(no subject)
Actually
Actually, I fancied Laura, who sat across the room from me in class, who always wore pink and whose blonde hair fell in magnificent layers across one half of her face so that I was never sure how much of the world she saw from behind the curtain of her feathery, diagonal fringe. Well, I was pretty sure that I wasn't exactly part of what she saw, except maybe in those moments when I was rewarded with a sneer from her lovely rosy lips and a look down from the one mascaraed eye that hadn't lost out on uninterrupted vision in the making of her beauty.
You, on the other hand, had always just been a friend, had always been around forever; my best friend perhaps, but as a teenage boy, that wasn't really a phrase I'd have used then. I still went to your house most Sundays, but of course I couldn't really tell you about how I fancied Laura with all the passion of my year 10 heart, because apart from the obvious problem that I would've had to talk about feelings, I knew you hated her. That was probably why we talked less and less when I saw you at the weekend.
But then, one Sunday afternoon, when I was over at your house and we sat on the couch after lunch, watching endless repeats on MTV, I suddenly fell in love with you. Bored with what was flickering on and off on the screen in front of us, I looked at you and in that moment I realised you weren't quite the girl from primary school anymore.
I'm sorry to say I didn't instantly forget Laura. Oh, she was still there, in my mind in that league of her own, impossible to get over because she was so unattainable, but next to you she was more porcelain mask than actual person. Unlike her, you were real and I knew you so much and also so little that it hurt, hurt terribly, plunging me into the utter, hopeless despair of first love. Suddenly, your face, still fixed on the television screen, was so close and so lovely I had to restrain myself from gently, carefully touching it and looking at you again a moment later, I would've sworn you hadn't had breasts before.
But you did, and they were the most beautiful ones I had ever seen, but I didn't even know whether 'breasts' was a word you were allowed to use as a boy or what else to call them, so how could I ever possibly have told you what I felt for you when every word, every glance, every thought was balancing on the edge of the eternal black hole of rejection or, worse still, embarrassment? I heard your breath across the few inches that were between us, stared at the pale, naked skin of your arm and knew it would drive me crazy because I wanted to, needed to, had to feel the very fact that you were alive against my own body but had no clue at all how to ever tell you that I loved you.
And I never did. When school broke up with a party at the end of year 10, at the end of an excruciating year of Sunday afternoons on the couch at your house, I found out that despite all the sneers, Laura couldn't have disliked me that much. With her hair brushing against my face, out of the corner of my eye, I saw you staring at us from across the room, and I wanted to tell you that her lips felt wrong and that I'd rather feel your breasts than hers press against my chest, but then I kept kissing Laura anyway and touched her and saw her smile an inch away from my face, stopped caring and just went along with her because, after all, I might not have loved her, but I had fancied her for so long and thought her so unattainable that I wasn't going to let slip my one chance of snogging her.
Actually, I fancied Laura, who sat across the room from me in class, who always wore pink and whose blonde hair fell in magnificent layers across one half of her face so that I was never sure how much of the world she saw from behind the curtain of her feathery, diagonal fringe. Well, I was pretty sure that I wasn't exactly part of what she saw, except maybe in those moments when I was rewarded with a sneer from her lovely rosy lips and a look down from the one mascaraed eye that hadn't lost out on uninterrupted vision in the making of her beauty.
You, on the other hand, had always just been a friend, had always been around forever; my best friend perhaps, but as a teenage boy, that wasn't really a phrase I'd have used then. I still went to your house most Sundays, but of course I couldn't really tell you about how I fancied Laura with all the passion of my year 10 heart, because apart from the obvious problem that I would've had to talk about feelings, I knew you hated her. That was probably why we talked less and less when I saw you at the weekend.
But then, one Sunday afternoon, when I was over at your house and we sat on the couch after lunch, watching endless repeats on MTV, I suddenly fell in love with you. Bored with what was flickering on and off on the screen in front of us, I looked at you and in that moment I realised you weren't quite the girl from primary school anymore.
I'm sorry to say I didn't instantly forget Laura. Oh, she was still there, in my mind in that league of her own, impossible to get over because she was so unattainable, but next to you she was more porcelain mask than actual person. Unlike her, you were real and I knew you so much and also so little that it hurt, hurt terribly, plunging me into the utter, hopeless despair of first love. Suddenly, your face, still fixed on the television screen, was so close and so lovely I had to restrain myself from gently, carefully touching it and looking at you again a moment later, I would've sworn you hadn't had breasts before.
But you did, and they were the most beautiful ones I had ever seen, but I didn't even know whether 'breasts' was a word you were allowed to use as a boy or what else to call them, so how could I ever possibly have told you what I felt for you when every word, every glance, every thought was balancing on the edge of the eternal black hole of rejection or, worse still, embarrassment? I heard your breath across the few inches that were between us, stared at the pale, naked skin of your arm and knew it would drive me crazy because I wanted to, needed to, had to feel the very fact that you were alive against my own body but had no clue at all how to ever tell you that I loved you.
And I never did. When school broke up with a party at the end of year 10, at the end of an excruciating year of Sunday afternoons on the couch at your house, I found out that despite all the sneers, Laura couldn't have disliked me that much. With her hair brushing against my face, out of the corner of my eye, I saw you staring at us from across the room, and I wanted to tell you that her lips felt wrong and that I'd rather feel your breasts than hers press against my chest, but then I kept kissing Laura anyway and touched her and saw her smile an inch away from my face, stopped caring and just went along with her because, after all, I might not have loved her, but I had fancied her for so long and thought her so unattainable that I wasn't going to let slip my one chance of snogging her.