Broken Hearts and Their Laughter 1
There she was, just walking down the hallway as if nothing else had happened between us. I gritted my teeth in anger as she let out a little laugh. Damn her for making me fall for her, then pretending nothing had happened. It’s been almost a whole year from our first meeting and her mistaking me for a girl. 2
“Katie, wait up!” Someone else yelled, I turned my gaze to the boy who ran up to her. She greeted him with a sparkling smile and I found myself ready to leap out and beat the boy into a bloody pulp. 3
“Hey John.” There was that grin again, I tore at my hair and I almost threw a tantrum right then and there. Except, she couldn’t see me, I was hidden in a small alcove leading to the computer lab. 4
I spun around, not wanting to see her smile and play along with that guy. Did she even have a heart? But, today just wasn’t my day, I bumped into someone and they just so happened to yell my name out. 5
“Mike, dude! I haven’t seen you around! Track is starting up and we need our sprinter—“ If he continued to talk, I didn’t hear. All of my attention was focused on the girl who had turned her head my way. She had apparently stopped talking to John and was now staring at me. I could feel my face flare up like one of those annoying red stop-signs. That was the last I saw of her today. Everywhere I looked, she was missing. She used to be everywhere I was. I guess I’d gotten so used to “my little shadow” that I didn’t notice her slowly slip away. 6
♥7
The days passed and the only glimpse I got of Katie was when she was speeding down the hallway chatting with her friends. Slowly my life slipped back to normal—no, it was never normal, now that she was out of it. Katie was the person who defined my “normal”, normal with her consisted of her throwing an orange at me and cackling as she slid across the hallway on pieces of bread. Not ignoring me in every class and in the hallway. 8
Though reality had just set in earlier, coincidently when I was sitting in front of my computer waiting for her to return my emails or send me one of the annoying ones she used to send. But nothing, there was no new messages from her, zero. The reality was I had lost someone I had almost considered a friend, because I was too blind to see that total opposites needed each other.9
But, I guess I did screw this up. I had called her some pretty mean things and just left her as I went back to my group of friends. I left her standing there in the rain with a large cake upside down on the ground. If tears streaked down her face, I didn’t see them because I was too preoccupied to get back to my friends and the dry house in front of me. The truth is Katie had been such a big part of my life that I could never see it with out her. I never knew she could leave it as easily as she entered it.10
So, although my brain was telling me that I was stupid, I jogged all the way to the park. I knew that she was always there bouncing the soccer ball up and down, rain or shine. It was one of those crappy days outside, the kind that makes you want to just crawl under a rock and wish for the clouds to go away, but Katie always said this was the best weather. The sweet scent of the earth seemed to mingle with the cold wind that blew across the Great Lakes. Even the muddy and musty smell from the sidewalk just added to the beauty. 11
There she was, with the muddy silver ball bouncing in front of her. She took a step back and kicked the ball against the wall; a loud resounding smack was accompanied by the ball hitting the wall. My legs took me closer to her and she glanced up. It was hard not to hear me, I was wheezing and my feet were loudly slapping the ground.12
“What do you want Mike?” She growled at me, her attention went back to the spinning ball.13
“I came here to talk.” Katie snorted, and it was the only sound besides the constant rhythm of the ball against the wall. “I-I wanted to say I’m sorry.” I managed to mumble out.14
There was silence, she had trapped the ball and just looked at me. But that look made me feel like she had trapped me and not just the ball. “Good, people like you just don’t understand how people like me think.” Venom dripped from every inch of her words. “Isn’t that right?” I winced, she had just thrown back my words right at me, and they hurt. 15
“Why?” I was mumbling again.16
“You wouldn’t understand.” There she was, hissing at me with that look I had never seen on her face. The look of utter loathing and lividness, that look shook my core. Katie just wasn’t, wasn’t made for that face. She was build for laughing and grinning, for joking and loving. People like me bore that face, but for her, it was merely a burden she could cast off. 17
“Then make me.” My voice is quieter, but steely. “This isn’t you. Back then, you would – you would have never run away, you would have never quit, you would have stayed and finished the battle. Small things like this never toppled you.” Words I had never practiced flew out of my mouth, all the time I had spent in front of the mirror went to waste as I said things I never knew I could put into words. 18
“I know it’s my fault. I shouldn’t have told you to get lost and that we,” I stopped; my heart began to pound as I tried to continue, “-we aren’t meant to hang out together. But, I thought things would be fine. Stupid as I am,” I weakly chuckled, “I thought that we would still be friends.”19
Katie looked up, her eyes were slowly brimming with tears. Tears that I had never seen in her eyes were there. Her poker face had fallen to the ground and shattered into millions of pieces. “That hurt like hell Mike. I thought that maybe if I could tone things down, maybe act like other people like you, then maybe you wouldn’t be so upset about me being there. That maybe I was holding you back and, I guess reality hit home when you said those words.” She took a deep breath, “When I saw you, I knew you were different. You didn’t harbor the same wildness that I did, you seemed to tone it down and be with it. I envied you for that. And I wanted to be by a person who could take everything in and not be shaken by it.”20
“Damn.” I cursed, my eyes falling to my shoes, and they seemed to interesting in a time like this. “I wanted to be like YOU! You had so much freedom. I was stuck running on the ground, stuck with responsibilities I couldn’t do and rules I had to follow. But you, you, overcame everything and flew! Katie, you took your anger and hate and turned it into something more real.”21
I guess it was the right thing to do, but I just grabbed her. The soccer ball rolled away un-noticed as we met in the middle. It happens in a blur. I grabbed her shoulders and pulled them hard, and kissed. Hungrily, with the intensity of too many moments lost. Passionately, with the knowledge of too many tears cried. Forcefully, with the regret of too much unnecessary pain. I kissed her, just kissed her, and she kisses me back, and I tasted her, oranges, and tears, and in that one moment, everything is perfect.22
I pulled away, breathless. She stares at me, lips swollen. “Damn you Katie. Screw the way the world works, screw society, as long as you don’t ever make me feel like I’m so horrible, I promise to never be such an idiot.” Katie laughed, the friendly laugh made me feel all warm inside. So warm, because I had helped those laughs come.23
“It’s a little late to stop acting like an idiot, but I guess you’ll have to work on it.” She joked. Before I could stop myself, I had leaned in for another kiss. I grinned before I met her lips with my own. ‘Who gives a damn who sees us.’ And at that moment, I felt like a rebel with a cause. And she was it. 24
Perhaps the reason why I had come back for another kiss was just how she tasted, or maybe it was the way her hands seem to effortlessly slip into my hair. I stopped thinking as the heat seemed to sear all of my conscious thoughts. But I just did, now that I really think about it, maybe because it was instinct. And thank God it was. 25
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The End 27
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