You know you are bored when you find coloring lame posters really interesting. It was a boring afternoon, in a boring concert at a boring school with really boring students. Sam was waiting for some force of nature to rescue him from the treacherous claws of boredom. Sam was the ‘Helper’ at the school concert. ‘Helper’ was just a polite term used by the 7th grade teachers to say ‘you suck at everything else but we can’t leave you behind so go fix the lightings and the confetti’.
At around 2 in the afternoon god answered Sam’s prayers and gifted him with the force of nature that was gonna save him, Natalie. “hey” she said , “sup?” Sam replied. Natalie and Sam weren’t best friends or anything of that sort, they just hung out whenever they needed to get away from all the noise and tension. ‘are you busy?’ she inquired and Sam with a shrill tone mocking Mrs. Pinkle replied, ”The Helpers are the most important and busy unit in the school!” Natalie laughed while holding her hand against her mouth. Sam always wondered why she did that, he dint understand why would anyone wanna hide a smile so warm and so beautiful. She stretched out her arm, held his hand and pulled him on his feet,” come with me”. Both of them walked soundlessly till they reached the football ground. Sam couldn’t handle the suspense anymore and blurted out, “where are we going?” .On that question her icy blue eyes sparkled with excitement and the corners of her lips curled, she walked towards the fence and kicked a perfect square shaped hole in it. He was stunned and before he could utter another word Natalie squatted and crawled through the hole in the fence. Sam’s hands were trembling, his heart was racing and beads of sweat rolled down his forehead but all of that was overcome by something that humans have been a sucker for since ages, curiosity.
After a few more minutes of torturous silence she decided to be merciful,” God that concert is so suffocating, I needed to get out of there and from the look on your face I figured u needed saving too “ she said gleefully. Every part of that sentence was true but it still didn’t answer where she was taking him, “but where are we going?” Sam pleaded a bit too desperately than he had intended. ”oh God Sam, what are you so paranoid about, I am not going to murder you in some dark ally reeking of urine and alcohol”. Natalie saw the growing discomfort on Sam’s pale face and caved in,” fine I will tell you where we are going provided you shut up about it and have a blast with me, deal?” .It wasn’t much of a deal but that’s all he was getting, “deal” he said finally.
***
Sam was very annoyed with Natalie when she told him that all the fuss was about going to the mall. He dint understand why did she have to be so secretive and dramatic about going there. But all was forgiven when she smiled and looked at him innocently with her piercing icy blue eyes and said,”sowwyy”.
They watched a movie in which zombies take over the world and build a new government, Sam wasn’t sure whether to laugh at the film or be pissed at the director for making a movie which was a ruthless assault on all the senses. “That was like the best movie I have ever seen! Let’s watch it again!“ Sam remarked sarcastically. “oh come on it wasn’t that bad, our government should learn from the zombies !“ she said suppressing a laugh.
They spent the whole evening playing in the arcade, shooting random robots, singing horribly at the karaoke station, playing air hockey and numerous fun and exhausting games. “This sucks” , “ aww, don’t cry Sammy you only lost like all the games” she said in a fake apologetic tone with a wide grin on her face. Her honey like golden hair was tied up in a ponytail and a wisp of her hair was matted to her cheek due to all the hard work she put into beating him in all the games. ”Don’t worry I’ll beat you next time, well at least in one game” Sam said nudging her shoulder with his. “oh um yeah, let’s eat” she said without looking at Sam and paced ahead of him. Sam was completely incredulous and was worried if he had said or done something to hurt her, “hey wait up!” she was already sitting in one of the chairs in front of pizza hut. “Hey, is everything fine?”, she lifted her head and looked at him and for a few moments he could see in her eyes that something was enormously wrong but then she smiled and squeezed his hand and said, “everything is lovely”.
They ate together and had the most wonderful time. This hang out was unlike any other they ever had, he had never felt close to Natalie but the past few hours changed everything they had and everything he felt for her. He had an inexplicable feeling in his chest everytime she smiled, he was suddenly nervous and giddy about how it would be with her in the future and wondered if she felt the same way too.
It was late evening and they needed to get home before their parents came looking for them. They were standing at the mall’s entrance and Sam was babbling about how cool it would be if he owned a kick ass dragon, when Natalie suddenly cut him off midsentence and said, “Listen Sam” her iridescent eyes were welling up with tears and her lips were trembling. The look on her face was so dejected, Sam’s eyes pricked and he could feel her sorrow burning through his heart. Sam reached for her hand and she didn’t flinch, “what’s wrong?”.
She refused to look at him and stared at the floor evasively. Sam softly placed his free hand below her chin and craned her head towards him, “Natalie what’s wrong? Tell me, maybe I could help you”. At that gesture she couldn’t suppress her tears from spilling anymore, her lips were trembling violently and thick rivulets of tears dampened her bright red cheeks.
Sam felt very helpless, he wanted to solve her problems and watch her smile, the smile which was dear to him. He was about to say something useless when she wrapped her hand around his neck and kissed him slowly. The first few moments were a blur, Sam was overwhelmed with emotions and was numb. When he snapped back to reality he felt Natalie’s soft and salty lips against his, he could feel her heart beating hard against his chest and could feel his brain melting into goo. His whole body was tense and he felt blissful warmth flowing through his veins. She pulled back slowly looking straight into his brown incredulous eyes and ran…..
He would have ran after her , but his body refused to move, his mind was not able to comprehend all that had happened in the past few minutes and could feel warm beads of tears flowing from his eyes. He should have been happy knowing that she felt the same about him but he knew in his heart that he would never see her again….
She left him in the cruelest way possible, knowing that she loved him.