𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐡 𝐌𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐲 {𝐒𝐀𝐏𝐍𝐀𝐏}

𝐱𝐱. 𝐀 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞 𝐓𝐨 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲

𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐎𝐃
《𝐚𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐬𝐜𝐡𝐨𝐨𝐥》

Nick sat down in his school gym beside his friends Clay and Luke. He sighed and put his head in his hands. Luke and Clay looked at him, Clay raising a brow and Luke following Nick's sigh with his own.

"Did you have to be that low of an asshole, Clay?" Luke said. Clay shrugged and rolled his eyes.

"It's not that big of a deal—"

"Clay I'm seriously about to hit you so fucking hard..." Nick mumbled. Clay snickered and patted his back.

"I'm sorry! At least you made forty bucks." He said. Nick sat up straight and glared at Clay.

"Forty bucks doesn't pay back for you chasing off my girlfriend! I clearly liked her, dumbass!" Nick raised his voice, catching the attention of some of the kids around him. Clay scoffed.

"I said I was sorry. It's not that big of a deal." He said. Luke rested a hand over Nick's as he balled it into a fist out of anger.

"You'll be fine, Nick. I'm sure she'll get over it." He said.

"It's the end of the year! I have no time to see her again before she moves on." Nick said.

"You have all summer." Clay said. Nick raised his hand to block him out.

"I'm not taking any ideas from you." He said. Clay rolled his eyes again and shook his head.

The principal walked up to the front of the gym, waving all the students quiet as he turned on the microphone in his hands.

"Alright! Alright, settle down." He said. Nick sighed and looked to the front of the gym past all the students he was sitting behind.

"We'll figure something out later," Luke said, patting Nick's shoulder. The principal cleared his throat and tapped the microphone a few times, making it squeak a little.

"Hello everyone! It's finally the end of this school year and we're going to be starting our final assembly. Before we continue, I'm going to hand off the microphone..."

The principal droned on and on, but his words were going right over Nick's head. His attention was instead on Brielle. He could see her standing to the side up front, holding a paper close to her heart as she stared at the ceiling and mumbled to herself. The two people beside her did the same. They were presenting that day and Nick was so focused on Brielle presenting her poem. She had been so nervous about it. He doubted his slip-up recently helped her level of stress in any way...

His attention snapped back to the front as the English teacher standing up front announced a certain name.

"Brielle Lance!"

Brielle looked to the teacher and took a deep breath, walking over and taking her place at the front. The school clapped, Nick needing a moment before he clapped, as well. Brielle took the microphone and looked at the audience. Her eyes met Nick's for one moment and held that eye contact for a moment longer than the other glances before she looked to her paper and looked back up.

"Uhm...h-hello. I don't usually do big speeches in front of crowds like this so...this is something new." She chuckled softly to herself, earning a few small chuckles from the audience, as well.

"I wrote a poem based on the word love. It's about what it means to me and what it can mean to the world. I'm going to be sharing a piece of it with you." Brielle said. She looked at her paper again and took a small deep breath. The audience was silent. Nick was leaning forward a little, his full attention on Brielle.

"When the world seems small, most look to love as a way to lift it. Love is seen as an angel in humans' eyes. It is something we need to live and we crave to see, but at the same time, it is something we fear. It is something invisible to the naked eye, but powerful as it floats around us."

Brielle spoke slowly and softly into the microphone. Her voice filled the audience, filling Nick's mind as he picked at every single word she said. He didn't quite remember reading this when she had been working on her poem speech. He wondered why she changed it so abruptly.

"Love is something that can be broken easily, as well. As much as we fear it or want it, we take advantage of it. We use it for its high and discard it when we're bored. Almost like putty or a ball. It's fun when you're first given it. It feels like you do everything you could with it, exploring your different feelings as you throw it on the wall, bounce it around, throw and catch it. Then, you're bored of it. Then, you get rid of it. You move on. You find something else to do." Brielle said, fully pressing her note to her chest as she no longer needed to look at it. It was as if she were speaking from her mind instead.

"It hurts more than any scar, stab, or shot. When you've been playing with that ball alongside someone and they get bored. When they decide they don't want to play anymore and they leave. It feels like an unfinished game when love is left behind. You can't play it alone. Well, you can. It's never the same. That self-love is nothing compared to the love you share when someone else is with you." Brielle went on, Nick amazed by the way she spoke. The thing that hurt the most is he knew where the source of her words was coming from...

"You learn to despise that friend that left you behind. You learn to even despise that ball for a while. You're tired of it. You want to do something else...anything else. Then you realize that must have been what your friend thought when they got bored. That partner despised that ball at the end...and they must have despised you, too." There was a pause of silence as Brielle finally allowed herself to look back at her paper.

"So, love is one of the strangest things in the world. It is so comforting while painful at the same time." She paused again, allowing her arm to fall and allowing her power to fall to her side as she looked back out to the audience. After a moment of scanning, her eyes met Nick's again and his eyebrows raised ever so slightly.

"And it is something I will never understand." She said. Nick's eyebrows furrowed and he looked down, unable to hold that eye contact. Brielle bit the inside of her cheek and looked back at everyone.

"Thank you." She nodded and turned, walking back to where she was and giving her teacher the microphone as she passed. The audience applauded her, completely unaware of what Brielle or Nick were going through. Completely unaware of why Brielle said what she said. Nick was left to silently stare at his hands, not clapping.

"Fuck..." he sighed softly to himself, closing his eyes. She was far from his reach at that point. He could see that.

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