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Sixteen
The
worst year of my life was my sixteenth. Having
lived only twenty-four, it could be argued that
my experience of anguish and upset is limited,
but although sixteen may have been a young age
to undergo such distress, I know a year like it
could never repeat itself. My sixteenth year was
the year I discovered love and it was also the
year I discovered the pain, agony and misery
that it goes hand in hand with it. Idealisms and
dreams that I lived for were lost in that year,
and the whole basis around which I had lived
through for as long as I remembered were crushed
beyond repair.
My year began in the same way as it did for many
kids my age-in a drunken stupor at some house
party. I had ended up at the celebrations of my
parent’s friends, and as the twelfth stroke of
the clock declared a new start for all, I was
crouched behind my parent’s friends potting
shed with their sixteen year old son sneaking a
fag before wandering back in to be smothered in
drunken hugs and affections. Joe and I had known
each other for all of our lives. At just four
months, his mother brought him and Nick, Joe’s
elder brother by three years and four days, to
see ‘little Ellis’, Jane’s adorable new
daughter. Of course, neither Joe or Nick
remember this, and my first memory of the three
of us is when at four and a half years old, I
searched for the two of them for almost an hour,
before they leapt out of the tree above me,
scaring me half t0 death. The three of us formed
an alliance against our younger siblings, going
to extreme lengths to annoy Chelsea, the newest
addition to my family, and James, Joe and
Nick’s third member.
Growing
older, of course, the three of us grew apart,
first when Nick tired of Joe’s company, and
mine, seeking ‘more mature’ friends, and
discovering an interest in girls. Although at
the time I never saw it, looking back at old
photos, he was far from unattractive, and he of
course used this to his full advantage.
Joe and I endured our friendship a little
longer, both of us feeling out of place in our
families, Joe felt he was a social outcast
unlike the rest of his immensely popular family,
and me feeling as though my complex way of
thinking and constant questioning of life
bewildered my straight thinking and conforming
family. However, as we left primary school, we
both left for different schools, and new and
exciting lives as ‘grown up people’, and, in
the course of things, developed into two very
different people who couldn’t see eye to eye.
We both became increasingly confident in the
validity of our beliefs, and conceited in our
assurance of our own opinion, as teenagers so
often do. Whereas before, we would have listened
to the other, and learnt, we now dismissed each
other’s ideas as ridiculous and below us.
In my fifteenth year, events between our
families meant I was forced to spend a great
deal of the summer with Joe, and we slowly
apologised to the other, and realised what we
had thrown away, learning to forgive and throw
aside preconceptions in our out of school
environments. Before we had chance to
rehabilitate what once existed, however, Joe was
snatched from me, and thrown into a relationship
with a pretty blond popular something, and
suddenly was propelled to dizzy heights of
popularity. Being highly critical of the
cliquey, hypocrital people who moved in the
circles I had been offered and had rejected, I
quickly distanced myself from Joe, not wanting
to end up in circles I disliked so strongly,
thus ruining what we almost fixed.
At the time, I knew what I was losing, and that
a friendship with someone that I shared so much
with was being wasted, but popularity is
something that I have always seen as being over
rated. When I started secondary school, I found
myself in circles with people I disliked, and
yet went to great lengths to please. People
clamoured to know me, and I felt really wanted
for the first time in my life. It took only
weeks for me to realise that living in an
environment that required you to be someone else
all of the time was something I could not live
with, and so found myself new friends, ones who
loved me for me - and got out of the stifling
environment of falseness.
I hardly spoke to Joe between summer and the New
Year, and when I did it was when my mind was
clouded by alcohol, and we spent much of the
night talking about Joe’s girlfriend and how
much he missed her.
Our meetings were scarce, few and far between
after that, and I never once missed them.
Although not officially ‘popular’ I had more
true friends than could be counted on two hands,
quite an amazing achievement, and I was never
short of someone to talk to when confronted with
life.
And so I was slightly taken aback by the
irregularity of matters when Joe stopped to wait
for me to walk me home when I got of the school
bus in early June. He said he was wondering how
my exams were going and said he was sorry we
hadn’t talked for so long. When the
four-minute walk to my house reached it’s end
I said goodbye, and, slightly disorientated by
the whole thing, made my way inside, bemused,
and a little irritated that my routine had been
confused. I didn’t give the matter a second
thought, but on the forth day of occurrence, I
asked after Joe’s girlfriend, and was
horrified by the tears that followed. I felt
that the tears unlocked his emotions, and
somehow built an unwelcome bond between us that
I may not be able to break. She had cheated on
him and dumped him at the beginning of the week,
closely followed by his demise from the
‘popular’ social circles.
This was how I ended up sat in the pub with him
on Friday night. Although we were too young to
be legally served, I was a waitress in the
restaurant extension of the pub, and they seemed
to overlook my lacking of two years needed for
their supply of vodka to me to be legal. Being
so naïve and young, I had decided that a night
of fun and alcohol would help cure his
self-pity. I didn’t realise that the alcohol
was actually a way of me trying to detach myself
from Joe’s real emotions. Of course, this
could never work, and I ended up with an almost
delirious Joe falling over himself in the high
street telling me how special I was before
launching himself at me. I found myself hesitate
before putting my arms in front of me to prevent
him from kissing me, and scared senseless by my
near escape, I deposited him at his house
hurriedly and went back to the safety of my own
home. If he wanted to rebound, he could find
some other fool. After sixteen years, the least
he could do was respect me.
Of course he was repentant and full of apologies
the next day, and not having the heart or the
energy to do anything else, I laughed it off and
told him not to worry. Besides, the night had
been a blurry haze of occurrences, with events I
couldn’t, or wouldn’t, rationalise. Better
to just dismiss the whole evening as a blip of
confusion in an otherwise understood existence.
Things began to retire back to normal, with Joe
occasionally waiting for me to walk me home at
night, but that being my only time spent with
him.
In July, I found myself well and truly thrown
against my will into the path of Joe’s life
– why could I not escape from this tangled
web? Every time I tried to manoeuvre my way out
an find an escape, I found myself bound and
stuck in amongst the delicate, intimate threads
of the web. I was forced to spend an entire
evening lodged between Joe and his ex girlfriend
Stephanie, desperately trying to engage them
both in conversation. Our parents had all
decided to go out for a meal together, and not
wanting to upset Joe or ‘Stephie’, insisted
I was placed in between – but their icy
exteriors managed to penetrate me. Our
parent’s tact knew no boundaries. We all sunk
to sitting in stony silence, me feeling their
glares, as they pierce through me to the enemy
on the other side. It was with great relief I
agreed to go to the shop down the road with Joe
half way through the meal. Silently we made our
way round to the back of the restaurant and Joe
pulled out his fags, offering one for!
me, before taking one himself. I pulled out a
lighter, and lighted up, and drew in the smoke
in long, deep breaths. I look back at the times
when I smoked with resentment. But, at the time,
I never contemplated how difficult it would be
to give up. I seemed to enjoy poisoning my body.
Joe suddenly looked up, and, avoiding my glare,
said, ‘’I’m so sorry’.
‘For what?’
‘For this. You don’t need it. You’ve been
really great to me and I repay you by lunging
myself at you blind drunk, showing you no
respect, and making you sit through this with us
two’. He sounded sincere and apologetic, but
it just made my angry.
‘Don’t apologise! This is hardly your fault!
Did you dump her? No. Did you cheat on her? No.
Did you estrange her from all of her friends?
No. Did you leave her with only one friend who
she doesn’t like much anyway? No. NO, NO, NO!
You bloody well did not. So don’t apologise to
me, just hold your head up high and pretend that
you sure as hell don’t care!’
I stopped, out of breath. I didn’t know where
my outburst came from. I’d thought I was too
detached from the issue to have that much
passion for it. It was typical of me to be
oblivious to an event that would eventually
stain my life until it was upon me. Joe looked
at me, trying to weigh me up, deciding on his
next move. Slowly, and cautiously, he drew in
another drag from his cigarette. He obviously
subscribed to the same view as me - that smoking
must make you an adult.
‘She did me a favour. She made me see how much
I hated that lifestyle. I never fitted in; I
hated them all, yet I was too scared to let it
go. I didn’t see it at first, but by losing
all of them, they allowed me to get closer to
someone I love. You’re the best friend I’ve
ever had. In fact, you’re my only friend. You
mean so much to me, you’ve always been there.
Don’t tell me to get over Stephanie - I
already did, and I wouldn’t have coped if it
weren’t for you. Not because I loved her –
because I realised I never felt anything for
her, and the realisation that I wasted so much
time on her devastated me. But because you were
there, I realised someone could … actually …
mean something more to me.’
I could feel his eyes digging into me, glaring
at me intently. Grudgingly, I shifted my focus
to meet his gaze with caution and apprehension.
As soon as I met them, the breath was forced
from me, and I nearly doubled over with pain.
Shit. I loved this kid. I loved him, and what
made it worse was that I always had, I just
never realised. And in the second I looked I
understood where the reasoning behind the clichéd
love poetry and tales of love came from. Yet
this didn’t convey that. I have never felt so
much pain. I saw love in his eyes, and I knew he
loved me too. And yet, what if? What if this
happened and it turned out I was the rebound
girl. My friends hated him, and he wasn’t who
I wanted to be with. I saw the future in those
seconds. A future of security, safety and trust.
A future where I always knew where my life was
going. One where I had no power. One where I
would conform and follow the clichés of life.
Apparently, love was addictive. To go in for
this now could !
mean a lifetime of falling in and out of love.
Or, it could go the other way – I could end up
knowing no love but his. There was no way I was
living like that. I was a free person, and I
would never belong to anyone but me. As these
thoughts raced through my consciousness, I
became short of breath, and my panic must have
shown on my face. Pulling away from his gaze, an
ache inside me longed to change my mind - and I
looked upon myself cynically for letting myself
feel these ridiculous school girl pangs. I
concentrated on the intricate paving on the
ground, and then, on the endless, bleak
limestone slabs that extended beyond them.
Pulling my breaths into a regular pattern, I
murmured, ’I’m cold. Lets go back in.’ I
didn’t wait for him. Selfishly, I left Joe,
bewildered, crouched behind the back of the
restaurant, as the sky above him collapsed from
the tremendous weight of the rain above it. The
heavy droplets cascaded relentlessly around him
as I left him alone, before making my excuses to
my mother, and walking home in the pouring rain.
The following Monday dawned with clear blue
skies, and a fresh, new clean feel in the air.
The atmosphere in my mind contradicted the
hopeful new day, clouded with confusion. I knew
I had been plunged into love, and every time I
remembered the moment when I looked into Joe’s
eyes, my whole body seized up, and I couldn’t
breath properly. I worked myself up all day,
worrying about what I would do, when I would see
him. My best friend, Sophie noticed my anxiety,
and asked me in a sympathetic way if I needed to
talk. I told her I was just tired, and that I
was really upset about the detention I had just
been given. She believed me, and gave me an
empty, mislead hug. I felt deceptive and cruel -
my friends were willing to give me so much
affection and I couldn’t even return honesty
to them. They were all so loving, and yet I
could not bring myself to give any love to
anyone.
I needn’t have worried about what I would say
to Joe. When I got off the bus that night, a
vast expanse of empty gravel and tarmac awaited
me. Joe wasn’t there. I walked home in seven
minutes by myself, pondering the French exam I
had just taken. Tuesday, Wednesday and the rest
of the week emerged in much the same way, and a
month passed in which I did not see or speak to
Joe. This wasn’t like before. I missed him;
his company and the way he made me feel special.
I didn’t want to love him, but I did, and the
month I spent without him seemed pointless,
endless and dull. I couldn’t believe how
easily I had become a slave to love. I had put
myself above that.
The summer holidays arrived, uneventful, and I
found myself sat at home, watching daytime TV
and writing realms and realms of monotonous,
uninspiring poetry and love sonnets. Rather than
going, I found myself refusing invitations of
nights out from friends and potential dates so
that I could lie on my bed listening to ‘Anna
Begins’ by the Counting Crows. I had no
energy, and no desire to enjoy life. What was
the point? Love would only get in the way. I
despised that word – I wished for it just to
be mere infatuation – that word was so much
less repulsive to me. The day after my birthday,
Mum announced she had booked a holiday for us
with Joe’s family. I responded to the
‘exciting’ news by being miserable and
wondering how to spend the last few days of my
life.
We travelled to Spain in the middle of August
where we booked ourselves into the
unimaginatively named ‘Beachside Hotel’. On
our first day, I prided myself on managing to
avoid Nick and Joe with great ease as they made
full use of the hotel’s leisure facilities and
I sat on the beach, in amongst coke cans and
cigarette ends, reading my Sylvia Plath novel
twice over. Avoiding Joe during the evening
became more difficult when my mum booked a table
for everyone at a restaurant down the road. I
chose a place at the opposite end of the table
to Joe. He kept glancing over at me, and I
noticed for the first time how different he was
to the little boy I knew as a kid. He was
beginning to fill out, and actually looked a
little like Nick. He wasn’t a kid anymore, but
then, I realised, neither was I. I wasn’t an
adult either, I’m still not, even now, my
irrational thinking means I am too irregular to
ever be called an adult. Joe kept looking at me.
I kept catching his eye, and he would!
abruptly pull away defensively. I felt a sudden
pang of sadness-I had hurt him and I had hurt
myself and he had done nothing but love me.
Suddenly, I felt an alien build up of moisture
in my eyes. I never cried! I haven’t cried
since the time when I was nine and swung so high
on the swings in the park that I went flying
off, head first, into the hostile gravel, and
broke my nose. And now I was going to cry again.
I hastily turned to my Dad and told him I had a
headache. I threw my chair back from the table
with relief, and began to trudge back to the
hotel, the gravel crunching beneath my feet. As
I approached the gate, I felt a hand on my
shoulder, and I spun round to face Joe’s
accusing eyes.
‘You’ve been avoiding me.’
I looked away. ‘I thought you must hate me.
After I ran off that night. You stopped calling,
you stopped waiting. You didn’t come to the
bus stop.’ My lip trembled, and I tensed my
lip to make it stop. Now he looked away,
embarrassed.
‘I couldn’t, I…’
I looked questioningly. He looked up, breathed
in deeply, sighed and turned back, with a look
of determination set on his face. ‘I love you.
There. I love you Ellis, and you don’t love me
back, and it hurt, it hurt too much for me to
see you. So I didn’t.
I just stopped.’
Now it was my turn to look away. ‘I need a
fag,’ I thought. Instead, I said, ’I do. I
do love you but I can’t, I wont, I don’t
want to be hurt, I can’t belong to you, if
when you leave you take my heart with you!’
This time I held his gaze, and he held mine.
With horror, I became aware of the tear escaping
done my cheek. Joe raised a gentle arm, and
brushed it away. He took me in his arms, and I
felt drawn towards him. This time, when he
leaned In towards me, and his lips brushed mine,
I kissed him back. I have never felt so terrible
in all of my life. I didn’t want this, but my
heart would not let me have it any other way. I
was defenceless. I couldn’t believe the
pathetic, idiocy of it all. Why couldn’t I
just get over myself! I didn’t want a Mills
and Boon ‘novel’ for a life, dammit!
And yet I couldn’t help but succumb to my
emotions. I had to let myself lose my grasp of
my preconceptions and contrived ideas about
love, just for a little while…
We spent every minute we could cling onto
together, but we never told anyone. We seemed to
have a mutual understanding that it would be
secret. We knew it could be no other way as when
we went home, it would be over. I tried to soak
up every memory every feeling, every twinge of
love that I felt as I lay in his eyes on the
litter ridden beach, my prejudices against
letting these emotions cornered off into a box
in the dark realms of my mind, for a little
while. It rained all the while that we were
there, and I returned from Spain with no
evidence that I had ever been there.
On my first day home after the holiday, Joe and
I walked by the river, hand in hand. We walked
to the swing bridge, and we stood in the middle,
as it rocked us back and forth, back and forth.
He knew - he knew, but I told him anyway. I told
him that we couldn’t, I couldn’t do with
this, that it would never work. I told him that
he did not really love me and that he was better
of without me and that I would only burden his
life and he just let me terminate our love –
why didn’t he stop me? I suppose he knew me
only too well, perhaps because he didn’t ever
really love me. Maybe I was actually rebound
girl. I try to persuade myself not – otherwise
I have lived without mutual love – but what
if? I felt shattered inside, because I knew that
he did love me, and I couldn’t bring myself to
tell him the truth. Because I didn’t really
know what it was myself. I knew I didn’t want
to be in this, that I couldn’t give my heart
away, because it couldn’t let it get mangled
and ruined in my!
sixteenth year. But I didn’t know why I
couldn’t let myself fall in love. I just knew
it couldn’t happen. We wept together on the
bridge, then we crossed to the other side and we
walked back home, silently, not touching. As we
parted, we touched briefly, and both flinched, I
knew he felt sense of foreboding behind our
unity too. He left me at my gate, and he went
home.
The next day, I went out with my friends, and we
danced all night to songs I hadn’t heard since
my fifteenth year. They seemed trivial and
unreal. When September dawned, I was happy, and
I went back to college as a better person. I
knew that I was alive, even if I had denied
myself happiness.
When I clamoured off the bus, on my first day
back at college, Joe wasn’t there. I felt a
momentary pang, but I made the 8 minute journey
home by myself. It was hard without him, but I
could do it. I didn’t need him. I knew now. I
knew why I should never fall in love, because I
would always sabotage it, and then I would have
ruined my routine. Gradually, things seemed to
get back to how they were before – well, my
routine and daily life at least. I didn’t
forget Joe, and every time I saw him I felt a
stab of regret for my own stupidity, and the
realisation that I couldn’t have him back,
because even though I needed him, I didn’t
want him.
I spent the new year of my seventeenth year with
an early night, watching Moulin Rouge on video,
and being glad that I got myself out of love,
before I ended up like Ewan McGregor, hopeless,
sad and lost. |
