Ford
GENEVIEVE MCGUIRE MOVED TO WESTVILLE when she was seven.
I was eight at the time—I'm a year older than her. All throughout school I only ever spotted her through other students as we flitted to and from classes. We never stopped and conversed with one another considering I knew of Red Alert from a young age and had been warned when girls started to cross my mind what that would mean in a larger scale with my friends.
She's been off limits for twelve fucking years—and counting.
For my freshman years of Westville High and Westville College when she wasn't yet old enough to attend, I only ever saw Genevieve through our windows, watching her secretly from the safety of my bedroom. Sporadically her gaze would connect with mine, but her expression would remain impassive and she'd turn away, blasé as ever as if my watching didn't affect her. It most likely didn't. We didn't even know one another. We never would.
When it came to her selecting which college to attend, I spent too much time fretting over the possibilities of her attending one away from Westville. While I was ordained to attend the local college due to my obligations for Red Alert, Genevieve had the freedom to move wherever the fuck she wanted. But she decided to remain in Westville, and though I'm clueless as to the reason why, I am more than fucking grateful.
Genevieve is endlessly fascinating to me—like I said: the stuff of fantasies.
Amputating Genevieve from my mind, a knock emanates from my bedroom door. Slipping on the nearest random T-shirt and grey sweats that clinch at my ankles, I strut to the door and open it to reveal my mom, her eyes mirroring mine with that particular striking hue of blue. My dad always claimed that it was my mom's eyes that he initially noticed about her before he fell in love with her.
Not quite sure of how much of that cliché I believe, but to each their own.
Love is a feeling I feel too detached from. It's something that I rarely experience—if ever. There isn't anyone I have ever loved before. Not in terms of hopeless, head-over-heels, soul-shattering love. All that I know is lust and sometimes I am so intoxicated by lust—so incandescent with the feeling—that I often mistake it for love, but I know better. The difference is staggering, but I lie to myself too much. Love is, I'm beginning to accept, a feeling I can't physically experience. Not when I have a plethora of luring lust and fiery fury brimming in my veins. Love just doesn't fit into that equation.
Mom leans forward, hand on my shoulder to steady herself as she rises to her tiptoes and kisses my cheek. "Of course you won last night," she praises, a proud smile curving at her lips. "I had every faith in you, son. Your father and I celebrated as soon as we heard the news."
My mom is slight but fierce, though only my strikingly light blue eyes are derived from her. She has flaming red hair while my dad and I both share the same shade of chestnut brown. I also possess his build: towering in height, well-defined and muscular; veins adorning my arms from years of constant training. My mom always says my dark hair and ice-like eyes is the combination she always desired for any children they would share.
The tattoos? Less so. My parents, despite their obligatory Red Alert ink—black for both of them because they were both born into the world—abhor tattoos.
I've long since lost count of the number of tattoos I've stained my body with. My arms and torso are dotted with them, though my back only feature a couple—none of which are tramp stamps. My body boasts individual tattoos of a black rose, a crown, a basic compass without the circle around it, a heartbeat with three mountains as a peak, a skull beside a sword and two keys crossed diagonally to name a few. My favourite tattoo is situated on the back of my left hand in the space near my forefinger and thumb, which is of a filled-in black spade that symbolises luck and good fortunate as well as fearlessness.
