ROSES & THORNES

The long walk home

I felt stupid. I should have known from the start that the star quarterback was with the head cheerleader. It was the cliche in every stupid romance and high school. And even worse, it was now the cliche of my life. Hell! I even called it out when I first met the guy. But I was blinded by his charm, humor, and kisses. For all I knew, I was the second, the one he was seeing behind her back! I felt so stupid. I could do nothing but cry like a stupid girl blinded by stupid emotions.

My feet were sore and I was dripping buckets and buckets of sweat. I felt so hopeless. I pitied myself. I usually laughed at girls like this, who was the one laughing now, it sure as hell wasn't me.

My bookbag filled with books and the clothes I'd changed out of dragged me down even further. This walk had been much longer then I expected. I thought about calling my parents, but then I'd have to explain why I was out here looking helpless and lost. I felt pathetic. For the second time, I'd been heart broken by some stupid jock. It was now a known fact to me, jocks were asses.

Feeling sorry for my self and desperately wanting to get home to a cold shower, I kept walking. If I was lucky, I had a good 45 minutes of walking. Give or take a little. My feet were beyond dragging when a motor bike slowed down to a crawl. Great, just what i needed. Some sketchy old man trying to pick me up and molest me. I turned to give a polite no thank you when the biker began taking his helmet off. Trevor shook his hair before getting off.

I huffed and stopped walking. He raised his arms questioningly. "What was that back there? You just took off running. You should really go out for track in the spring." He smiled shyly, stuffing his hands in his pockets.

I closed my eyes and huffed out a sigh. "I'm um...sorry about that." I shook my hand and covered my face, laughing shakily. "I don't know what that was back there."

He watched me carefully before speaking. "You look like you need a ride?"

I rung my long ponytail out and knoted it further up on my head. "No, I'm fine." The last thing that I wanted was the help of another stupid guy.

"Well, can I give you a ride? I think you'd get to where you were going a lot faster that way."

"Look I'm fine okay!" I snapped.

He lifted his hands in surrender. "Just trying to help."

I let a stupid tear fall. "I'm sorry. Ugh, what is wrong with me?" He waited silently, letting me collect myself. "Okay. Fine, a ride would be nice."

He smiled shyly while handing me his helmet.

"Thanks."  We got to my house in under ten minutes.

"Are you sure you okay?" I nodded stiffly. "Well, I guess I'll see you Monday." I nodded and watched him kick start his bike.

When i was alone, I let them fall. They came quickly, surprising me at how heavy they were. I wasn't supposed to crying over him. He'd only been my boyfriend for all of two seconds. Yet, in those two seconds, I'd really believed that we had something going. Instead, he had me going.

I got by my parents as fast as I could. I shut and locked my door with no intentions of opening it up for a while.