The Accident.

The Last First Kiss

JOHN 25.10.2006

            “No, wait up! Wait!” Tom yelled down the hallway to Caroline, who is steadily walking away from him. I was just standing there, trying to fit all my books in my locker when this happened. Caroline had burst out of a classroom, right as the bell rung for the end of school. The angry look on her face told me, and the rest of the hallway, that she was mad: and not just a bit. “Why are you ignoring me? What is it? You bitch! You shouldn’t be surprised I wanted to cheat on you!” The hallway freezes. Not a sound. No one moved, and for a second it felt like time itself has stopped to contemplate the hugeness of Tom’s statement. Caroline had told me that they had been having couple problems, but never specifically told me what was going on. Now, I guess I knew. Caroline had stopped halfway through her stride. After a couple of seconds, she turned around and smiled sarcastically. The students in the hallway were the audience, and she was the star. Taking deliberate steps towards a stunned Tom, she started talking:

            “ Look. I am a bitch, and you should learn to deal with that. It’s true we haven’t spent as much time doing exactly what you’ve been wanting to do, but If you can’t accept me the way I am, I’m not sure we can be dating anyway. Now, the fact that you cheated on me because your horny teenage habits weren’t being satisfied is what I don’t get. I spit on your idea of being in a relationship! I spit on your lover and I spit on how you’ve made sure to tell me just the right way.”

            By the end of this, she had walked up to him. She stopped walking right when she came straight up to Tom. I was silently clapping in my mind: she knew how to make sure he was publicly humiliated and escaping without a single scratch. My gaze shifted to Tom’s face, and it was very interesting to watch his look go from sad, to angry, to humiliated. Then he did the most unexpected thing. He leaned in to kiss Caroline. I clasped my hand over my mouth, as short kiss turned to being in the past. Caroline shoved him away a few split seconds after the kiss had started, and looked so close to hitting him straight on the face. Then she spat. “I spit on you” She states, before turning around and starting on her way home. The hallway slowly came back to life. I slammed my locker closed and ran behind her. “What was that about, Caro?” I knew what it was about but I think it might be important for her to talk about it. “How about coffee?” she says simply, not looking me in the eye.

CAROLINE 25.10.2006

            How could he? How? How? How? I never thought that Tom would go  that low. I knew that I was going to break up with him pretty soon anyway, but I wasn’t expecting that that moment would come along that fast. During math class, I accidently intercepted a note between him and that – that girl. Long story short – The second the bell rang; I stormed out of the classroom, ignoring Tom. I started walking down the hallway, but since everyone had stopped, I decided to try to humiliate Tom while I had the chance. Slowly, deliberately I walked toward him and started to speak. I may have appeared calm, but my mind was racing and my heart was pounding. Once I was close enough to him, I think I slapped him but that part is a bit blurry in my mind. My brain was whizzing around, trying to find a good way of making him regret what he'd done to me. I would never admit it to anyone but - well, Tom was my first kiss. I then turned around and walked fast, running almost to the school exit. And somehow, John is next to me, ready to go grab a coffee and help me cool off.

I couldn’t think. My head was dizzy. I’m not sure how, but I managed to walk out the school. I… couldn’t think. I couldn’t… put my thoughts straight. I was just so…. Out of it. My whole world had crashed. I guess this should have worried me, but it didn’t. Nothing worried me in that moment because I was so hurt, because I hated my life so much, I didn’t have room in my heart and mind to worry about what came next.

            Looking back, I should have worried. I should have – why didn’t I? No one knew better than me how powerful the drug of love could be. I loved Tom. I really did, and the (somewhat lame) thing was that I genuinely thought he did too. During the time we dated, my heart was telling me “he loves you!”. Here’s the moral of the story, kids – don’t ever trust your heart. You should never let it rule your head.

            Thoughts were whizzing around my head, like a lizard looking for water in a desert, they knew they had to get out. The fumes were building up inside me until –

            “I CAN’T DO THIS ANYMORE” I yell out to everyone, anyone, finally coming back to my senses. John was still standing next to me, but we weren’t on the school grounds anymore. We weren’t anywhere near school. In fact, we were at the edge of a lake, and I was tying a rock around my leg. John knew. John understood. He stood next to me and watched me tie rocks to my ankles using my shoelaces. He watched in silence, because he knew there was nothing he could do while the spark in my eye was gone. I looked up at him, having finished tying the last knot, and the spark in my eye must have come back, because the next thing I knew, John was calmly untying the rocks from my ankles. He was singing, too. A calm, sweet and soothing lullaby.

            I wish I knew what it was. I wish I knew, so I could teach everyone around me the words that brought me back to life. Not physically – though heartbroken, my heart had nothing to do with the lifeless look in my eyes. Mentally. I had been so broken that my brain wanted to die. I couldn’t think, I was so lifeless, so devoid of the characteristics that define life, that I might as well have been dead.   

Aside

I look back on that day with sadness in my eyes and doom in my heart. That day was – intense. It was the first time my heart had been broken, and the first time I understood what John must have been feeling, in that story he told me. Even if all this happened what seems like centuries ago, the never ending reminder that John was the one who saved me haunts me everyday. The day after this incident, I went shopping for makeup, and clothes. Only – not the kind a typical Californian girl would wear. The kind only the “emos”, the rejects of society, the outcasts of high school would wear. My transformation was almost overnight: and what’s more, no one bothered questioning it. I suppose that they all believed it was some kind of a phase. If it was, it was a long one.