She Wasn't You

Chapter 20

2000 / 2001

Needless to say, I had fucked up with the kiss and I knew you were embarrassed but please believe me, it wasn't your fault. I just got so nervous that I panicked, but I knew you would think that I didn't want you as much as I led you to believe but that wasn't the case at all. If we had been in that position 6 months later, I would have had the confidence to go through with it and kiss you how you deserved to be kissed and how I wanted to kiss you.

I just wasn't ready.

I tried to phone you - No answer.
I tried to text you - No reply.
I even went your house and knocked on the door - No answer.

You would have thought a normal boy would have got the message through your silence but I wasn't ready to give up on us over something like this, so I picked up the phone and took the drastic measure of phoning your house phone, praying that your Dad wouldn't answer.

"Hello?"
Oh fuck! It worked.

"Hi, is Katie there, please?"

"Who's calling?"

Damn it, it was your older sister. Hayley. She was cute and sounded hot on the phone but I wasn't here for her. I was here for you.

"It's Tommy."

No response. Silence for what seemed like an eternity. Please come to the phone.

"Hi...Tommy.....?"

It was Hayley.

"Sorry, Katie isn't home, right now. Shall I get her to phone you back?"

"Yes, please. Thank you."

And without a goodbye, I put the phone down.

Do you know, it took me over an hour to realise that you had both just played me like a fucking fiddle.

Of course you would have been home! It was Saturday evening, where else would you have been? You wasn't calling me back. We were over me again, just a day before we were going back to school.

Just before we were meant to be the envy of the whole school this year. I had ruined everything!

~~~

Monday morning had rolled around without hearing from you. I can't say I was shocked. I knew where we stood. I knew we were no more. I hadn't slept all weekend. My mind replaying that moment I fucked up over and over again.

Tiredly looking at myself in the mirror as I finished tying my tie, I could tell there was nothing staring back at me. An empty space in my eyes. For the second summer in a row I was starting the new school year with my heart broken into a million pieces.

I don't think I had anything left in me to try again with you, Katie. I felt exhausted and had given up all hope. For now.

Do you remember the first time we saw each other that Monday? It was horrible wasn't it? You could barely look at me in the eyes. As much as I tried to catch your attention to apologise, you wouldn't even give me the time of day. Not one minute to allow me to explain myself.

Would you have listened? Would you have believed me, if we could go back in time. Would you have understood that I was just a nervous teenage boy with no experience at kissing properly?

I mean it's too late now but I just hope as you got older, you would have realised that was the case and there was no need to treat me like dirt on your new school shoes.

I thought it would be easier to get over you this time around but seeing you again, your beautiful face, your gorgeous eyes. I knew it was easier said than done.

The rejection you showed towards me that day probably set the tone for the person I would become over the final two years of my time here in school. It made me realise that you weren't the only girl in the school who I found attractive and as it turned out, you wasn't the only girl in school who found me attractive. I had been blinded by you for long enough now. It was time to move.

And move on, I would.

But then so would you.

~~~

A few months had now passed by and we were almost non-existent to one another. Sure, there would be the odd glance and smile as we passed each other but it wasn't the same as it once was.

That's because you had found love with another, hadn't you?

Bradley!

Now, you played this one very well because you knew I liked him. You knew him and I actually spoke and had a good friendship. Even though he was a year younger than me, he somehow managed to join my Sunday league football team and we clicked instantly on and off the pitch.

I couldn't hate him. As much as I tried to, I couldn't bring myself to learn to dislike him because of you. The relationship we shared on the football pitch was a thing of beauty, we complimented each other so well, we shared the same football brain. He was the ying to my yang. He assisted 90% of my 56 goals that season, he was the reason I was the stand out player that year, top goal scorer and together, the reason we had won the championship.

I was happy for you for once. You two suited. Obviously not as much as we did but you were cute together and whatever you were doing to get him performing on the pitch every week was working. I dread to think what that was, I can't even bring myself to imagine what that was but I'd like to thank you because it made me look amazing on the football pitch.

I, on the other hand was flirting with any girl that showed me the slightest bit of attention. In and out of school. I had finally hit the confidence level with girls that I could only wish that I had, had when I tried to kiss you that day. My peak of confidence came two months too late for me to rectify my mistake but I was loving the attention. I can't deny that.

Mandy, Tina, Kayleigh, Susanna - All showing me attention, my phone was blowing up. Still had to pay for each text message so the attention was killing my pocket money each week but they were giving me what I wanted, what I felt I deserved.

Tanya, was still with her Portuguese boyfriend, so she was off the table for a potential rekindling but there was still the occasional flirtatious conversation and she asked me to walk her home on days her boyfriend wasn't around.

I actually didn't even notice if you were jealous of the attention I was getting. Did it bother you? Or were you too wrapped up in Bradley to care? I must admit, I did get off on the fact that Ricky fucking despised Bradley and your relationships. That little dickhead was finally getting karma thrown back in his pig face.

Christmas had been and gone. We were back to school in the new year and I had some news, news that you wouldn't be aware of.

I had met Sammy. I was now in a relationship with her. She was my girlfriend. She had been friends with a couple of guys from the football team and used to come and watch us train on a Thursday and to our games on a Sunday. Home and away matches, she was there. I had noticed her a long time ago but she was a year older than us, in her final year of school. I didn't dream that she was interested in me until we admitted it to one another after a very cold training session where I handed her my jacket half way through as she looked frozen.

I was happy and unbeknown to me at the time, she would be the one who I would remember forever for one very special life milestone.

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