feather

nineteen: so i can go cray cray

"Matthew, go," I pushed Matthew away, since I was pretty sure he didn't want Taylor to know about his 'snip snip' tendencies.

He shuffled back into a different row of lockers. Then I heard the back door of the locker room shut.

"You're a bitch, you know that?" Taylor seethed.

"No, you've got it wrong, I don't like Matthew at all," I pleaded with Taylor. I didn't like it when people were mad at me (unless it was my father, because when he got mad it was kind of funny) and Taylor mad at me made my skin crawl with a bad feeling. "Taylor! Listen to me—"

He sneered at me. "You're just another rich whore who pretends to be innocent."

"Excuse me?" I asked, flabbergasted. 

Taylor made a nasty face, and repeated, "You heard me. You act all sweet and nice and air-headed but in reality you're just a slut that wants popularity." 

"Shut up!" I screeched, banging a locker. The pain of it shot through my hand like a white hot heat, but if anything it made me happy, because I deserved the pain for letting myself be a doormat. I'd had enough of sucking up the whispers and judgements. And now my boyfriend was here, judging me just like everyone else. "Just shut the fuck up! You don't know shit about me, so just stop talking!"

Taylor was taken aback by my explosion. Evidently, he didn't think I was capable of reaching this level of anger. "Crazy bitch," he muttered.

"I have a damn good reason to be crazy," I snapped, bunching my hands into fists to keep from hitting him. After I took a deep breath and counted backwards from ten, I finally trusted myself to speak. "You should just leave," I told him, forcing a smile onto my face.

Taylor shook his head and turned and walked away. On his way out, I heard him mutter something under his breath, probably complaining about how he always got the crazy girls. That's what happens when you decide to get tattoos and piercings, children! Your girlfriend always turns out to be cray-cray.

I sighed, sitting down and slumping onto the bleachers. Taylor turned out to be an asshole and I was pretty sure that qualified as a break-up. I felt like crap. There was nothing I could do. My best friend had bipolar disorder and was stuck in one of his manic moods. My boyfriend just called me a slut and whore: and maybe he was right, I am one. Everyone at school avoided me like I had the plague or looked at me with that so-fucking-recognizable pity and caution in their eyes like I was post-meltdown Brittany Spears or something. I wasn't made of glass, for fuck's sake!

I also wasn't made of Kevlar, on the other hand. Slowly, ever so slowly, a tear slid out of my eye, landing on the palm of my hand. I stared at it limply.

Tears are just sweat coming out of your eyes, I reminded myself, and managed to pull my lips into a small smile. Smiles were proven to make you feel better, even if they were fake. So I tried my best to peel my lips back into a false smile, the same one I'd been wearing for three months. Instead my lips wobbled and gave way and I made a little noise that sounded halfway between a hiccup and a gag. A giccup, if you will. Or perhaps a hiccag. 

More drops of warm liquid dropped into my palm, faster and faster until I was wracked with sobs and snot was running out of my nose and I breathed really fast kind of like a fish out if water and I tried to stop but I couldn't stop and I looked like one of those pathetic anime girls who cried over their boyfriends breaking up with them too. Except the tears pouring down my cheeks weren't elegant and controlled like theirs and my hair wasn't long, soft, and beautiful and my eyes weren't doe-like and adorable and I was fat and ugly. 

At least Father will be happy, I reminded myself. He would be glad to find Taylor was gone, and that he would get to tell me 'I told you so, didn't I, Jamie? You can't associate with dirty boys like those,' and then introduce me to the pretetious son of some rich businessman who spent more time combing his hair than he did putting down other people.

I heard the back door of the locker room open. "Jamie?" Matthew's voice asked hesitantly.

I looked up through the blurry tears to see him back in his favorite light gray sweatshirt and I tried very hard to stop gasping for air like a retarded fish. I'm sure I looked hilarious, with my giant gaping mouth and teased hair and random seizures. 

He sat down next to me and pulled me into another hug. I buried my face into his shoulder because I didn't want him to see my face.

Matthew, like the good friend he was, stayed quiet, and let me cry like the loser I was. Because even though he was fucked up in the head and most of the time it was me who tried to protect him, we were best friends and that was our duty towards each other. 

"Matthew? What are you doing?" I whimpered as he sat back, wiping my eyes off with the back of my wrist and looking at him and his steely-gray eyes.

"Jamie," He whispered, and slowly leaned forward to put his lips over mine. His warm breath brushed gently against my snot-covered salty cracked lips, and he brought his hand up to touch my cheek.

He was going to kiss me.