Perspective- Chapter 2

Chapter 2- James

I walked out of my third period music class and was hit by the biting cold wind, and there waiting for me outside was my very own ice queen. Lucy, what I wouldn’t give to know what she was thinking. Beautiful, unreachable, incredible Lucy, I’d been dating her on-and-off for a year and a half, but I still didn’t feel like a truly knew her. Sometimes I wondered if anyone truly did, if Lucy herself did. I smiled at her and walked over to embrace her skinny body.

“Hi” she greeted me,

“Hey” I replied, noticing the goose bumps on her arms, and taking off my jumper to drape across her shoulders.

Arm in arm we made our way across the school and to the table-tennis courts. We walked in silence, but this was good. No chance of arguing if you don’t talk. No chance of saying one stupid thing and messing everything up. Silence is safety. I could see Annabel waiting for us at our destination; she was watching our progress with a sad little smile on her face. I decided not to read too much into it, she’d been in a strange mood all day, and besides, who could understand girls and their mood swings?

Chris turned up shortly after us, walking over it was clear he had eyes only for Annabel. Lucy, Holly and I could see it clear as black ink on clean paper, but Annabel appeared totally ignorant of his infatuation with her. I smiled at my friends,

“I’m going to go and embarrass Jake at badminton club, you guys want to come?” it was a formality really, Lucy would come because she doesn’t like me going places alone, Annabel would usually come but not today because she preferred solitude when she was in bad moods, and Chris wouldn’t come because Annabel wasn’t coming. As predicted, Lucy chimed,

“I’ll come baby, but prepare to beaten! You coming Anna?” then Annabel declined the offer,

“Actually I might stay behind today, I’m not really in the mood for exercise.” I snorted at this,

“You’re never in the mood for exercise, even when you do come, you only watch” she rolled her eyes at me,

“Who needs sports when you’re a size 8 naturally?” she challenged. I shrugged and Lucy turned to Chris,

“Fine, Chris?” and just as I prophesized Chris said,

“Nah. I’ll chill with Annabel” so Lucy and I left to go to badminton club together, but I secretly thought my talents may be of better use at a circus as a fortune teller, since I could predict my friends actions so easily!

Jake was already at badminton club when we arrived,

“Arghh, you just had to bring your girlfriend along” he complained upon our arrival, Lucy shot him her middle finger and settled down at the side lines,

“You have ten minutes to complete a game with James, and then it’s my turn.” She informed him with authority.

“This,” Jake explained, “is why you weren’t meant to bring her”

“Shut up douche bag, and serve the shuttle” I told him.

Jake and I rallied the shuttle-cock backwards and forwards, his flame orange hair ruffling as he ran to hit it back. We weren’t too competitive with one another, it was a friendly game, but Lucy’s piercing green eyes followed the progress of the game with an intensity that told me she was taking it deadly seriously. Whether she was hoping I would win or not, I’m not sure. On the one hand she has a strong distaste for Jake and loves to see him lose, on the other I think there is a part of her that enjoys watching me fail. Either way she begun getting impatient after, according to my watch, seven minutes,

“C’mon, my go! Give me the racket Jake” she begged,

“Go play with someone your own size shorty!” Jake retorted, only mildly annoyed,

“Fine, I’ll go play with Ewan, how’d you like that James?” Ewan was a boy in the year below, a friend of my families, even so I was insecure about Lucy spending time alone with any other guy, and she knew it.

“Go on Jake, give her the racket” I called out, allowing the shuttle-cock to drop by my side. Jake violently launched the racket in Lucy’s direction, she plucked it out of the air and sent him one of her winning smiles,

“Thanks Jake!”

The game was on. Neither of us was willing to drop the shuttle. We put on smiles and faked laughter, congratulating the other for points won. But none of that was real, and we both knew it. Like our relationship, badminton was a game of constantly trying to win points, and never allowing the other to overtake. It was a close call, I won the first point, she the second and third, myself the fourth, and so on. Winning, drawing, losing, no certain result. When the bell rang neither of us had scored the eleven we’d agreed to play to, but she had scored nine and I had only managed eight,

“Hah. I win.” She gloated,

“No way, we didn’t finish” I argued,

“You would say that! Loser…”She made it sound like a joke, but something in her voice told me she meant more than that. Stepping out of the door, an old friend of mine Sean walked past,

“Hi” I called out, but he just walked on by,

“That was weird” I said, looking at Lucy,

“mmmmm,” she muttered avoiding my eye and feigning interest in her shoes. I looked at her for a couple of seconds, and then it hit me,

“Oh my God, you screwed him, didn’t you?” I demanded, Lucy looked at me in shock,

“No! No, of course I didn’t.” she angrily whispered, dragging me away from curious ears,

“Well you did something to look so guilty about, didn’t you?” I insisted,

“It was when we were broken up. It was just a kiss, that’s all.” She admitted, I looked at her in horror, then just turned and walked away.

I couldn’t believe she’d done this to me again. Again, first she messes around with her old next door neighbour, Josh, then she goes on a date with Connor from her maths class, now she kisses one of my oldest friends. Everyone told me I should break up with her, even Annabel, her best friend, didn’t really understand why I stayed with her. The truth of the matter is, I loved her far too much to ever leave her. I never understood the cliché saying ‘love hurts’, but it truly does. It kills like Aphrodite taking your heart and stamping on it with stilettos’. I’m in love with the most beautiful girl in the world, but the trouble always was that other people desired her too, and often she just couldn’t seem to turn down an opportunity.

Still angry, I stormed off to my maths class. Miss Wilson entered her classroom, patronising smile already plastered over a face more scattered with creases and lines than a map of the motorways. The ever present dot of spit at the corner of her mouth threatened to spill onto my page as she leant over my work to congratulate me on gaining a C grade for my latest exam. I sighed morosely, far more occupied with the Lucy drama than the surprisingly decent grade I’d achieved. I looked down at the sheet of simultaneous equations in front of me and, after forty five minutes I understood question one no better than I understood my girlfriend. I gave up, resolving to spend the remaining twenty minutes of the lesson playing Angry Birds on my phone under the table, at least they didn’t run off to kiss other people the moment I stopped playing with them, however briefly.

After the lesson I went to the toilets quickly before next lesson. I looked at into my own baby blue eyes, my lightly tanned skin, my blonde ‘bowl cut’ hair, And the hint of baby fat that was still hinted at around my jaw. It was hard to see why someone as stunning as her, was with someone like me in the first place.