The 20 Dates Challenge

Thirty-Five - What I Need, Not What I Want

What I Need, Not What I Want

I avoid the restaurant after that, only going in when I’m needed and only when Alex isn’t performing. School gets more and more awkward and eventually are group splits into boys and girls again. Jesse and Jackson break up. They say its mutual, but we all know Jackson couldn’t handle dating a girl that hated his best friend. A rift forms between the genders of our grade. Relationships throughout all of year eleven start to split.

It makes me feel worse. I cut my hair short, remembering how Alex always used to say he liked it long. Then I dye pink and purple streaks through it. I throw out all my pretty dresses and stockings and heels and replace them with jeans, jackets and runners. I don’t do my makeup every morning. I don’t straighten my hair.

Before I know it, winter is turning into spring; which is turning into summer. We leave eleventh grade far behind as Christmas passes, grade twelve starts and Easter goes by. My friendships with all the girls crumble and fade. Even Jesse doesn’t talk to me much anymore. I make new friends, with the outcasts. They’re nice enough.

Almost a full year passes without Alex and me even saying a word to each other.

And then I meet Craig. He’s a transfer from the other side of Brisbane. He has black hair streaked with red. He doesn’t like talking to people because he thinks they’re all fakes. He likes to listen to dingy rock bands and has his bedroom set up in his garage rather than in his house. He says he’s never met a girl like me, so withdrawn from the crowd. He takes his time to get to know me, to learn my story, to understand why I’m careful. For my seventeenth birthday, we hang out in his garage, listening to rock and cutting out magazines to decorate my room. That’s when he kisses me.

Third term of grade twelve brings on a new relationship, with new challenges. Craig is the nicest guy I know. He tells it as it is, never mixing up the truth with a lie. He listens to every word I say. But he doesn’t like me talking to those he doesn’t trust. When I try to start up a friendship with Jesse again, Craig tries to ruin it. But he finally listens. Jesse and I become friends again but not as close as we were.

You see, Craig is what I need but he’s not really what I want.