Betty-

The townspeople knew better that to trust a word uttered form Inez’s mouth, but that one instance where she was truthful, they were rendered speechless. I heard that James has been sleeping with that new girl. Augustine, is it? – Inez questioning in my head. What a cuttie girl but fucking naïve to go out with James Heartless Dylan. Fucking Inez. I did never like her that much, I think I just get along to her because our parents’ friendship and because she always was part of cheerleader and volleyball team, like me. I think I get along with her because it’s not easy not to.

That night, despite the words of my friends telling me to not believe the renowned liar, I switched my homeroom, I blocked his stupid number, I threw away that damned cardigan he gifted to me on my sixteenth and all as is. I did not cry. No, because crying would mean that I was heartbroken. An I was not heartbroken over a boy who believed he was so clever as to chase two girls. Fucking stupid idiot boy. He preferred lose the one.

Instead, I reminisced over all of his lies and how they dripped from his mouth so sweetly, as if they were honey. How foolish was I to believe him to be sweet when I knew sugar was best artificial. I remembered the way he would dance under the streetlight in his old tee and Levi jeans, holding his hand out to me, calling for a dance, perhaps back then I would’ve claimed it to be nerve, but I never took it. 

When he’d given me his weekend and we spent it playing hide and seek in the alleyway. I should’ve known better than to wear heels, for when I tripped on the cobblestone ground, James came running to my aid. The gash bled furiously; I couldn’t imagine such a small scrape could hurt so badly. Yet, it didn’t seem to matter because James was there and he kissed it better, simply as a joke, but the press of his lips against my skin felt like falling down a rabbit hole that I’d never be able to escape,The trap was mounted. I still have the scar today. 

I knew him like I knew the back of my hand. I knew he was a stupid boy, I knew he didn’t like the crowds, I knew he tried to change the ending like he always does. I knew he was a fool. A fool who had the guts to show up to my front porch and proclaim his sorry for his mistakes in front of all my friends, and before I’d even opened the door, the part of me that still yearned for him ached when his eyes met my own. In knowing him as I once did, I ruined myself. The seasons changed, but I am still addict to this stranger. I love, once again today, what I hated yesterday. I was his cardigan to use over and over and over. Sadly, the heart knows what he wants. And sadly, he wants this fool of man. Sadly. How many times I’m going to fall in this trap? I don’t know, but without hesitating through my lips slip:

I knew you’d come back for me.

Augustine-

From the night I pulled up next to him and we’d spent the night together to when he’d lay there, bare to everything but the sun, I remember thinking I had him, I remember thinking I had him. I remember thinking I had him. I’d finally gotten the love that time had never given me, the love that I’d search city to city for. But I will always be a second choice. I’m doom to that role. I’m so sensitive, just one touch and I feel pain. And you didn’t just touch me. I should hate you. I should, but I don’t chance what I feel so quickly as you.

I’m here alone like all this times before. Who would choose the girl who gave herself so simply to feel the slightest bit of affection that has been rejected form her for so long, the girl who was new to the town and was a grade-A homewrecker, who could love the simple girl that just want to be loved, who could love me when everyone is a perfectly and gorgeous like Betty and I am afar to be her?

Yet, those moments when´d call and ask me to meet him behind the mall. When he’d kiss me as if I wasn’t doing something bad. But is it so wrong to desire? It is terrible to take it the moment you get your first chance? That is what they never understood. Words like slut and whore or cheater ran past their lips sending daggers through my skin as if he weren’t the one to lay his lips upon it first. As if in my being a woman made me ten times more guilty than the man convicted of adultery. It isn’t just my fault but also. It is not even me the one who did it the wrong fucking thing. I loved a boy who loved other without saying. How that is my fault? He wasn’t even mine to lose and I’m still here crying for his love.

I did not care back then. Not when his lips kissed mine so softly, as if they were made of glass, as his hand creeped up my back and goosebumps would rise upon my skin. The smell of him engulfed my senses, sending me on a drunken spiral all the way home. The content sigh would leave my lips because he loved me. He loved me and that was all that would ever matter.

Did you at least miss me, James? No, Augustine. Yeah, I know the answer. But I miss you, every single day. I ache for you to hold me again. I can’t fall asleep without a thought of you dragging me down. Our summer makes a presence in all of my dreams and I continue to picture you in my future despite your abandonment.

To make such a mockery of myself, when Inez called to say that he´d gone to her house. FUCKIN INEZ why did you have to tell me and destroy my ground. She said– James begged for forgiveness-, when I hear my world stop spinning. Inez what I did to you? Why did you have to tell me that and destroy my ground. I needed to scream like never before. I want to scream so loud that the ground that disappear underneath me will tremble. There was so anger and sadness within me. So much rage and fear and sorrow and sadness. I felt as I was decaying from the inside out and it wouldn’t be a thing to save. I needed to scream, for help, for relief or just to questioning the world around me why me? and yet when I hope my mouth. Silence. But did you? Did you asked her for forgiveness the same way you once begged for me to come back to bed, to give you another kiss, lay all that I had out for you. I bit back my tears and allowed my heart to break silently, for who would hear? Nobody, because nobody love Augustine enough to be here until the end. The girl he once loved became the girl who was now lost within a memory that only she seemed to remember. Since the very beginning of “us” I always knew will end in pain. You and I, James, are two people who used to be in love. What a beautiful thing to have been. What sad thing to be. And that pain will, surely, be forevermore. At one thing in us is.

So much for a summer love.

James- 

I knew I shouldn’t have, but Augustine was so enticing, so new, the thing people never understand about true love is that it lasts forever- and forever is a long time for someone as young as I. I know it does not make the things right but Betty, you haunted my dreams all summer even when I was with Augustine. I really need you to believe that. My mother always told me to own up my faults, and I know that I was greedy and selfish and even an idiot to think love can be split into two. But what I know? I am only seventeen. I hadn’t expected Inez to spread the word so quickly- I hadn’t even know where she’d found the information- but that girl couldn’t keep it for herself if she tried. She always was that way. Since the first grade, when we started to get along, always the Inez secrets teller- fuckin’ Inez. Sometimes I wonder how horribly my small little significance to the ruination that became of my life. I tried to reach out to betty, I really funking did, but my number was blocked, I guess. She had the reasons, I will not deny that, maybe I do the same if I was in her skin. It’s not great. It’s a shit scene in matter fact.  But not even the socials I can reach her. I even tried to find her in class, but she was so quick to switch. I tried to spot her in school but my luck was about as bad as I.

One afternoon however, I did see her, in the school library being sent away because the library was closing. More betty impossible. She was using a marvellous blue dress, didn’t understand why, until I remember that the falcons had won- go falcons– so a party was going to happen like always. I saw her, getting up and I followed until the gym. I reach her amongst a crowd I despised, dancing with a guy I had never seen before. A wound tore against my skin. Sometimes the archer other times the pray. In this time, I just took lost fire. It was as if she’d forget about me, like one of those old cardigans she always wore. She glanced my way, just for a split second, and her eyes were full of hatred. The wounds dug deeper, spreading out, leaving my crimson and spilling on the floor before my entire year. How was I supposed to know I was wrong? I’m still so young and guys at my age do the shittiest things. Naivety would not control me, however and perhaps, that was how ended up here. Standing in front of her porch light, I fidget worried about how this plan that’d taken me so long could go through. Is snowing today, like never before, would she care that I came back? Would the definite effort of my remorse be enough to bring back the thing I missed most? It was snowing like hell, I don’t think I ever saw so many snow in my life but I though from a breeze to do an angel in snow like we used to. It probably would kill me? Yes, definitely but at least I was trying to do something and that way I could skip what is coming next. Kiddos, never forget, when someone asked you do you want to Fall in love? The answer can only be – no, it isn’t for the weak. So please, don’t try that at home, especially if you do only shit like me. 

I can faintly hear music from her house as though she was having a party which is odd. Betty hated parties. I knocked on the door, she opened it and we stared at each other for long enough to make a minute feel like an eternity. Something screamed inside of me, telling me to run. To never look back. and never come back. Maybe bring Augustine in case the loneliness got too cold. She would join me without a question? I don’t think so I also broke her, I am Midas reverse for sure. I can see Inez dial a number on her phone in the back and all of Betty’s friends- who, in my humble opinion, were a quite a daft and desolate. They are huddling closer to listen what I had to say. I also want to know what I’m going to say to be honest. All their eyes on me. But she spoke first, I knew you’d come back to me– she said- And despite the triggered sense of flight that still raged inside of me I knew too. Those words both mended and broke my heart.

Will it patch your broken wings?