. A constant blanket of barbed wire around my heart. Everything hurt and I couldn't help but shatter every time I saw her. I was the cause for this rift between us. She hated me rightfully for what I did. And knowing that only made it all the more heart wrenching.

  I would start re-routing the paths I took to get to class. Deliberately taking halls I knew she would to get to each of her classes and walked passed her classes to peer in to see if she was there. I rarely caught her. In the halls, she didn't know me. I was an apparition. She was selectively blind when it came to seeing me.