MOMENT 1:576Please respect copyright.PENANAXIJ0oO74AT
'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.'576Please respect copyright.PENANAXYqffBa9ez
I rubbed the bruise on my cheek. 'Yeah, really? You didn't think so yesterday.'576Please respect copyright.PENANAGTQ2UPnK7w
'Oy.' She says. 'You were asking for it. I see fights through when I get picked on.'576Please respect copyright.PENANAg4ykqYJVO4
'I wasn't picking on you!'576Please respect copyright.PENANAMfakdVAZi1
'You said my father was trailer trash, so close enough. Just don't do that again, okay?'576Please respect copyright.PENANAVY6xZD9MUY
What a crazy bitch. 'Fine.'
MOMENT 2:576Please respect copyright.PENANAOish63tOOF
'You will not believe this, John. I caught Samantha and Adam snogging in the locker room.'576Please respect copyright.PENANAawSmfJ91Mr
'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.'576Please respect copyright.PENANAX8NdHWU8Iw
'Yeah, well, no one else was gonna talk to you. It's not like I scared any of your friends away.'576Please respect copyright.PENANAWkZbYJr7yo
'Alice, can you learn to shut up?' I began walking away from her to make a point.576Please respect copyright.PENANAaVh076R0NQ
'Whatever.' She laughed, godammit, she laughed as she strutted across the oval. Where the hell does she get the bloody confidence?
MOMENT 3:576Please respect copyright.PENANA6mz5OPSTw1
'Hey.' I sat down next to Alice in history.576Please respect copyright.PENANAh4fhMOpDfb
'Hey, look who it is. Lemme move my stuff.' She made some extra room on the desk for me.576Please respect copyright.PENANATEroW3Gby7
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.576Please respect copyright.PENANAJFKQu1puTL
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.576Please respect copyright.PENANAdaBAelfOq5
'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.'576Please respect copyright.PENANAn0XdFhA2df
The bloody cheeky smile of hers.576Please respect copyright.PENANAdqwweE4UrR
I didn't correct it until she was out of my sight.576Please respect copyright.PENANAKL4L7aJCaW
576Please respect copyright.PENANAVD2BtGrC0m
MOMENT 4:576Please respect copyright.PENANAJO4Pjz16sw
'What're you drawing?' Shit. Did I really just initiate conversation with her?576Please respect copyright.PENANAtckw6jTaXw
She looked up with less than half the surprise I expected. Couldn't even grant me the small victories.576Please respect copyright.PENANAlP0qaaE8uz
'Just people.'576Please respect copyright.PENANAWgkJflJL1v
I crouched down beside her and glanced into her notepad. It was faces. Luke, Chris, Jenny, Samantha and Adam (kissing), Paul, and -576Please respect copyright.PENANAGXGuoJMfor
'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.576Please respect copyright.PENANAjJIYqxKL8I
'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.576Please respect copyright.PENANAcxzYAsaibO
'Why're they all in pen? Do you do any painting?'576Please respect copyright.PENANAxJKQ4j4Q0x
She shrugged. 'I just sketch. Can I have it back now?'576Please respect copyright.PENANAHpD90gEZf1
'Sure, sorry.' I handed it back into her lap. 'You, um. You're a really good drawer.'576Please respect copyright.PENANAXIOiM3Z9Rm
'I know, right. It's such a pity the things I choose to draw are so damn ugly, then, isn't it?'576Please respect copyright.PENANAy4vk3a7QTY
'Bastard.'576Please respect copyright.PENANA2ouA3f3J7Y
But I laughed.576Please respect copyright.PENANAc8GgL9Y7Za
576Please respect copyright.PENANAG5zZBNhTSe
MOMENT 5:576Please respect copyright.PENANANBgmjCUB56
'Merry Christmas, you bugger.' I held out my two wrapped parcels for her.576Please respect copyright.PENANAUHbYDAxcFZ
'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.576Please respect copyright.PENANAWbv6fPdm2l
'Open em. Smaller one first.'576Please respect copyright.PENANA04tywgtahT
Oil paints and brushes. She never talked about money, but I knew why she only sketched.576Please respect copyright.PENANA52VoXK4PoF
The other gift was canvas paper.576Please respect copyright.PENANAgXVydC2QZ3
'Wow.' She said. That was all. 'I really don't - '576Please respect copyright.PENANAsoGKun69iK
'Come on, take it.'576Please respect copyright.PENANAg8fo27Grz5
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.576Please respect copyright.PENANAswV9gqSy8W
Part of me knew, though, that the joke wasn't the whole reason for her quick exit.576Please respect copyright.PENANAaaibmtO6SX
She didn't want me to see her crying.
MOMENT 6:576Please respect copyright.PENANAm2ewzM7itS
'It's a few weeks late, but you finally got your Christmas present.' She was holding something wrapped in plain brown paper and string.576Please respect copyright.PENANAMvTrJ3zhZo
'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.576Please respect copyright.PENANA0LPRxUCKST
It was a painting of us. Smiling, side by side, arms over each other's shoulders as we walked through a park.576Please respect copyright.PENANAqoMSZ7vJpE
'Do you like it?'576Please respect copyright.PENANARlcNSPYq8U
'I, um, yeah, I do, but -'576Please respect copyright.PENANAKkDicYc6B3
'But?'576Please respect copyright.PENANAelYR5CUUsB
'Nothing. It's nice.' I didn't know what to say.576Please respect copyright.PENANATgcoDc9Ona
'John?'576Please respect copyright.PENANAqRs7lMAzMD
'Yeah?'576Please respect copyright.PENANAUKY4SglMpR
'I, um. I really like you and. Um.'576Please respect copyright.PENANATOTsJcNEpM
'Okaaay, okay.' Shit, what? 'Right.'576Please respect copyright.PENANAuUg1dwuFeD
She took a few steps towards me, and (fuck) I stepped back.576Please respect copyright.PENANAGtqH9Ld6nf
It took only that moment - that one step back - to see the hurt staining her eyes.576Please respect copyright.PENANA8spULgdYq6
'No, wait, that's not what I - '576Please respect copyright.PENANAyx9o6766Td
'Yeah, sorry,' she said as she wiped her nose. 'Forget it. It's all cool.' She brushed down her sleeves. 'I should get going.'576Please respect copyright.PENANAbrY7vdIhw6
'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.'576Please respect copyright.PENANAOsLhgIAQyi
'I... I don't understand.'576Please respect copyright.PENANATOpyBkaIhd
'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.576Please respect copyright.PENANAxVj3QgDJVd
She managed a smile, a tear catching at the corner of her lip. 'It's all I need.'576Please respect copyright.PENANAV1py9qapb0
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.576Please respect copyright.PENANA9XwBOKrWeM
'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.576Please respect copyright.PENANAN94brO4pyn
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.