All I Wanted Was You

Nineteen

Hayley's POV 

I remembered now why I had begged to be homeschooled for so long. Constantly staying at home, being taught things by my mom and my private teacher and actually LEARNING stuff was awesome. They were both surprised to find out that I wasn't really some dumb retard and that I could actually learn if it wasn't in a classroom full of people led by a boring teacher. I guess I just had trouble paying attention. A LOT of trouble. But being the only student changed things considerably. I had no choice but to pay attention and it turned out to be a lot easier than I thought it was. I even found some sort of fascination in learning new things, something I had never felt before.  

Erica was so jealous it was hilarious. She stuck her tongue out at me much more often than usual, which was saying much, and she kept insisting that going to school was better because blah, blah, a bunch of nonsense... But I knew she didn't really believe her own words. She was upset, but I told her that she was way smarter than me and that she belonged in society, with everyone else, and I just didn't. "So, you're an alien?" she asked.  

I laughed. "I am, but you're just a little monster!" I started tickling her then and it all ended with a pillow fight and our mom telling us to keep it down. 

I was happy. It even made me happy to actually have something to be happy about! 

In fact, I almost managed, in my constant happiness and fulfilment, to forget Josh. Almost. But every night, he invaded my dreams, and I woke up each morning with a knot of disappointment in my stomach and a huge need to cry, which luckily dimmed quickly and vanished almost instantly. But it was still there. 

I couldn't bring myself to accept the fact that I would most likely never see him again. I kept hoping he'd appear out of nowhere and never leave. And I was scared of reaching the dreaded conclusion that he wouldn't, because I knew that losing all hope would break me down and plunge me in a state of zombie-ness I might never escape from.  

So I kept hoping blindly, praying for some miracle I knew deep down would never come. Every night, I tried my best to remember our talks, our laughs, our hugs and our kisses, but it became dimmer and dimmer until I felt like it had all just been a dream. At some point, I stopped to wonder if Josh Ramsay even existed. Or was I just crazy?  

But I knew he did. And I knew, though I tried to forget it, that he thought about me too. And I just gripped that hope... 

I was hit by a sudden realisation and I felt so stupid that I hadn't thought about it before. I ran to my cellphone and scrolled through my pictures until I found what I was looking for. It was right there. I couldn't help but smile as I remembered that time when Josh and I had climbed all the way to the roof of the school-something I would have never DREAMED of doing on my own-and we'd messed around until the janitor had stumbled upon us and sent us both to Mr. Frogman's office.  

Still, I'd had time to take a hundred pictures of the-terrible-view from up there, and one of them, just one, was of us. We were caught in the perfect kiss, worthy of Hollywood-except for the fact that I was half-concentrated on taking the picture-with that ugly view of the city behind us.  

It was so beautiful that my eyes welled up with tears and my hands starting shaking up to the point where I couldn't even see the picture anymore. It was too much. I couldn't keep lingering in the past like this. What was I even hoping for? That he'd come to my house when he didn't even know where I lived? That we could still be together even if our lives were completely separate now? Yes, that was exactly what I was hoping for. But it was too complicated. It was impossible. It was over. He was gone.  

He'd probably forgotten me anyways. Reluctantly, I tried to stop my hand from shaking just long enough to delete the picture. And as it disappeared from the screen, I felt a part of me vanishing from my chest, leaving a painful hole behind. 

That's when I knew that I had truly lost all hope. 

Josh's POV 

I had forgotten how much I hated my life before I knew Hayley. No worries though, I was quickly reminded.  

The first few nights, I didn't sleep at all. I didn't even want to sleep. I almost felt like I didn't deserve it. Of course, during the day I could barely focus on putting one foot in front of the other, and all the teachers had to wake me several times during their lame-ass classes. I think I was even sent to the principal's office at some point, but I must've been sleep-walking 'cause I couldn't remember a thing.  

During lunch, I refused Jack's very generous but slightly harassing invitations to sit with me. I wanted to be alone. Always. Besides, I didn't want him to lecture me on the fact that I barely ate anything. It wasn't like I was starving myself. After school, or whenever no one was looking, I was stuffing myself like a fucking pillow, only to later donate it all to the rats in the sewers. Well, maybe I WAS starving myself, in a way. But I didn't care. I didn't fucking care about anything.  

I just wanted to die. I had no idea why I didn't just end it all then and there. Maybe because I was hoping that when I got home I would see my old friends again. Well, my old FRIEND, since I only had one that I could truly hope hadn't forgotten my existence. Maybe Matt would help me, like he used to... But maybe he was better off without me. He didn't need to worry about me anymore. 

Still though, even if I'd almost enjoyed my first near-death experience, I didn't want to go through it again. Pure fear, I guess. 

Or maybe... maybe it had nothing to do with fear. Maybe it had nothing to do with Matt either. Maybe the reason I didn't just give up was hope... Blind hope that I would see her again. Maybe just once before I left...  

And I knew that I could. After all, even if we lived in a big fucking city and I had no idea what her address was, we still lived within two hundred square kilometres of each other, right?  

Seriously, how the fuck did I not have her phone number? Oh, maybe that was because I didn't have a phone, and she only used hers to call her mom and take pictures. 

But then how the fuck did I not know where she lived? How the fuck had we not thought about this essential thing!? Maybe we'd deliberately but unconsciously avoided that exchange, since a relationship based mostly on phone calls and an occasional two-hour visit was just too painful. Yeah, that made sense. 

But this! This was even more painful. This was unbearable. I needed to see her again. I needed it more that I needed to breathe. I knew that it wouldn't help though. I knew that, if I saw her now, we'd have to say goodbye once again, and I'd already been through that and had no intention to do it again. I knew that it wouldn't help. At all. 

But as I stared at my locker that day after school, I realised that I didn't care. I didn't care that I didn't know where she lived or that I had practically no way of finding out. I didn't care about what her reaction would be if she saw me. I didn't care about what happened afterwards. 

I made a split-second decision. I wouldn't go to choir today. 

I would go to Hayley.