Prompt: Finish the phrase 'Listen, I...'535Please respect copyright.PENANAS8wkApY9j9
MOMENT 1:535Please respect copyright.PENANAmM1ooENolY
'Hey, listen, I think you're pretty cool.' Alice said this only after I had landed a detention for flinging my fists at her. 'We should hang out more.'535Please respect copyright.PENANAvM0jILbRCC
I rubbed the bruise on my cheek. 'Yeah, really? You didn't think so yesterday.'535Please respect copyright.PENANA7j8BF72cqF
'Oy.' She says. 'You were asking for it. I see fights through when I get picked on.'535Please respect copyright.PENANAzLkQyjoqXT
'I wasn't picking on you!'535Please respect copyright.PENANAPWBYPyIRPn
'You said my father was trailer trash, so close enough. Just don't do that again, okay?'535Please respect copyright.PENANASw10HXsaJ3
What a crazy bitch. 'Fine.'
MOMENT 2:535Please respect copyright.PENANAfQnLwyB15f
'You will not believe this, John. I caught Samantha and Adam snogging in the locker room.'535Please respect copyright.PENANAupwvXdigqj
'You know it's not cool to gossip, right? A, I don't really care, and B, I thought I told you to leave me alone.'535Please respect copyright.PENANANx9mdb684F
'Yeah, well, no one else was gonna talk to you. It's not like I scared any of your friends away.'535Please respect copyright.PENANAufWoXir2iS
'Alice, can you learn to shut up?' I began walking away from her to make a point.535Please respect copyright.PENANAUVhYii7wrJ
'Whatever.' She laughed, godammit, she laughed as she strutted across the oval. Where the hell does she get the bloody confidence?
MOMENT 3:535Please respect copyright.PENANAU2ksNY9In7
'Hey.' I sat down next to Alice in history.535Please respect copyright.PENANAD4XqVRo9U9
'Hey, look who it is. Lemme move my stuff.' She made some extra room on the desk for me.535Please respect copyright.PENANATLhH8U7nPw
I didn't want to surrender so early. 'Thanks.' I made an effort not to talk to her during the class, and she made an effort to show that she really didn't care what I thought of her.535Please respect copyright.PENANAaZPJZSDZbx
The bell rung, and as she gathered up her papers I caught glimpses of strange little sketches - a nude woman lying inside the core of a rose, spheres and pyramids in a dappled desert - and as much as I hated to admit it, she had a way with her pen, no doubt.535Please respect copyright.PENANAmiP1emc7R2
'Oh by the way - ' she put her hand on my shoulder just before she left, and used the other to point at a figure on my page, 'it's 1954, not 1953.'535Please respect copyright.PENANArAzh3Zm6ir
The bloody cheeky smile of hers.535Please respect copyright.PENANAvSDZRPTgbG
I didn't correct it until she was out of my sight.535Please respect copyright.PENANArRCLXs8jHm
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MOMENT 4:535Please respect copyright.PENANAMVlqtNhpMX
'What're you drawing?' Shit. Did I really just initiate conversation with her?535Please respect copyright.PENANAdcJYx4ZJiN
She looked up with less than half the surprise I expected. Couldn't even grant me the small victories.535Please respect copyright.PENANAhYEd2yYHkU
'Just people.'535Please respect copyright.PENANAT5m80vZ69M
I crouched down beside her and glanced into her notepad. It was faces. Luke, Chris, Jenny, Samantha and Adam (kissing), Paul, and -535Please respect copyright.PENANAJ9mVjuI9H4
'Woah, is that me?' It was a rhetorical question, of course - the sketch was so finely crafted there could have been no doubt as to who it was. I could see my tired eyes looking back up from the page, messy hair and one hand supporting the side of my chin, angular fingers curling up a faint trail of stubble.535Please respect copyright.PENANAMTm154w6uj
'Nah, it's my brother. Of course it's you, doofus. You can take a closer look if you want.' She handed me the book, and I flipped through the pages. All pen sketches, some surrealist and some gritty and all too real. And on the last used page, me.535Please respect copyright.PENANA1QOfcnoVvZ
'Why're they all in pen? Do you do any painting?'535Please respect copyright.PENANA5fEjZqgahT
She shrugged. 'I just sketch. Can I have it back now?'535Please respect copyright.PENANAfPDGuNjIT4
'Sure, sorry.' I handed it back into her lap. 'You, um. You're a really good drawer.'535Please respect copyright.PENANA9tcBOzFMBW
'I know, right. It's such a pity the things I choose to draw are so damn ugly, then, isn't it?'535Please respect copyright.PENANAgEGbw0FlIp
'Bastard.'535Please respect copyright.PENANAmsFMu2y5jQ
But I laughed.535Please respect copyright.PENANAs7ySsBPI35
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MOMENT 5:535Please respect copyright.PENANAGmkOk9EJ7D
'Merry Christmas, you bugger.' I held out my two wrapped parcels for her.535Please respect copyright.PENANAkLhF3Hufes
'Oy, I didn't ask for anything. So I don't feel obliged to give you something in return.' A wink. She always had a way of avoiding saying thanks.535Please respect copyright.PENANAlwbxoZxk6D
'Open em. Smaller one first.'535Please respect copyright.PENANAtqIyCCNJ4L
Oil paints and brushes. She never talked about money, but I knew why she only sketched.535Please respect copyright.PENANAum7l3T76qy
The other gift was canvas paper.535Please respect copyright.PENANAOx8pQ0kr1Z
'Wow.' She said. That was all. 'I really don't - '535Please respect copyright.PENANAgc1fTKfJuU
'Come on, take it.'535Please respect copyright.PENANAWDKDjhou4j
She smiled, but there was something else underneath. 'So long as you take these.' She handed the torn wrapping back into my hands before turning around and running away across the grass, footsteps light on the weeds below and laughter spiraling behind her.535Please respect copyright.PENANAd4s8vkEQ0b
Part of me knew, though, that the joke wasn't the whole reason for her quick exit.535Please respect copyright.PENANANqrLglA4SU
She didn't want me to see her crying.
MOMENT 6:535Please respect copyright.PENANA3gB0ppIDho
'It's a few weeks late, but you finally got your Christmas present.' She was holding something wrapped in plain brown paper and string.535Please respect copyright.PENANAoIG9JFLHfH
'I'll take that.' It was light, but firm. I tore the corner - canvas paper, and the smell of oil paints. 'Now that's cheating. Returning gifts much?' But she didn't laugh as I expected.535Please respect copyright.PENANAXYoWEdmORJ
It was a painting of us. Smiling, side by side, arms over each other's shoulders as we walked through a park.535Please respect copyright.PENANAOLof2TsoHw
'Do you like it?'535Please respect copyright.PENANAFQXlXnp5bz
'I, um, yeah, I do, but -'535Please respect copyright.PENANAY0yF8T9JSp
'But?'535Please respect copyright.PENANAoPgOtdDzRs
'Nothing. It's nice.' I didn't know what to say.535Please respect copyright.PENANAzZNnbR6f8y
'John?'535Please respect copyright.PENANAhhq75cpdIq
'Yeah?'535Please respect copyright.PENANAW4YeOLUToR
'I, um. I really like you and. Um.'535Please respect copyright.PENANA0VC8ctN1jC
'Okaaay, okay.' Shit, what? 'Right.'535Please respect copyright.PENANAmRObeIOv8O
She took a few steps towards me, and (fuck) I stepped back.535Please respect copyright.PENANAvnYgCQvoUU
It took only that moment - that one step back - to see the hurt staining her eyes.535Please respect copyright.PENANAFDbNYY2RhC
'No, wait, that's not what I - '535Please respect copyright.PENANA7ByD2wMMBo
'Yeah, sorry,' she said as she wiped her nose. 'Forget it. It's all cool.' She brushed down her sleeves. 'I should get going.'535Please respect copyright.PENANAsF57XdXr5O
'Wait!' I took a long, shaking breath. 'Listen, I... I really like you too. It's just that - I don't want anything more than this. This is all I need, this is all I want.' I put the painting down and held her wrists. 'Just this.'535Please respect copyright.PENANAzJmErZFWRm
'I... I don't understand.'535Please respect copyright.PENANAP43S4Gn43d
'Just the way we can insult each other. The way we can mess around, the way we can talk about all kinds of stupid shit and just not care, you know? It's all I want.' To be friends.535Please respect copyright.PENANAocNjzvQozH
She managed a smile, a tear catching at the corner of her lip. 'It's all I need.'535Please respect copyright.PENANAwbv4Z0UuSF
I hugged her then, not whispering time old lies about love, just hugging her because I cared, because I cared about that girl who punched me, because I cared about what my feelings meant for hers.535Please respect copyright.PENANAeSuUZ4XWUg
'I just don't want anything to change.' I could feel, in every struggled grasp of her fingers behind my back, the futures she imagined folding in upon themselves.535Please respect copyright.PENANAUnDrYBffMV
I don't know how long we stood there in that frozen eternity, holding each other as she gazed through tears at pastel smiles laying upon the ground in a sun-filled park only a single lost moment away.