Stars & Fingertips

Saying No

I told you no.

Yesterday was the day of the big game and you had offered a bet.

If I won, undecided. If you won, sex in the school.

It ran through my mind, the thought of you naked pressed against me for what would be the tenth time. Having the opportunity to have your lips pressed to mine once more was what I had wanted. I wanted you to commit the act of love to me when you were with her so that I could feel as if I was winning.

But then I thought... wait.

This would not be winning. This would be setting myself up for a loss that is so much greater than the enjoyment of satisfaction that could only ever be mine; this was more than loathing and wanted to make things right; this was more than getting the chance to make you mine: this was about losing you.

I cannot put myself through that amount of pain again. That pain I cannot understand. It is the feeling of drowning in too much oxygen; it is the feeling of falling from a cliff suspended over your worst fears; it is the feeling of twists in your stomach that become so knotted that you cannot possibly untangle them.

I can withstand the pain that I encounter each and every day of you with her. I can look at the chain dangling around your neck and feel only a sharp pang of disgust, not sadness.

It was your birthday yesterday.

You are eighteen now. It would be illegal now. But mistakes happen, right? That is what you had said to me when you cheated on her the first time. Backstage yesterday you had said "Don't tempt me."

That is exactly the thing that I want to do and exactly the thing I would never want to do again.

I want you to kiss me, I want to feel your fingers running through my hair, but I also want you to stay the hell away from me, crawl into a corner as far away from my being as possible and breathe your silent breaths, hold in your silent emotions that had never belonged to me.

It was your birthday yesterday, and I wanted to give you the gift of me one more time.

At the same time, I had not even cared at all.

You had mentioned to me how it was just another day yesterday and that it was nothing important. This angered me. I wanted to grab your face with my hands and shake you, tell you that you were ignorant and unbelievable and that I was sorry that you were so sad.

Are you not happy with her?

You must be, because your love is official and so is your prom date. For the second year in a row, you are attending this all important dance with her, and I am attending this dance for the first time. I understand that I will see you and that it would hurt just as badly as it did in February when I saw your hands on her hips and your forehead pressed to hers.

But now, all I can do is laugh. All I can do is be happy with others. All I can do is enjoy my life the way that it is, because, after all of this craziness...

It was me. And that is the one thing that I can hold onto.