Summer After High School

20

Kyle

When I open the door, Paige is standing before me. My eyes widen as they feed the sight of her.

"Paige? " I call her name like a question.

I open the door wider when she doesn't respond.

"Come in, " I say.

She walks into my apartment and stares at me.

"Paige, how are you? "

"Kiss me, " she says.

"What? "

"You heard me Kyle, kiss me. "

For a slight moment, my sense of reasoning shuts. I almost kiss her, really I almost do. Who wouldn't want to kiss someone like her? Just as I'm about to reach for her lips, I realize that her eyes are red and puffy and her face lacks colour. The desire to kiss her is replaced by worry.

What was I thinking? Why didn't I fail to reason that it isn't normal for her to show up In my apartment in the night, asking me to kiss her.

She tries to reach for my lips but I stop her.

"Paige, what's wrong? "

"Why won't you kiss me? You think I'm not good enough too? I'm not good enough for anybody? " As she speaks, her body trembles and tears start streaming from her eyes.

At the sight of her crying, I feel like something is squeezing my lungs and all of a sudden it's hard to breathe.  I don't want to see her crying.

I gently dry her tears with my hands before I speak, "Paige, you're enough, you're good enough. You have to realize that you're good enough, when you do that, refuse to listen to anyone who says otherwise. "

She sits on the couch and says, "You don't even understand. "

Her sobs are making my heart ache. I want her to stop crying. No, I need her to stop crying.

"Paige, what's wrong? "

"It's Brian. He keeps cheating on me and I don't understand why. I decided to give him a chance tonight and when I got to his house, I, I.. " her sobs stops her speech.

I start to wonder, what if, what if I had told her about Daphne back then. Would this still have happened?

I wrap my arms on her shoulders, "It's okay, you don't have to talk about it."

"I just don't understand. If he wasn't happy anymore why didn't he just leave? Why did he keep pleading for me to return just to keep making a fool out of me? I don't understand how you can claim to love someone and proceed to do things like that to them."

"Paige, there are people who are not certain of what they really want in life. That's why it's easy for them to get distracted along their path."

"It hurts, it hurts so much. Please make it stop. Make it stop, Kyle. Please. "

Her body trembles in my arms as she sobs. I wish I could bear the pain for her. If I could somehow take all her pain away and carry it instead, I'd so in a heartbeat.

I gently dry the tears off her face.

"I won't lie and say I know how you feel because I don't. I can only imagine and yet the imagination hurts me to the core. But Paige, the one thing I know is that pain doesn't last forever. With time pain
fades. "

She removes my arms from her shoulder, "Stop, stop. I'm tired of hearing that. I just want the pain to go away now. I need it to go away now. I don't want to wait for time. I need it to stop now,"she raises her voice as she speaks.