Everything I Should Have Said

Love

retrouvaille

[n.] the joy of meeting or finding someone again after a long separation; rediscovery
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I walked down the hallways, the hallways I envied. Pretty girls, skinny girls, happy girls everything I was not. Don't get me wrong, they were the others, we ruled the school but they were the majority and we were just a small minority. So we tried hard to have this wonderful image painted. Paint peels and the blank stained canvas is visible. The paint was peeling.

Lea shoved Charlotte playfully. Charlotte coughed as her cigarette fell to the floor. Shane picked it up and scanned it, slowly lowering the dangerous item to his wrist. I pulled the cigarette from him and shoved it at Matt who rightfully threw it away.

See that lethal cigarette was touched by all of us, but somehow it's intent to kill us was all very different. One would inhale, the other would brand. To extremely contrasting ways of toxic behavior but none the less, they were effective.

We decided the Lea crying rape would be ignored and her mother would also need to forget about it. Forget about Shane. That's how I wanted it, I wanted her to be away from him. Lea's mom, saving herself, fled town. Leaving Lea with her abusive father.

That was a day I would never forget, it was the day I met him. Miles, Miles Stephenson. He almost brought color to us, something for us to call a lifeline. We ruined him though and he instead of helping us, joined us.

Lea's posture showed she was a little uncomfortable about her vulnerability to her touchy subject of rape and I could no longer take her mortified glances she not so subtly sent my way. I refused to fight her and walked away not wanting to seem like an animal in all of their eyes.

The day dragged on, me avoiding them for the sake of her comfortableness. I scanned the cafeteria for a place to sit, unfortunately my eyes met Shane's who urged me to join but I knew Lea would be on edge so I decided on an empty table, at the opposite end of my normal seating arrangements.

"Is this seat taken?" I glanced up and met a pair of blue eyes, his voice was pleading, so pleading I couldn't say no. Yet again, he was strikingly handsome and I couldn't look at him in the face. I bowed my head towards my salad and nodded.

"Cool, I'm Miles Stephenson and I'm a new here so I don't have many friends. You must know those populars they keep glancing and whispering." Something he said or the way he said it, ticked me off and I found myself finally facing him.

"You don't know a single thing, so shut up and please leave. Don't try and be smart about things you don't understand. I know you're knew but people like you need to know your place and it's not here-" I had already stood and my horrid words shocked me as well as the people around me, my paint was peeling. I was slowly becoming undone, unveiled to  my true self.

Shane calmed me down by pushing me down into the seat opposite a confused looking Miles, Shane held my hand under the table and whispered,  things I can't remember exactly, into my ear.

''Say sorry; people are staring; you didn't sit with us; don't ruin this; reputation is everything; don't make them suspicious.'

I didn't realize that it wasn't reputation he was truly worried about but more about the obsession with being perfect. Perfect for himself. A goal, a lifelong goal. I wanted to be there for him; I wanted to be with him. But he wanted perfect and I wasn't yet.

Miles looked at us weirdly before he leaned in so no one else heard. He was so pure, so innocent and us thinking we were doing him a favor accepted him with open arms into a trap set up for death. Maybe not for him but one that will scar, and darling Miles you played with fire, and you expectantly got burnt.

"Whatever you guys got going on with that group of yours, I want in. How do I join?" Shane shot me a look and I raised my eyes while a sly smile slid onto his lips.

"You joined the second you thought you could speak to Clover over here. You sold yourself to death and there's no getting out." Miles, instead of flinching smirked and extended his hand to Shane.

Miles didn't understand how dead serious Shane was, maybe he thought we were joking but he sure found out soon that joking was not something to be taken lightly when it came to us. That a joke is almost never a joke but a cryptic warning and banter a way to scare you off.

"Miles, Miles Stephenson." Shane extended his hand to meet his. Miles shook his hand but not before flipping it over to examine the line of scabbed blood. Miles eyes flew to my face for an explanation but I smirked in his direction, his face fell and a look of regret crossed his face.

Shane how can you- we, be so cruel. Why are we dragging him down with us, we should leave him alone. He's not ruined yet. Let him go while he's still intact before we steal his life away from him. I don't want him to be one of us, I want him to be one of those guys who don't shut up. I want him to be happy. I want him to be the total opposite of us.

Maybe if those words were spoken and my thoughts weren't left unheard, he wouldn't be what he is today, he wouldn't be ruined. He wouldn't have become one of us. He would still be intact and he would still be the happy, beautiful Miles Stephenson I first met. The one who acted like he knew to much, I wish he didn't become my friend. I wish he never met me because if he didn't, Shane's heart would still be beating.