Dear Grace

…Many a night have I stayed awake, only comforted by the images of you in my mind. I shiver in my covers, a duvet supplying little insulation compared to your loving arms. Amid a raging battlefield, your words flow, calm and kind. I am distracted by you, in awe of you and can only think about your beautiful face. You are my guilty pleasure, my pirates treasure, you are my saving grace.
Meet me tonight at 8, at the diner if you think the same.
Love, Jake
What a complete and utter load of crap.
I scrunched up the creamy soft piece of parchment in steaming rage. The careful calligraphy was crushed in my display of anger, and I threw the note on the floor. Grinding my foot atop it, it receded to little more than a shred inside the folds of my carpet. For a week, and a week to long Jake had been toying with my mind. Starting out as a playful game of peer pressure educed truth or dare; we had shared a short-lived kiss.
I’ll admit, Jake was a well-built boy. His green eyes contrasting electrifyingly with his dark hair, an appearance I would have no other way. Swimming with him last summer had notified me of his amazing chest and ripped biceps, but he was still not the one I wanted.
The way I had smiled after the kiss, my first, had lead some people to believe false truths. That I was in love with Jake, and that he was in love with me. Grapevines enveloped my days, and eventually the story had escalated to that we had gotten to third base and were currently having wild love affairs outside of anyone at school’s knowledge.
As much as I hated the gossip, it and my friends convinced me to begin to believe it. I questioned whether Jake should be totally ousted from my list of eligible, of which there were few. I was begging to fall for Jake, and I started to spend every spare moment with him. Rushing in early, just to catch a glimpse of him at his locker, sitting next to him in every class possible, and joining tables at lunch. I would cheer him on at soccer tryouts, cheerleading like a plastic princess rather than joining in as I had done previously.
We had been friends, and now I was trying to make it become more than that. In the process, I was losing every aspect of what made our friendship possible. I stopped dressing like I was going to a concert every day, stopped listening to punk and began dressing in skirts and polo’s and loading Pop onto my IPod. My uniqueness was stamped out of me, filling myself full of laughing gas, full of empty promises.
The mascara thickened over my eyes, believing that the source of Jake being so coy was because I was ugly. But I just took a moment to step back. I looked at the larger picture and saw that Jake was just one boy, among the millions of other boys who might be right for me. The face in the mirror that looked back at me that day was that of an alien. With foundation that made me unrecognizable and a sunny demeanor no matter what the situation, I was a ghost of my former self.
With every stroke of the cleansing pad my makeup grew thinner and finally non-existent, as did my love for Jake and fake personality. I threw on some converse and a band tee, and some stretchy skinny jeans had me back to my old self again. I refused to have anything to do with Jake that was outside of football practice and the classes we shared, and it was a great self-prescription for a while.
He had his friends, and I mine, and life went on as usual. And now this note. I was too angry for words after what had happened between us, and to him nothing had changed. I still wanted to be friends and nothing more, for fear of sabotage once again.
But maybe, my consciousness reasoned. Maybe, just maybe you could be together again, it yearned. But no, I debated inside my mind; I never want to go through that again. But it was true, what had really happened? To Jake, nothing. I could be myself around him, and decided to take the chance of a lifetime, my first boyfriend. Again I felt a fluttery feeling, like the first time we had kissed deep in my sternum, and grabbed my bag and headed out.
It was late and the diner and all the streets around it were deserted, too late for commuters, but too early for clubbing. My mind was racing. Jake had sent this note only a few days after my Barbie phase was over. Maybe he liked the new me, and would reject me now? What is Jake was not there at all? Just my friends manipulating my thoughts and screwing me over.
I was taking the back route to the diner, since it was faster than going all the way around the block. I knew the city streets like the back of my hand, and was using an alleyway not many people knew about, but that I had traversed many times.
Suddenly I saw a flash of dark hair and malicious radioactive eyes. I could find no other way to explain their green vibrancy than electrifying. Next was the sound of heavy metal through the night air, and not a scream escaped my lips, since I was silenced forever.