Bruises (BWWM)

20

20

Ben

The last day in school had been much more stressful than untroubled, as any graduating student would've imagined. The end came too fast and suddenly, I had, if not all of us seniors, realized that we'd miss all of this. We'd miss Vanio, the somewhat friendly lunch ladies, the sports, the arts, the students, some of the teachers —not Ms Stone, though— and everything else imaginable that was part of this mess of a school.

Watching everyone sign each other's yearbooks and hug one another made me feel even more nostalgic. I reminisced on everything that I had done wrong to this day, to the simple mundane life I could've had if I had stayed best friends with Alex. If I had stayed with the football team.

I would've chased dolled-up cheerleaders, hung out with jocks rather than be alone most of the time, but most importantly, I wouldn't have been with Tamra. And that, itself, was worth every mistake, every single dumb decision.

"Hey, man, mind if I signed yours?" someone said, while tapping on my shoulder, which shook me away from my thoughts. It was Alex. "You don't have to write something in mine in return if you don't want to," he continued, taking a pen stuck behind his ear.

I shrugged my shoulders.

"No, I really don't mind."

He politely smiled before handing me his yearbook and I did the same. He scribbled a few sentences in his sloppy handwriting onto the glossy paper of the red booklet, and I wrote down a quote I knew he'd remember from our first year together at Vanio in history class for having butchered it in front of the whole classroom.

We were doing an oral presentation, on which he hadn't worked on at all, and twelve-year-old Alex found a way to royally mess up the only line he had to utter.

"Venice, video, Vince see!" he had shouted, as I awkwardly stared at him in disbelief.

"Veni, vidi, vici," I had automatically corrected him, trying hard not to burst out at him in front of everyone.

"I'm pretty sure the guy said Venice. It's a place in Italy you know. It'd make much more sense, because the dude was Italian."

And the class had burst into hilarity, laughs exploding throughout the room. When Alex finally understood his mistake, he had been so embarassed that he had decided to never ever take another optional history class and here he had been, struggling to pass with a decent average in chemistry and physic.

I handed him his yearbook back and he grinned when reading the quote. I looked down onto my yearbook whose last pages were still all blank besides for Alex's little message. It went like this :

I know I deserved to be punched that day, but
I'm glad I wasn't. It proves that you're
stronger than me, because if I were in your shoes,
I'd totally kick my ass. Regardless of this, I
hope we can still become friends again and
put this chapter behind us.
From Alex, the guy who didn't get the girl

When I looked up, Alex had already left, probably off to sign someone else's album, but I couldn't help but feel like a thirteen year old fangirl —Alex had written in my yearbook and wanted us to be friends. How weird was this, especially after all those years?

I slid my bag over my shoulder and walked up to my car, opening the door that squeaked. I drove off to Tamra's house, the only place I wanted to find myself in being her arms. How stupid, I know.

I knocked on the door and Mr Remway was the one to open it. I mentally groaned. This dude hated me since the last little incident. He now probably had the worst first impression of me and thought that I only wanted one selfish thing from her. If only he knew what happened beforehand with his wife, then maybe he would see things differently and learn to appreciate me, but I didn't want to resort to that to have him befriend me.