One girl.
Chapter one.
It was her home that taught her people first seek to build and praise. It was her home that taught her people first seek conversation and smiles. It was her home that taught her people first seek to like and be liked. It was her home that had fooled her into knowing that most people were forgiving and willing to love.
It is easy to love those that love you. Difficulty, if not impossibility is encountered, in liking, tolerating, or even meeting the glance of those that look at you with a hateful fire burning from some place unrecognizable to your innocent and hopeful eyes.
It is a fire that you hate. You hate it because you do not understand it. The source of this fire is a stranger to you. It is a fire that causes your eyes to downturn, your mind to blank, your before confident and alive character to be stifled and encouraged to be and to perform with mediocrity.
She was a young girl. And to the people close to her she was a beautiful girl. She realized soon however that it was only the people close to her that considered her a beauty. The rest of the world was much more scrutinizing and condescending in their judgment. Within her little world she was happy. Happy knowing that she was beautiful. Happy knowing that the eyes looking at her were eyes of admiration and adoration. It wasn’t until she moved away that she realized she had been a hometown hit. But it was that hit in hometown that gave her something extra.
As she walked down the halls of the school she felt confident. She was years older than these little rascals. She was nothing more than a girl. A girl of 24. A girl who still felt like she was seventeen. She longed for the days of her younger dancing queen. She still remembered twirling and spinning, screaming and glowing the words to that song. Her sisterhood surrounding her, a part of the same moment and words as they had all been seventeen together, picturing in synchronization what magnificently magical things were in the near future of their young and sparkling lives.
She wondered why she had worn heels that day. It seemed like a prosaic decision now as her 5’9’’ figure, turned into 6 foot, gracefully strode down the halls. Little boys and girls alike surrounding her, staring at this freak woman with a bird necklace, ruffling scarf, and olive green dress just above the knee. Entirely too tall and too blonde to have any purpose in this foundation for education. She had suddenly turned herself into an adult and couldn’t figure out why. Because of this unwelcome transformation she had watched take over her life, part of her before treasured personality began to slip away. She felt it going. With a solemn fight of some sort. Slipping into the tall echoing walls of this multi million dollar building. Herself, getting lost in the dominance of adulthood. Losing to the necessity of blending in with faculty, making the other adults accept her, making the “kids” respect her position, gaining the respect and admiration of those who now held her future in their hands by consenting to give a reliable paycheck each month.
She stared at the hard cold floor that her heels sent tapping echoes down. She felt her lifelong yearning for a neon green 1981 Bronco being torn from her insides and sucked into the sign above her door that read Ms. Jensen.
She had never been in love. She yearned for it. Dreamt about it. Thought about it. When she thought of him tears still came to her eyes. He was the only one who had ever made her feel the way she felt. He had made her feel better than waking up on a summer morning when the birds are chirping, the lawn mowers rumbling, and the sun glancing through with small and delicate rays. He had made her feel better than walking in the door, hearing your mom’s laugh, and smelling the scent of the only cookie that turns you ravenous. Before he came along she had only been able to imagine something so happy. Happy was the only word for it really. A pure serene, unconquerable happiness he gave her. She thought her dreams had been too lofty when romanticizing romance. However, he gave her the glimmer, spark, and hope of everything inside that romance could never be over imagined, over expressed, or overrated. Because real boys talking to your real self was always better than ones superficially staring back at you in magazines. Real kisses were so much better than the kisses in chick flicks. Real feelings expressed were always more beautiful and fluttering than the ones wrote about in novels. Real hands holding real hands was always better than a mental picture. Reality. Reality always had a way of being better. Humans need humans, humans need physical presence.
He had said things to her that no mind could have imagined, no book could have captured, and no movie could have expressed. His words had been for her and her only. He thought and saw things that she never did about herself. He loved her more than she loved herself. So his words, thoughts, and expressions were better than her wildest dreams. They were carefully crafted and personally given from the eyes of the one who sees most—a lover.
He had told her she was sweet. She had only been told she was sassy.
He had told her she was hot. She had only been told she was beautiful.
He had told her she was a 10. She had never been called a ten.
He had told her he wanted her more than anything. She had never been wanted like this.
He told her she could have whatever she wanted. All she wanted was peanut butter ritz crackers and he got them for her.
He told her he needed to kiss her. Others had simply wanted to.
He had told her she came from the finest family in the world. She had only been told it was big.
He told her she was quiet when she was tired, but more loving. She never knew that.
His favorite question was “Where are you?”. She loved him having to know.
And wherever she was, he came.
Or wherever he was, she came.
Things that only a real boy could give her.
Simple on paper. But wild to her.
