My heart did a backflip. Over the tops of the sea of students, was the top of Colin’s head. His long brown hair was pulled back behind his head in a messy bun. The sun shone from his face with his emerald eyes shining and a smile sliding from ear to ear. It was as much as a confirmation as I needed: he definitely made the team. If that wasn’t enough of an indicator, the dozens of other students clamoring to talk to him certainly was.
I pushed my way through the crowd. Insults and swear words were raining down on me for my apparent gall for just trying to get to my… boyfriend? Could I say that already? No. I should definitely wait until we had talked about it.
I’d made it to about three rows back before the wall of students was clasped so tightly I had no hope of getting any closer. As annoying as I found it, I had no choice but to wait until Colin noticed me or the teachers broke up the pack and I could get to him easier.
“I knew you’d make it, Colin,” one girl with a blond bob cut sang to him. “I saw your tryout.”
“Oh, really?” Colin’s voice was sweet and inviting. “That’s so nice of you that you came.”
“Of course I came. I wanted to support you.” She combed her hand through her hair. “Actually, I was hoping that maybe you’d want to go out with me sometime?”
The girl next to her started giggling. “She’s liked you for a long time.”
“Really?” Colin’s left hand went to his right arm to massage his bicep. “That’s cool. Sure, we can do that.”
It was so shocking I felt like I was going to awaken from a nightmare at any second. I looked around at the students standing next to me, as if maybe one of them would have heard what I heard, and magically know why I found that so painful. Colin kissed me, I thought he liked me, why would he agree to go out with another girl?
The blond started to squeal. “Really? Okay! Maybe we could go to the Sadie Hawkins dance together?”
The Sadie Hawkins dance was a dance that took place at the night of the first football game every year. Only 7th and 8th graders could go, and it was tradition for the girls to ask the boys to be their dates instead of the other way around. Guys only ever agreed to go with girls they liked, everyone knew that.
Colin laughed. “Maybe!”
My heart broke.
I touched the football locket hanging at my collarbone, praying for it to shoot me back in time. Had I misread something somewhere along the way? Did Colin not actually like me and just do the things that I thought were romantic as a sign of friendship?
I was an idiot.
I turned around and forced my way through the masses until I was back at the front door. I ran outside with tears already cascading down from my cocoa eyes. I wanted to just run home. The amazing day I’d had at the mall, that wonderful kiss, it was all dripping off of me and falling into tearstained puddles on the ground.
“Um, excuse me?” I looked over and one of the girls who’d previously been standing with the blond that Colin talked to. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” I snipped back, not wanting to get into it, especially with her. “What do you want?”
She seemed taken aback by the harshness of my tone. “Oh, um. No, I just know that you’re really good friends with Colin Undinger, right?”
Yes. Apparently too good.
“Why?” I circumvented the question I was afraid to answer.
“I’ve seen you guys together a lot and my friend asked him to the Sadie Hawkins dance and I just wanted to make sure that you didn’t already ask him or something. Are you guys boyfriend and girlfriend?”
I didn’t know how to respond to that question. I’d believed we would be. When I woke up that morning, all I could think about was making things official and being a real couple. I never could have expected that, when I got to school, I’d find that things hadn’t actually meant as much to him as they did to me.
Like a roach, something deep inside me crawled out wanting to defend me from any more pain. If Colin honestly thought it was okay to kiss me on Saturday and then come to school on Monday and agree to go to the Sadie Hawkins dance with some other girl, what responsibility did I have to sing his praises to someone else.
Screw him.
“Gross.” I wiped my eyes of their tears hoping they would take all my feelings for Colin with them. “I would never be his girlfriend.”
The girl looked truly shocked. “Is he a player or something?”
Before I got the chance to answer, Colin appeared out of the corner of my eye. He had a frown on his face and a look of bewilderment; guess he didn’t realize that I’d overheard him. I stood up from where I’d planted myself and looked right at him.
“Yeah. I wouldn’t trust him.” I grabbed the football locket and tugged, snapping it from my neck in a single, swift motion. I tossed it to the ground at his feet, turned my back to him and his new girlfriend’s inquirer, and left, promising never to let myself be taken advantage of again.
2
Tatiana
I awoke with a start. My knuckles were white from gripping the sheets and my stomach was trying to arrange a game of musical chairs with the rest of my internal organs. It pissed me off. It was just a dream about a boy from five years ago--why did it still affect me like that?
I looked around my room, drenched in muted tones of grays and blacks, entirely different from the flowery, vibrant room of my past. It was safe to say my first heartbreak jaded me--sapped color from my world--not that it mattered much to me. I’d learned an important lesson that day, not to take people at face value. If someone could be lying to you, they probably were, and that was that. I’d love to say that a lot of people came along in the last five years to teach me that I could trust and love again, but the truth was, I never let anyone get that close. I didn’t want anyone to be. If going through life with someone at my side was going to leave me as crushed as Colin had, I was better off getting through life myself.
“Tati! Are you awake?” A few quiet knocks followed my mom’s voice across my closed door. “Do you want some breakfast?”
“No,” I responded, sitting up from my bed. “I’m not hungry.”
“Sweetie, I really think you should eat breakfast before school. Studies show--”
“I’m not hungry!” I closed my eyes and sighed. I’d raised my voice unexpectedly to my parents more than once. My shitty past experiences weren’t their fault; they were good parents. “I’m sorry. I’m just not quite awake yet.”
My mom didn’t respond right away. “…A banana?”
“Sure, mom.” My tone was flat.
Her footsteps were off down the hallway seconds later.
I reached my arms above my head and stretched, The hope was that, if I stretched tall enough, the memories of my dream would just slide off me and slink back to whatever hole they crawled out of. I stood up and began my daily morning shuffle of selecting a sweater from the several I had that all looked like they belonged on the same black color swatch. Like my room, my wardrobe had been drained of its hue in the wake of my heartbreak and had remained dulled ever since. Suddenly wearing bright colors made me think I stood out too much, I just wanted to blend into Colorado’s hazy gray sky--to not be seen.