by Writing Shark
Alice accepts that she belongs only to you
“What does that mean?” asks Connor who needs some time to understand. Then he still can’t believe it.
“Connor…” Alice is desperate. She doesn’t want to hurt the nice boy, doesn’t want to reveal who she is so endlessly proud of choosing instead, but Connor is too nice, has waited too long, given up too much to let Alice go just like that.
“Alice what are you trying to tell me?” It’s always her who has to decide! Connor never thinks that it’s not easy for her either. Never does he think about acting like her father. Alice is angry, sad and a little scared. She has never felt this way about Connor before, but now that she accepts measuring boys against their father, Connor seems so tiny to her.
“You’re really a nice boy and all,” she begins bumpily. It doesn’t help that there are friends of her behind the sliding glass door, a few of them friends of Connor too, watching the poor guy get his heart broken. “Really… But…”
“But what?” he asks, not realizing how much pain he’s causing himself. Furious, Alice wonders why he can’t let it go. Why can’t Connor just understand that it’s too much for her, maybe it’s always been too much? “Alice you do like me!” Now a few faces turn to the two of them, peering through the glass and the not-quite-closed sliding door into the garden.
“Connor, yes, I like you. But…”
“No ‘buts’!” Alice takes a step back. She has never seen her best friend like this. “Alice you love me! And I love you!” Now it’s out. That’s how long she’s waited for this. And a week ago it would have worked. It’s horrible and Alice is angry at Connor that she has to hurt him now. A week ago, before the kiss, before her father, she wanted to. But now… But she can’t say it. She just wants to leave. But Connor is too desperate. And people are watching the two of them. Frantic, Connor takes a big step towards Alice and grabs her.
Now the girl is really scared and Connor turns into something else in front of her eyes and in her mind. Daddy warned me about boys like this, she thinks in alarm, realizing the truth and finishing your plan of 20 years for you. But it’s too late. Connor has a firm grip on her, desperate, angry fear leaping from his face.
“Connor no!” shouts Alice but the boy is too desperate to hear. He yanks her close, grabbing her upper arms painfully, and instinctively Alice presses her arms in front of her body and holds her hands in front of her mouth. Her eyes stare fearfully at Connor and he realizes his mistake. It’s too late, for Alice and for him.
“I love you Alice” he says softly and dejectedly. “Why don’t you realize that?” But that question no longer matters. Connor no longer matters. Alice loves someone else now and he has to accept that.
But she can’t tell him. That would be too painful, even for her, who just wants to be a nice girl, and for whom the challenges of her life s too great, cause her too much pain. Now she understands her father, his words that she can come to him when things got too big for her. It’s a big, scary world out there where she needs to hurt people, fight for her luck and her wellbeing. I want to go to daddy! Without another word Connor lets go of her and immediately Alice turns away from him forever.
“Wait!” But Alice doesn’t listen and Connor doesn’t have the courage to run after her. She leaves the boy standing in the middle of the garden, ashamed and with a shattered heart, and rushes inside, past her friends.
“Alice what’s wrong?” Elise wants to know, who has witnessed everything. “What has he done?” But there are too many people in the room and Alice just runs upstairs to her friend’s room, the only room without people. Everything is so embarrassing, so terrible.
Angry and red headed, she throws herself into bed but the smell is different, the feeling too. Her daddy is missing. She is not at home and while pressing her head into the strange pillow she takes out her cell phone.
Elise comes rushing into the room and only her best friend prevents Alice from calling her father to be picked up.
“What the hell was that?” asks Elise, sitting down next to Alice on her bed. She takes refuge in her embrace. Alice doesn’t really cry, she’s too shocked and too distraught. She only knows that the embrace of her best friend is not enough. She wants someone else, stronger, to hug her.
“Connor said he loved me” the girl explains to her friend and Elise moans.
Alice likes her a lot, even if she is a difficult person. Elise is often selfish, something that comes from her troubled relationship with her single-parent mother. She also does not understand the relationship Alice has with her father, also a cause of the absence of a father figure in the life of the girl who, like Alice, is 20 years old. Elise has a fiery temper, is self-confident and often snippy but Alice knows that at heart she is a good girl like herself, even if she tries hard to hide it.
“Oh shit,” her friend groans, looking up at the ceiling. “All the while I put so much effort into this party and this jerk ruins everything for me.” Otherwise Alice would roll her eyes at her friend’s ability to make everything about her, but right now she just needs someone to be with her until her dad comes to her. Then Elise shows her nice side and hugs Alice. “But I thought you were into him? Didn’t you even wanted to kiss him?” Alice tells Elise everything, including the idea of the kiss. Only she did not tell the reason for it, and it makes the young Winters proud in a funny way that she is hiding something from Elise, that she is ahead of her. But it also makes her ashamed and she feels sorry for the rebellious girl who can actually be quite nice when she tries hard.
“Yes, I do,” Alice mumbles, shrugging her shoulders. She rubs her hand over her damp cheeks and sniffles. “I’ll be fine,” she says, smiling a soft smile.
“So what happened?” Elise doesn’t sound like she’s asking out of pity but out of selfish curiosity.
“Nothing,” Alice says defensively but Elise doesn’t believe her. “He’s just not the one.”
“Nonsense!” her friend laughs boisterously. “Really? You rave about him all the time. What did you say? He’s nice, a gentleman, and what else? Oh yeah, he’s so temperate.”
“But he can’t protect me!” cries Alice angrily. She is angry at herself for letting it get this far, for not confiding in her father. She’s angry at Connor for not being gentleman enough to accept that he forced her to be a girl her father wouldn’t like, that he didn’t protect her from herself like her daddy did. And she’s angry at Elise for probing when she should know how Alice feels. But what would she say if she knew the truth?
“What boy can do that?” Elise wants to know bitterly. She also wishes that this prince really existed, hat already many attempts in finding him and bracks constantly in front of Alice about her struggles. But Alice knows better. There are those heroes out there, the monsters who keep the darkness away. Not through love, but through severity.
“Boys? None.” Alice clenches her teeth. She shouldn’t have said that, is too in love.
“What’s that supposed to mean.” Elise is so terribly curious. She’s only ever been able to rely on herself, her mother is no help, and that’s made her so terribly curious and cunning. Alice gets even angrier.
“Nothing!” she hisses but Elise doesn’t believe it.
“You didn’t shoot Connor down because he was too weak, did you? Not just.” It’s not a question and Alice looks angrily at her friend but Elise hasn’t been raised well enough to jump at such small gestures. “You shot him down because…you have someone else.” Her eyes grow wide. “Shit Alice,” she says when the girl doesn’t contradict, just looks at her reproachfully. “Little Alice Winters has fallen in love with someone else!”
And then comes the inevitable, inquisitorial questioning. And Alice is terrified.
It is a terrible day.
Writing Shark 