The Boy Who Wore Boat Shoes

00⎜The End

The Boy Who Wore Boat Shoes

By: Sophie Anna

00⎜The End

           “So, we’re in agreement?” she questioned.

           “Yeah,” I answered back somberly.

           “You’re not going to go nuts and slash my mom’s tires or start stalking me, are you?”

           “No, Liz,” I assured her with a sigh.

           “Okay.”

           “It’s because of Collins, isn’t it?” I forced myself to ask.

           “A little, I guess.”

           “You love him?” I inquired, but it wasn’t so much of a question as more of an assertion that, yes, she loved him. I stared at the gorgeous girl before me, wondering how she would answer. Her blonde hair was just barely falling over her face in such a way that I was tempted to reach out and tuck it behind her ear, but restrained myself. She was quiet, not saying a word. As painful as it was, I took her silence as a sign of affirmation, so went on. “You do. Well, Liz, it was an honor to be your first real boyfriend, despite the fact that the relationship was partially built on lies.”

           “And it was a pleasure to be your second real girlfriend,” she returned with a weak smile.

           “I’m going to try to quit the, uh, pot, you know,” I told her, not so much for her sake, but for mine. I wanted her to know that I was still a good guy, even if I had made mistakes. The closure was what I needed.

           “You’re going to make a girl very happy one day, Eric,” she said as I scanned her pale face for what felt like the last time, though I knew that it wasn’t. We would still be interacting in school and socially, due who our friends were.

           It was my second real relationship, and just like the first, it was ending on a negative note. I always managed to screw things up. If it wasn’t the pot, it was something else. In this particular case, we had both lied to each other. I wasn’t the perfect boy she thought I was, and she wasn’t the perfect girl, either. She had her own issues, and just happened to be a world-class athlete who was probably better at basketball than I was at football. The foundation on which we blindly chose to build a connection wasn’t a good one, thus leading to a terminal outcome.

           She was already infatuated with my ex-best friend when we started dating, and I was in a state of denial about it. I didn’t want to accept the fact that she was never really “mine,” and she couldn’t see that I wasn’t the guy for her, even from the beginning. There were too many differences between us, and it just wasn’t meant to be. If two people were disconnected from an affiliation even before it started, then a breakup was inevitable.

           I looked at the girl I had barely gotten to know over the past few months, despite thinking that I had her all figured out. Even with a lump in my throat, I still managed to choke out a few more tough words. “And you’re going to make Collins happy. He loves you.”

           “Why do you say that?” She laughed, her face dimly illuminating. “What need is there to bring the ‘L-Word’ into everything?”

           “Liz,” I began to address her skepticism, “Dylan was my best friend. Sure, he had crushes on girls over the years, but it was nothing like this. Do you think that he’s the type of guy that would punch somebody for just anyone?” She shook her head slowly, the wavy strand of her hair that was out of place moving about. I felt as though I was spearing my heart with a sword willingly as I said more. “Liz, he loves you.”