Because You're Different ✔

59. Fragile

Nathan

Back in high school, there was this couple who'd been famous for their sappy love declarations and fiery make-out sessions. Tarzana and Ryan. She a short, mouthy girl; he a boy with a stony look on his face. They'd had a tendency to cling to each other every second of the day, even during Algebra 2, and the teachers hadn't always appreciated that. Needless to say, it'd landed them in detention more than once, and that was where Lena and I had met them. Not that I'd ever been required to be there, but sometimes it'd been the only way to make sure I could spend time with her. My teachers had often shaken their heads at me whenever I'd entered the classroom after last period, asking me if I didn't have something better to do. I didn't.

Following Lena into detention allowed me to guarantee she wouldn't be screwing up her future altogether and gave me some quiet time to do my homework, the only condition my parents had lain down for me if I didn't want to end up at a boarding school. As long as you didn't have to be there, and just kept to yourself, it was an okay place to be.

It'd also given me the opportunity to study Tarzana and Ryan, and the way they acted around each other. Something in me had always been jealous of them, even if I wouldn't have admitted it back then. It was like for them, they were the only people that mattered, and everyone around them was just a second-rate gust of wind. I'd wondered what it would feel like to have a girl look at you like that, to know for sure you found someone who would risk their life for you. Most other kids had considered them extremely annoying, especially when they'd be French kissing during lunchtime. "Oh, you've got such a fragile romantic little heart," Lena had said once, after I'd defended them, spinning around me with an amused smile on her face. "Who made you that way? Your gran?"

Maybe. I hadn't known. I'd thought it was her that'd made me that way, because she was the only girl I had ever cared about. But she wouldn't have liked it if I'd said that. "Don't you think it'd be great? To love someone like that?" I remembered holding my breath, hoping she might change her mind about relationships. I should've realized I was only going to be disappointed.

She'd poked me in the chest, right in my heart. "Love like that is an illusion, dude," she'd said. "It's just fabricated feelings, like drugs. If you ever feel like you have found some extraordinary girl who is the best out of all of them, you either had too much to drink or need a reality check. This isn't Hollywood."

I hadn't really wanted to believe her, thinking grandma and grandpa had proven the opposite, and Tarzana and Ryan would as well. When they'd married right out of high school, I'd thrown Lena an "I told you so". She still hadn't been convinced. Three months later, the newlywed couple had already gotten divorced, and while Tarzana stayed here to work in a retail store, Ryan went off to college somewhere out of state. "See?" Lena had said. "Illusion. That love they felt? Teenage hormones. Trust me, Nathan, you're better off ignoring any of those feelings. They'll disappear soon enough."

Seemed like she'd been right. After all, rumor was nowadays Tarzana lived in LA with her two kids and no husband, and Ryan was flying around the world as a pilot.

That was one of the reasons I was reminded of them right now, hands grasping the armrests on both sides, seatbelt pressing into my skin, almost cutting off my blood supply. Sweat seemed to gush out of every pore of my body, and I couldn't see straight. For once, the terror was not caused by the fact I was high up in the air, but by what happened this morning, or last night, and by what would be happening next.

Sam's disgusted face was etched deep into my mind, glaring down at me like he'd never seen anything as revolting as me. I didn't know if I could ever get rid of it. The things he'd said... The things he'd called me...

Sick. Creepy. Pervert. Cheater.

It was the last one that got to me, the last one that sent the feeling of doom back to the pit of the stomach, growing larger and larger as I put more distance between California and me. I had cheated on my girlfriend. After almost two years of being together, I'd cheated on her. Cheated. Me. While I'd always been convinced I would never be that guy, would never do that to a girl. And then I went and did it anyway.