Alex

Rising Darkness

His lips were the softest, smoothest texture of skin I have ever touched with my own. I wanted more, I still do, I still yearn for the taste of him, for the feel of him. Him.

Alex was my first love, my greatest love. It’s quite funny because I’d never even taken a look at him before the first day of junior year, and even then, I despised him. He was preppy, pretentious--he wore far too much cologne, I couldn’t breathe around him. And it wasn’t just because of his scent.

We were put in the same English class and he sat directly behind me. I wasn’t quite the extrovert back then, in fact I was pretty depressed. My therapist suggested that I keep a journal, and that I carry it everywhere with me, so that whenever I had a suicidal, contented or crazy thought, I could write it down. So I pretty much wrote about everything. I remember that day, that English lesson I wrote something down at the beginning of the lesson, that I thought my new English teacher was hot. He was extremely attractive as a matter of fact, and I wrote that down, because it was my journal and my thoughts and my feelings and only for me to see. Until some asshole decided to take it from me.

That asshole was Alex. “Hey, kid. What you got there?” a patronising voice said behind me. I ignored him. He was just another stupid jock trying to mock me.

He repeated himself. “Are you deaf or something?” he laughed, and I heard another deep chuckle somewhere near him. I still ignored him. “Bitch.” I heard him say afterwards.

Now, I can get angry pretty easily. But my therapist told me that when I get angry it’s just my mind creating lots of unnecessary fuss because I’m upset, and that acting upon my anger can hurt people, people I love. She told me not to count to ten when I’m angry like most cheap councillors advise, but to think of five things that make me happy. So that’s what I did in that moment. I thought of (1) my chilled black cat Cerna who totally gets me, I thought of (2) my little brother Jethro who had started seventh grade that day, I thought of (3) the fact that I had been thirty-seven days clean of self-harm and that I was (4) going to buy my first vinyl record of my favourite band, The Doors that day. I never got to think of a fifth thought--our teacher, Mr. Hudson started clapping his hands together to summon our attention.

I wanted to think of a last happy thought, but I also wanted to concentrate, I needed to be good in class. So I was that lesson, and Alex didn’t bother me. Of course, he bothered me just through his presence and from his chosen topic of conversation with his friend about who allegedly took Grace Solomon’s virginity, but he didn’t bother me directly.

Mr. Hudson had given us a novella to read called Franny and Zooey, and I was really eager to read most of it that night so I could get a head start on the essay we were meant to write about it soon. I found myself really wanting to impress him. Who wouldn’t? He was a young, hot English teacher and he seemed fairly nice. I was looking forward to junior year with him.

After class, when everyone had gone I stayed to talk to Mr. Hudson about the story for a couple minutes and then as I was leaving, I bumped straight into Alex. The collision was so hard that I fell to the ground, and everything fell out of my bag, including my journal.

“I’m so sorry! My bad, here let me help you,” he said, bending down to help put my books in my bag. Then he offered his hand to help me up, but I didn’t take it.

“I don’t need your help,” I told him in the most polite way I could. “but thanks.” I added, trying not to sound ungrateful or sarcastic even though I probably did. He raised his eyebrows in disbelief and I walked away, not wanting to be near that jackoff any longer.

That day after school I did purchase a The Doors vinyl record from the record store. It was of their album Strange Days, little did I know how relative that album title would be to my life in the next few days. I got home and my mom was making pasta whilst on the phone to my aunt, who was going through a divorce with her twenty-three year-old spanish husband, and calls my mother everyday to complain about how much she’ll miss the sex. My mom was getting tired of it. My dad, well, he was a doctor and worked pretty late. He worked pretty hard, too. He was always tired when he got home from work and he never seemed to want to spend time with me and mom. I could tell it was stressing her out.