Present Perfect(25)

“Maybe. See ya around, Tweet.”

When I heard the door click, I fell apart completely. The ache that had been in my stomach made its way through the rest of my body. I turned over and buried my face in a pillow to hide the sounds of my sobs. I couldn’t keep my body from shaking. I was burning up inside and out. I had never felt pain this intense before. The sense of loss I had when Noah walked out of this room was all consuming. I kept telling myself that I would talk with him tomorrow. He’s upset now, but once he’s had a night to think it over, he’ll realize I’m right. Why change something that has worked perfectly for us so far?





The two most devastating feelings in the world are failure and loneliness. All others pale in comparison.

Failure, to a certain degree, is under you’re control. In theory, if you work hard and give 100% you will achieve your goal. I think I work hard, but either I’m fooling myself or there is just an innate inadequacy gene woven through my DNA. Maybe I had a great, great, great, great, great grandparent, who was a total loser.

Loneliness, is worse than failure. Loneliness is controlled by others. I’ve heard people say, just because you’re alone doesn’t mean you’re lonely and you can be standing in a crowded room with people, but feel lonely.

There’s only one person in my life who reigns over whether or not I’m lonely. Whether I’m physically with him or not, knowing he’s in my life keeps the loneliness away. When he’s standing in front of me and I feel him slipping away, the ache of loneliness takes over and drowns me. Being that vulnerable to a person is frightening.





I hadn’t talked to Noah for three days. We had never gone that long without talking. In fact, we had never gone a day without talking or seeing each other. It was not for lack of trying on my part. I called several times, but he never picked up, the calls all went to voicemail. I saw him briefly at school. In class he was very distant, practically ignoring me. He’d say hi if we were near each other, but that was the extent of it. I spent a lot of time in the girl’s bathroom, crying after each encounter I had with him. I couldn’t concentrate on anything.

Immediately after school each day, I found myself in the journalism classroom flipping through all the pictures of him that had been taken for the article I wrote. Then I would go and stalk him. I hung out at the boy’s locker room, which garnered me some strange looks and a few phone numbers. He saw me a few times, but never acknowledged me. I was lost not having daily contact with him. I didn’t know who I was without him. My words the other night hurt him, I knew that, I guess I didn’t realize how much. He said he would be there if I needed him. I needed him now, but he wouldn’t even look at me.





It was the day of the dance. I got home earlier than usual. Emily was home for the weekend to help me get ready and she told me to get home as soon as possible. She said we needed several hours to achieve my look. I wasn’t sure how to take that. It usually didn’t take me that long to get ready for anything. At this point, I didn’t even want to go to the stupid dance, but I had asked Vincent. I couldn’t bring myself to call and cancel.

I was laying on the bed in Emily’s room while she rummaged through her closest for the perfect party dress for me. Thankfully, my sister was a pretty girl who went to a lot of dances and was similar in size to me. I was still shorter and a little curvier than Emily, but the difference wasn’t as noticeable now like when we were younger. I couldn’t have cared less about what I wore tonight. I heard her mumbling something while still in the closet. She stuck her head out when I didn’t respond.

“Amanda, did you hear me?” she asked.

“Huh?”

“How do you feel about yellow?”

“As long as it doesn’t have feathers glued to it, yellow is fine, Emily.” My voice was flat.

She looked at me for a second and then started laughing. “Right, I had forgotten about Tweety. That was hilarious. We knew exactly where you were. All we had to do was follow the trail of feathers.” I looked up glaring at her. “Too soon? Sorry. Okay, go take a shower, shampoo your hair, and shave everywhere.”

I glanced at the clock on her nightstand. “I have two and a half hours before I have to be there,” I whined.

“I know. You need to hurry up. We don’t have a lot of time.” She tugged my arms, pulled me to my feet, and pushed me out the door.

I did exactly what Emily told me to do even if it didn’t make sense to me. My brain was so numb I didn’t have the capacity to make any decisions right now. Noah was the only thought that played repeatedly in my head. I showered, shampooed, shaved, and returned to my sister’s room.

The dress she picked out was hanging on the closet door. It was the one she wore the first time she ran for homecoming queen. She won, of course. The dress was a pale yellow strapless taffeta. The bodice fit me perfectly, hugging me in all the right places, giving me a curve or two. The skirt hit me right at the knee and was full and flowing with three dimensional flowers sporadically placed close to the hem. She had matched it with a pair of silver strappy sandals with almost 3 inch heels. I wasn’t sure about the heels, but like everything else, I didn’t care.

Emily had me put the dress on first before tackling hair and makeup. I was sitting at her vanity covered in a huge towel so nothing would get on the dress. There was an awful lot to do for a dance I didn’t even want to attend.