Green Journal

Story Time 11/1/15

There was a boy, aged fourteen. And there was a girl, aged thirteen. They both were naive, and they both were alone. There was a girl, aged thirteen, and there was a boy, aged fifteen now. They were both young, and they both had mothers who attended the same boring meeting every week.

There was a girl sitting on the floor of the school office during the meeting, texting a boy who was somewhere else. The boy asked her if maybe next time she was stuck there she would want to go get a pizza or something, and she liked pizza, and she liked the boy, so she said yes.

"So it's a date?" asked the boy.

"Are you asking for it to be?"

"I guess so, yeah."

And so they were going on a date, and they both were awkward about it. But that was just how they were.

There was a girl going on a date with a boy. And there was a boy going out for pizza with a girl. They were both awkward about it, and they both didn't know each other hardly at all. So there was a date in a pizza shop and it was so awkward that the girl writing this is having to laugh at herself even now and it was so awkward that there could've just never been a second date, except

There was a girl who liked the way the boy blushed and there was a boy who held a pizza box over a girl's head when it started to rain while they were walking back. So there was a second date.

There was a girl, aged 13, who didn't know how to love herself and who cried in a school bathroom the morning before her second date because dates usually involve food and she wasn't done starving herself yet. But there was a boy who called her cute and who was cute himself and who did things like protecting her from rain, so she went on the second date anyway. And the girl decided she just wouldn't eat and the boy called her out on it, but she just couldn't bring herself to eat a thing. So the boy, not knowing what he was doing, laughed.

There was a boy and a girl on a date, wandering around a little town later than they were supposed to. And there was a girl who knew they should be getting home soon but there was a boy who had her hand in his and who showed her around a little town, so the girl didn't care.

There was a spot by a stone wall where a boy told a girl that he wanted to kiss her. But there was a boy who was scared and a girl with a feeling in her chest that scared her, too, and there was an alley behind a video store where neither of them could work up the courage, so nobody kissed anybody.

There was another girl who spent nights with the first. She was in love, and well-meaning, and she made the young girl feel like it was okay to eat something once in a while, so one night the girls made cookies. And one night, the girls kissed. And it was a kiss like out of the movies.

There was a girl who didn't know what being in love meant, but she was with another girl who was brave enough to kiss her, and it was the first kiss to ever mean so much to her, and the girl was just so hungry for anything she could get. So she told the girl she loved her. But she didn't love her.

There was a girl who was fourteen and who couldn't stop making the same mistakes, and there was a boy who wasn't mad at her. So they made do, and they were as happy as they could be.

There was a girl sitting in the corner of an art class, and a boy who had walked her there who had finally worked up the nerve to kiss her. And there was a boy who kissed her five times in a row because he decided it wasn't good enough and whose blushing face perfectly matched the girl's when he walked out of the room. And the girl saw this. And she was in love.

There was a girl who finally knew what being in love meant, but who didn't know how to love or to be loved. And there was a boy who was so perfect in her eyes that it frightened her. So she broke his heart without ever knowing what heartbreak meant.

But she was in love. And he was in love.

There was a girl who was still fourteen and who eventually learned about heartbreak, and there was a boy who was sixteen and who was forgiving. So they were friends, the girl guessed. And she forgot about loving the boy, and the boy loved her. And they really spent a long time not talking to each other.

After a long time of not speaking, there was a stage. And on the stage were a boy and a girl. The boy was so new to the bright lights and stage fright, but the girl had been there for years already.

There was a boy who played a boy who played a girl. There was a girl who played a girl who loved a boy. And it was all very complicated, but in the play the characters fell in love and got engaged and lived happily ever after. And under their costumes, the boy and the girl were living happily.

One day, under the costumes, the girl realized she loved the boy. And it was all very complicated.

There was a boy falling more in love with the stage with every day. There was a girl falling in love, but not with the boy. She was in love with another boy, an actor. And she gave him her heart, and he gave her halfhearted apologies after sleeping with the girl everybody else was sleeping with in those days. So the girl was alone again.

There was a boy who made a joke in a class. And there was a girl who laughed at it and who was in love.

So there were a boy and a girl who were in love. There was a girl who tried to love them, and there was a girl who went with it, and there was a boy who everybody called lucky. But the boy and the girl were in love, and the other girl got her heart broken. And the story went on.

There was a girl who still looked at the boy with cute freckles and eyes the colour of sunshine through honey and the perfect blushing face and who wasn't frightened by how happy he made her because she knew by now what being in love is like.

There was a boy who still did things like holding up pizza boxes to protect the girl from the rain and who wasn't afraid to kiss her anymore because he knew she was in love with him.

And they were happy, and in love, and only afraid of the future because they knew that all stories have an end. But they were in love, and so happy for right now, and their story still had chapters to go.