[So, I finally wrote something other than a poem or a xanga update. Aren't you proud? Or devastated? Oh yeah, ditto. And if you don't already know it, which you should, the lyrics at the end are from "Awkward Last Words". So anyway, here's a shittily written, overdramatic, waaaaay emo-ish one-shot for you. Eat it up.]
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I never meant for it to go this far. Maybe that statement can save my soul from this fate. Maybe I can wake up and all of these images will simply disappear into the ivory paint of my bedroom ceiling. Your love. Some three words that could supposedly make or break your heart. That was I ever wanted from you, an excuse to feel like I wasn’t just another nobody floating in the halls as everyone floods like water over a broken dam out of the school at three o’ clock. It was never meant to end like this.
The class was booming with laughter and adolescent foolishness. Girls were sitting lon desks, attached at the lips to their or even another girl’s boyfriend. It didn’t really matter at Bellmont High anymore. Drama came and past like the red second hand on the plain blank and white clocks that ticked away, connecting eyes from across the room.
An irritated sigh left the teacher’s lips at our resistance to any of her attempts of quieting down. I stopped attempting to remember the names of my teachers in third grade. School’s never really been my thing, I guess. Now there’s really only one reason I ever come to school.
I stared at the clock, just because I didn’t have any phony, Pamela Anderson wannabe girl or testosterone-brained boy to socialize with or pass notes to during classes doesn’t mean I was going to actually pay attention. Classes lasted too long, anyway. And with the student body at Bellmont being the way it is, their best shot at catching the attention of anyone is to start teaching “Rap 101” or some annoying crap like that. I swear, if I grew any more bored, my brain would be flying half-way to you and my fingers would be drawing those oh-so familiar hearts with arrows all for you.
As I looked down from the clock on the far wall to my right, there you were completely alone, no posse either. The only person in the class focused on taking the notes scrawled on the ugly green chalkboard at the front of the desk. You are the only one who can make studying the hottest thing on the face of the Earth. Your midnight blue eyes were squinted trying to interpret the tiny, yet extremely advanced, words. It was as if you could feel my gaze glued to your body; you peered across the classroom, across the annoying mush-brained “people” that made up our class, I may not study, but I’m not a complete fucking idiot. Midnight blue, like the omniscient sky above my rooftop, stared directly into my eyes. I prayed I was right that it was really me you saw, not some fake bubblegum-head teen.
You turned back to your paper, but I almost didn’t care. That split second felt like an eternity locked inside that paradise called your eyes and it was enough to make my heart swell with a make believe sense of completion. I think I may have been dwelling on my one reason for living, for waking up, for going to sleep and dreaming. It’s you; it’s all for you, babe.
As I stared forward at the green board just running through the motions and all the curves of your body in my mind, the harsh, yet resonating, sound of the bell rang throughout the school. For once, I nearly felt disappointed for the class to end so soon. But I flung my bag over my shoulder and fled out into the spring afternoon sunshine as usual. I was heading over to my piece of crap car when a cold hand was placed forcefully, but not painfully forceful, on my shoulder. I spun around immediately, ready to defend myself. Let’s just leave it at I’ve had to deal with my share of daily mockings and bullies.
It wasn’t at all what I had expected. Midnight blue eyes and a smile that could only have been from an angel gracing the Earth with its presence met my undeserving face. I’ve never believed much in God and any other religion’s gods and goddesses, but you were what made me believe in angels. And for once I prayed to God, I prayed that I was imagining this, that you were just part of my sick imagination. I may be heels over head, bats in my stomach inducing in love with you, but not once had I actually gone past gazing at your picturesque figure in halls and classrooms.
“Hey, um… well, I saw you in Literature class and I never really spoke to you this year. So, I well, decided I’d introduce myself. I’m Caleb,” you said in a shy voice.
And that was all I needed to prove my hopes wrong. Not even I could imagine a voice that could ring so perfectly. This was where I felt the bats starting to cause a scene in my stomach. I felt my self begin to sweat in anticipation of what I was to say in response. Great, this was exactly what I needed, to make a complete idiot of myself the first time I talk to you. I prayed with all my might I would stutter or trip over my own words, or worse… not say a thing at all. I think I may have waited to long already. Oh god, he thinks I’m weird because I’ve been staring at him this whole time without saying a single fucking thing. Crap. I guess it can’t get worse.
“I know.”
That’s all I said. A fucking “I know.” Wow, I proved myself wrong. It definitely got worse. Now I sound like a weird jackass. Luckily, you just laughed it off. Or did you actually think I was joking and think I was funny? Hell, yeah right. You though I was funny. I should really start listening to myself when I think. I sound like a complete idiot. Whatever I’m hopped up on, maybe I should try it more often.
“Um… hey, is that you car?” you said with slight hesitation.
Shit, you’ve spotted the old piece of crap that barely starts after three million tries. ABORT MISSION! ABORT NOW, SOLDIER! I might as well just run home now. My image can’t really get worse in your eyes.
“Can I get a ride home? Those busses really aren’t somewhere you want to be shoved inside on a warm spring afternoon with half the school.” You joked, letting out that angelic laugh.
I let out a stiff, stupid laugh. I prayed you didn’t assume that I thought your sense of humor needed some work or something. It wasn’t that, I’d swear my life on it. I was just… so incredibly nervous still. I couldn’t keep myself calm enough to have an actual thought out reaction. And unfortunately, yet also fortunately, I was able to let out a simple “yeah,” in response.
We both climbed into the car. I was so close to you, I could smell your perfect cologne. I’m not trying to say that your cologne was insanely strong; it was perfect for you and just perfect like you. I had to try with all my might to stop my hands from shaking. After all, I’m in love with you, not trying to kill you in a car accident. But it was as if the “putt putt” of my run down engine drowned out all sound, except that no one’s mouth even so slightly twitched.
It was so silent that you could nearly touch the silence resting above us like a storm cloud, but like an angel you chased it away. I was sitting so rigidly that I almost suffered a minor concussion from jumping up in my seat when you reached forward and pressed the play button on the CD player. Suddenly, “Awkward Last Words” by Armor For Sleep began to practically burst the sound system in my piece of shit.
Wow, I bet you think I’m fucking deaf now. Oh great! Okay, time to retreat troops! Retreat from the battle now! Run, you sissies! Just as I reach from the steering wheel, for the briefest moment of time because of the shaking of my moment, you reach over touching my hand in midair right on the volume knob of the stereo. Immediately, my hand retreats to the steering wheel as if your touch was giving me a third-degree burn. But it was rather the opposite, your touch was so gentle, yet still stopping me in my tracks that I just… couldn’t. Those bats in my stomach were having a field day. And now I’m the deaf, jackass son of a bitch.
“I love this song,” you exclaimed happily, seeming completely unfazed by the volume that would send any sane human into a fit of lingering rings for hours.
I should’ve known better. I mean, you are definitely not any form of human, the cursed beings corrupting this sad excuse of a world.
“So, you like Armor For Sleep? Let’s see what else you’ve got…” you asked before shamelessly looking through the CD wallet that I had stashed in the glove compartment.
And somehow from there, I started an actual conversation with the fallen angel on Earth. You smiled at my brief answers to the seemingly never-ending fire of questions. I didn’t mind at all, even my brain was spinning in and out trying not to turn into one of those starry-eyed teenagers supposedly in an actually functioning relationship. They annoy the hell out of me.
“Oh! That’s my house!” you exclaimed as I began to drive up to a small, rickety, old, dingy house in comparison to what you should have. “thanks, really! Well, I’d better get inside before my parents get even more fed up with me,” you said with a grateful smile, “I’ll see you on Monday!”
I barely understood the last words you said; my mind was so far off just thinking of how I had met an angel. No longer did I reside on this hell of Earth. I had found an angel; but at the same time, I felt a pang of sadness as you unlocked the front door and it slammed shut. Finally, I had actually had a semi-conversation with you. YOU. My heart was pounding so fat in my chest, I was sure any doctor that put a stethoscope to my chest would feel more deaf than any normal human would in my car right now.
Why would an angel, meant to rise past these pale clouds and meaningless warfare, talk to some dingy human? We would go back to our old routine of stare and walk away. None of this would matter in the end; neither of us would ever remember how you sat in my shitty ride and made me into a starry-eyed teen. We would never admit any of this.
Oh, now as I know what I know, stand where I stand, I hate myself for that. I wanted to ruin you, a killer of angels; the one that cut the wings of an angel. Things should have gone as planned; you were never supposed to speak to me after that Friday. I shouldn’t have gotten used to having you around; having you talk as I just admire every aspect of your flawless appeal. Your laugh, smile, voice, touch, your eyes; “we”, there was never supposed to be a “we”.
“Let’s go to the park! I haven’t gone on the swings since I was four.” You said, excitedly as you bounced on my living room couch.
The Monday after we met, you came up to me in the halls before first period as you and I walked to class. The same schedule belonged to both of us, unbeknownst to you, for years. You insisted on spending the entire day with me. Those bats wouldn’t give me a break from the nervousness I was engulfed in as soon as I caught sight of you. And every day after that the bats kept bring you back to me; eventually, I began to learn the art of speaking to a fallen angel and those bats remained flittering in my stomach without hindering my bran cells from working.
“Um, yeah… park… mhmm…” I muttered, trying to fake the act of actually not concentrating on the fact that your thigh was gently touching mine, due to the fact I was squished to the edge of your living room couch as you sprawled yourself over the majority of the musty couch.
“Come on! I feel hyper! And we always stay in,” you whined as if none of us would ever grow up.
“‘Kay, let’s go to the park then.”
I struggled to move from this compromising position on the couch. You had moved from your “half” of the couch and resorted to kneeling on the ground. Those beautiful, skillful hands rested on my knees as you pushed your face up close to mine. I tried to ignore the fact that our noses were about to have their first kiss. But out of anything, I tried to ignore those dark blue, enticing orbs that were seemingly bigger than their original state; the result of the gorgeously cute pout on your beautiful face. Somehow I always get myself into these situations with you.
“Yay!” you exclaimed and kissed my cheek as you tore open the front door in a frantic run to the park.
I simply followed dreamily. Damn, those bats multiplied by a few hundred. I guess that’s the end of not becoming a dreamy, starry-eyed teen.
You were getting inside my skin and burying yourself farther into my mind. Anything, those midnight blue eyes, not even matched by the beautiful night sky, could get me to do anything. I was moving into a compromising relationship with you. “Best friends”, as you said, was becoming tough for me. It’s too bad that my one sense of security came from being alone. I was only safe when I was a hazard to myself alone.
“Hey, wait up!”
I had become one of the students that bolted out of class. No longer could I face you; those blue eyes had found their way behind this once thick skin barrier of mine. When I closed my eyes, you found your way into my dreams, thoughts, and darkness.
Like electricity, I felt the spark as you reached out and pulled me to the side of the stampeding students. Just like the day we met, on a Friday just out of Literature class. And again, you were planting yourself farther in my mind. If only that day, I could’ve just replied a quick, “no” when you asked for a ride, but I let you into my darkness. Angels shouldn’t become puppets in my dark, imaginative closet.
“Stop this, why are you avoiding me?! I thought we were best friends and then like a ghost visited you overnight and said, ‘never see Caleb again!’ you disappeared from me. So, what’s going on lately? And don’t say nothing!” you were speaking in a firm voice. One tone that you had never used on me, that happy, hyper voice disappeared in your frustration. I could see it in you always shining eyes.
I wanted to save you from me, so I did what I should have done the first Friday, I met you. I ran; I ran to my car and drove away without a word or even a hint.
And soon that’s how days went, you would come up to me without any hint of giving up hope on me and I would run. Why wouldn’t you give up on me? Not only had everyone else done what I asked of them, but I had. Only you remained faithful to me, but angels shouldn’t play with guns. They might just get their wings destroyed.
I was not depressed, contrary to any psychiatrist’s worries on the fact I was moving from the “bordering suicidal” line. My guardian angel had finally lost all hope in me. You had finally seen the destruction locked behind these eyes. And I was happy, happy for once that I couldn’t hurt you. No fallen angel should ever have to deal with me.
My parents were struggling to survive with each other these days. See, I have proof of the fact that I tend to destroy anyone or thing that attempts to obtain any type of relationship with me. They were living in separate rooms these days and couldn’t stand the sight of each other anymore.
I crept into my father’s room. He was working later and going to work earlier. Anything to ignore the fact he had a family at all. Franticly, I searched through the drawer on his nightstand. After a few minutes of searching and checking for anyone, I pulled out the small handgun, the one that my father always lies to my mother about not having.
Retreat! Retreat! And before anyone saw me, I fled back to my room. Slowly, I juggled the gun from one hand to the other. Lately, I had been plotting this death for a while. Everything was becoming my darkness. Those starry eyes were now clouded. And I was ready to be selfish, I was ready to finally let go.
The cool metal barrel was firmly pressed against my temple. I never heard the door to my house open, and my eyes were closed so I never even saw your face as you opened the door to my room just in time to find me in another compromising position. Just when I expected that bullet to go hurdling into my mind as I pulled the trigger, you moved my hand. The hand that I thought was so firmly placed, you moved it.
And I lost you in exchange for myself. I never meant for you to leave me, or this undeserving earth. My guardian angel, your blood slowly drenched me in my own regret as I clutched your dying body.
“I didn’t want to lose you.”
Your famous last words, burned into my eyes, skin, and dreams.
Angels shouldn’t go and play with guns, because you can’t replace feathers with velvet wings.
We're out of time and I can't breathe,
I told you not to believe in me.
'Cause all I do is push you far away from me,
All I do is push you far away from me.
