The Unwritten Rule (15 page)

“No, we will,” says Pope, taking the phone back. Your mother needs to relax and that’s what you will. Call if you need anything, but we’ll be home early tomorrow afternoon. Brianna hang back just as the kitchen. - Ready? She says, and seat. I hope you ask me what my parents said, or how they are. Usually want to know that. “Great, we already then, he says, and do not ask my parents at all. - Are you okay? “I say, and then listen to his mother down the stairs. I can smell her perfume, which is all the flowers, sweet, charming and relaxing, but every time I get a whiff of it just want to run. Brianna says nothing, just take my hand and rushed outside. Squeeze your fingers once, gently, to let you know I’m here, and I pressed back, just let it go and says, “You drive, right? -Keeping your keys to me. “You Want to go with me? What about Ryan? “We will continue,” he says, and gets into the car. And so we left, she and I together, with Ryan behind us. Brianna says no word on the way to the bowling alley and I … well, for once I feel split in two. I am a fair person and that person is now very confused. And very scared.

SCOTT ELIZABETH THE UNWRITTEN RULE

PURPLE ROSE FORUM

TRANSLATED BY: + DaRkGiRl + CORRECTED BY: Alice_vampire

No bowling. Brianna is a strange mix of boring and hysterical, talking about when Ryan tries to say something and then sighed when he’s street, shooting glances that say “you can believe it.” I smiled back tentatively, and she says: “Well, let’s refresh ourselves, and hold my hand, crawling toward the bar.

“I can not believe I brought here,” he says after taking our drinks. “Nearly two months and this is all? I know we had our most

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first date here, but still. Not even think he knows how upset I am and oh, of course, should have known this would happen. I follow his gaze, I see that Greg and a number of people at the school have arrived. All are turned towards us. - Bowling, uh? -Greg tells Brianna. What are the chances? “Stalker” she says, but she is smiling, and I realize what she was doing when I called my parents. She called Greg. She asked him to find. And I just did not realize. I follow him blindly and I see her, my best friend, sitting next to Greg, pushing when rubbed his knee, but gently, teasing and then understand why this is happening. Brianna wants Ryan is exactly where she wants and elsewhere. She wants her, and she wants him to love her just as she said. But she does not love him. She does not love at all. She does not trust in love, he flees, he leaves behind. All boys who are really concerned about it, have been left behind and I know. I’ve seen. Brianna wants people who are supposed to love the look with their hearts, and their parents to look and think only of themselves. This is what she knows, and nothing else, all he knows, deep and can be real, it falls into a category that she does not like. One category is terrified. But then where does that leave me? The sister says she never had, but that I am, your best friend who has always been on his side. She says she loves me. Did you really say? “Brianna,” I say. - What? “She says, sounding distracted. - Can we talk a sec?

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“Sure,” she says, laughing when Greg winks, and then gets up and Cuza her arm through mine, bringing me to his side. What? “You-you-not you and Ryan - Ryan and me? “He says, know that we are not talking now, but I need to give some space. He is well. “No,” I say. Not true, not why. Not you, Brianna, you do not love him. “Of course,” she says, but his smile falters a bit. “Not everyone is going to leave you,” I say. You know that right? I mean your parents. - What are you talking about? Says, interrupting, his voice is sharp. Nobody ever lets me. Whenever I get bored and find someone better. That’s what happens. “I know” I say softly. I just, you know that I will never leave you, right? She stares at me, his face still expressionless, and then smiles, not a real smile, but smile Brianna style, that shows the world that when you go for it, that says she’s fine, everything is fine . That smile means nothing. “Of course I know, I mean who would you be without me? “She shakes her hair and says. There is a brush in my bag. Use it okay Your hair will look much better if you do. And then he goes, back to where everybody is. Ryan says his name when he meets her and says: - “Hey, Brianna can we talk? -And her eyes go wild for a moment and then makes his typical smile and keep walking towards Greg, sitting next to him. I’m taking off my shoes, fighting tears, then go to the counter and return it. I go, Brianna does not need me, she said I needed her, she did not even see me as a person. I’m just one thing. I’m just a thing for her it always been this way?

No. I can not believe that. I know, she chose me, I speak with me. I touch the collar, remembering her face when I gave it.

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I take a deep breath and walked toward her. “I guess, you’re going,” she says, sounding bored and looking upset, holding in one hand the keys to his car, when the step, see what I’ve done. He said he had seen, really seen, and she did not like. Do not like it at all, because she needs me to be the Sarah that she knows that he has always been his shadow happy. She needs, I need it. “If I say, because I can not do this, I can not be that person, be the Sarah that she wants … right now I can not even be close to it. I head for the exit, take the collar and keeping it in my pocket. I can not use it now, and get home, I’ll find someone to take me when they leave. I turn when I reach the door and they are all about Brianna. Even older people who are there to play, pending her, glancing from the corners of his eyes. I see Ryan walking towards her. I stop, and I hear someone say: - Are you going, or what? “And then shake my head and I turn back, walking slowly into the bowling and watching Brianna up, showing exasperation on his face when he looks at Ryan. “Look,” she says. I thought the pins would suck, but not so bad and yet you’re sitting alone, looking for who knows what, and you know what? I have no desire to deal with it. To deal with you. “I really need to talk, OK? “Says Ryan, Brianna and laughs, her hair billowing behind her. “You need, you need. I understand it, you, you, you. What about boys? “She looks at everyone gathered around acting as if they had heard every word. Even when they have done. Everyone is listening now she raises her voice, this is Brianna 101, this is Brianna when … “It’s over,” she says, and this is Brianna when someone leaves.

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“You and I, is not working. I need time to think, and I can not do with you trying to-talk ? every five seconds. I just, I can not deal with you now. Okay? I do not want to see you now, so go. - Imre? You mean, we … - Are you going to repeat everything you say? Do not know what that means go? “Brianna said. And why is leaving now? She said she loved me, I looked into his eyes and said so. But she also said that he never wanted to be left, and Ryan was right. At some level, he knew that would happen. So she’s leaving. She is ending, and I go out. I stop in the parking lot, my heart beats so strong, I feel strange, without a weight on top, like it was driven to another world. Brianna said she would continue with Ryan. I wanted to keep her. She sounded so sure, and I never thought … Never thought I’d let him go. - Sarah? But she did, he did and he is here now, he’s in the parking lot and I turn to him. “Hey,” he says. What are you doing out here? I drink. “Waiting for someone to approach me home. Oh … and how long you wait? I do not know. - I can … I can take you home? She left, She said she did not want to see it. He is now free. Both are free. Seat, and he smiles.

SCOTT ELIZABETH THE UNWRITTEN RULE

PURPLE ROSE FORUM

TRANSLATED BY: Virtxu CORRECTED BY: Sera

star with Ryan is like … It’s like opening a door to a room that was always there, waiting.

It’s easy, the kind of ease that feels good. Perfect.

When we reached my house, he parked in the garage and listen when I talk about my parents, how her mother failed attempt to enter the

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Fabulous Family Cooking Contest. He knows she had tried to get in there, though, he has been apart of my life for a while. Smile when you say that. “Years,” he says. I wanted to be here, really here, like this, you, from eighth grade. “Me too, I say, true words, honest words. Are real. We’re real. Then we kissed, in the garage, not in the romantic moonlight or candle or anything like that. We kissed in the glow of a party, where everyone can, and will, look at us. We kiss in private, here in the darkness of his car. We kissed and I know that will never be another kiss like this that will never be another time like this, where I feel so alive, so new, so free. So happy. Brianna just know that just broke up with him, I know this is very fast, and that maybe I should slow down and not fall for it. In Ryan and me. But I want to fall. - Want to join? “I say, I know I should be playing it safe. Should be thinking about everything that has happened tonight. Leave some time to think about it. I do not need time, however. You can not imagine how I feel. And I know it either. I answered with another kiss, and both breathe heavily when we separated, with shining smiles on our faces. His fingers caught mine, entwining around, as we walk inside, and not talking. Do not feel like you have to do it, do not feel it necessary to fill this silence. I’m not nervous, I’m not overwhelmed because it is here. To be with him. I’ve imagined him here, like, a hundred, no, a million times since I realized that I liked in the eighth grade, and never in polite conversations sweet dreams.

No, I always wanted it that he was doing this, climb the stairs with him, feeling his hand, the bigger and hotter than mine, worn and

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roughened by the pictures you have drawn and molded it work during the summer, returning from the skinny she wanted, up to the lanky, muscular guy I want too. In my room he looks around, his fingers interlaced between mine yet, seeing each thing that makes me who I am, shoes spilling out of my closet, small sketches of shoes which I wanted to put on my wall, and dirty clothes on the floor that mom always gets me to pick. I’m not worried about any of that. I know I have to explain why I like doing what I do, who I am. No I have to apologize for not being perfect. All I do is be here, being me, and I’m doing. So when he turns to me, smiling and moving into my sketches, I walk toward him, stopping in his arms. “I’ve always liked your shoes,” he says. I’ve always liked, and then we hugged, and although I’ve never been hugged so much, never like this, because Ryan’s arms around me, he smiles at me. Hold me, and then his mouth is with mine again. We ended up in my bed, entwined in each other, and this is enough is enough. Here there is no pressure, no rush, nothing that Ryan and I have to be. Just be there. This. This is all that needs to be. Around two o’clock your stomach growls and smile, our legs are intertwined together. Still I have my clothes and he his but I am more naked than I’ve ever been, we spent hours in bed together just looking at each other, touching, kissing and talking and I am filled with joy. Incandescent. This is happiness beyond the excessive use garbage as a word beyond the first bright letters that mean nothing when strung together. They mean something now, and I know this is like when you and someone just tight. How simple is it, how amazing. - Hungry? “I say, and descended the stairs, my hand holding yours. In the kitchen, preparing sandwiches together, moving as if we were one, he standing behind me while I get the bread, my arms around him while placing a thick layer of peanut butter and then on a slice of apple.

SCOTT ELIZABETH THE UNWRITTEN RULE

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I shake my head when he offered me half and said: - I still do not eat apples? Really? ‘And he knows that, remember a year ago when, for a time, we face an apple a day in our middle school lunch, and I always gave mine or throwing them away. He cares, I know, and this makes my inner hum, beaming with happiness for something that is much more than desire, which, I admit, I also feel. We eat our sandwiches under the moonlight that filters in the kitchen, a simple peanut butter for me and one with apple and peanut butter for him, and then we kiss again, kissing how anyone in the world has Indeed, it never will do, because I do not think anyone knows the sweetness, virtue, to see Ryan put the dish in the sink, turning to me. From the way his slow smile she looks as if there where it should be, where you want to be. Of impatience waiting for her mouth with mine is and how we both stopped, pushing our mouths to breathe, fire to hold and then burning to ashes as he ends and I begin, and this is a problem because I do not care. I just want this to last forever. Finally we fall asleep when the sun starts to rise, his hand stroking my hair as pink across the sky and the stars fade. “I love you whispered as my eyes flutter closed and when opened, happy, very happy, I see him with a beaming smile. “I did not say this so soon, so I waited until you were asleep,” he says, smiling, and we both laughed, bathed in the dim light of sunrise. I sit up and touch their shoulder, feeling his skin under my hands and I see him watching, her hands touching my skin with soft, warm strokes, small circles up and down by my side making me arch toward him. “I love you” I say, and the words float out of me as if they had wings, rising in the air, and then when he bends over me, and says, “We have time-with a small question in voice, but not worried about asking, I nod.

I say: “A long time and not sleep now, not in my blood vibrating within me, and that’s the best part. We have time. That we will. We have it.

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But of course I fall asleep. I wake, I see the clock strikes ten and look at him, her dark hair falling across his forehead, the brightness of the sunlight on your skin, and I remember playing it. I move closer, pressing my skin against his, with the only thought to touch him again, causing me to touch, and he opens his eyes slowly, blinking. “Sleepy” I say, I worry, for a moment, my breath, close my body and my hair without brushing, and then it wiped away by your smile, by the way Sarah whispers, ? and looks at me as if I was the sun and stars. As if I would be all. Asked by their parents because just remember mine and her eyes widened. He sits up, looking for my phone, and calls. I listen as he says he’s fine, he feels not having called, as his hand gently squeezed mine. I can hear the voice of his father, raised, on the other side of the line, but I can not understand the words. “I really am not calling, OK? I did not want to wake you and mom. But I’m alive. And yes, I’m with a friend, “she smiles aside, and hold my breath. Oh, no … Well, well. I will. He sighs, hanging up the phone and says, “Punished. I have to make lunch every day. - You can cook? “I saw last night,” he says, and smile and he smiles back and then we slid together, his mouth on my neck, pushed him closer, whispering your name, and this is better than the best, is beyond that, more than anything. And then my door opens. Ryan and I move at a time, covering them with blankets, the blanket, pulling them around us as we joined, and what I tell my parents? They are understandable but it is not. How I can go from not even talking about any guy to have one at home in my room on my bed? - What the hell is happening? They are my parents. Is Brianna.