Hello, Goodbye

04: Grace

He looks frozen. That is her first thought when she walks past him. It was late, too late for anyone to be outside. But he is and she is. She stops in her tracks and turns on her heel. “Saxon?” Her voice is quiet but there are no other noises but it, so he can hear her loud and clear. And she can herself. She doesn’t much like her voice. She thinks she always sounds so brash and rude. Or like she’s trying too hard to make herself sound cool.

“Oh, hey.” He speaks in a whisper, as if he’s hiding from someone. He clears his throat, a puff of white escaping his mouth as his warm breath makes contact with the crisp autumn air. “Uh, hi.” She almost smiles, but instead looks down at her feet. Her Vans hide her quivering toes and the sleeves of her sweater hide her hands and her bitten fingernails. “Why are you, um, out so late, Grace?” he asks, running a hand through his hair. She wants to laugh at his awkwardness, at his nervousness; but the truth is, she’s just as nervous and awkward.

“My mum would never notice if I ever left,” she looks up and forces a small smile onto her lips before looking back at the paving beneath her feet. He sort of chuckles, as if her pathetic life and her workaholic mother is funny. But she isn't even offended.

“My parents don’t usually pay any attention to me. My siblings are crazy enough. I mean, we have a damn twenty one year old still living with us! And a nine year old who won't stop complaining about school and why he refuses to go.” She looks at him and furrows her eyebrows.

“I want to mean something to them, Grace,” he breathes. “I don’t want to be ignored because I’m the goody-two-shoes of the family.” He sits on the paving, his chin propped up on his knees and his feet on the road. He pats the pavement beside him and she sits. “I realised today that I don’t really know much about you.”

“Nor do I know much about you,” she responds, not wanting the conversation to focus on her or her problems. He stares at her for a moment and sighs.

“Grace, I know it’s personal everything but I want to be there for you, you know?” She shakes her head no. What is ‘be there’? she wants to ask. Who can ever be there for her? Her own parents aren't, how can someone else be? “Oh.” He runs his hand through his messy hair, blonde and brown locks sticking up at odd angles before falling back flat against his head. “I want to be your friend, basically. I want to be someone you can talk to and rely on…”

“I have to go,” she says suddenly. A friend? All of her past friendships have ended in betrayal. In hurt. “I’ll see you at school, Saxon. It’s been nice talking to you.” She stands and wishes for pockets. She doesn’t want to wipe away the warm tears running down her cheeks. Hell, she doesn’t want them there at all. She doesn’t want to be hurt again, much less by a boy.

She can’t trust anyone anymore. People. Disappoint. You. She hears the shuffle of his boots. She wants to turn around and explain to him why, why she can’t do this; why she can’t trust him not to break her heart. He’s not even asking to be your boyfriend, a little voice in her brain tells her. She knows this. But friends have ruined her too. She has ruined her friends.

Just when she thought the tears had stopped, she lets out a sob and more tears fill her reddened eyes and spill out. She rounds a corner and sits on the edge of the curb. “Stop,” she whispers to herself. “Stop, you’re being a baby.” She sobs and lets the tears fall onto the cold paving. She can’t feel anything anymore, the cold has numbed her.

She can’t feel anything anymore, he’s numbed her. He’s numbed her with care and kindness but she can’t turn back now. She can’t tell him now that the only people she’s ever trusted have let her down. She can’t tell him that her father left her and her mother with her big brother and they never call anymore. She stands and stumbles around the corner, staring down the street, but he is gone.