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The sweetest summer day of all. The sun glistens off of the porch steps, the peeling dusty blue paint glittering in the sunlight. I sit on the front steps, my mom's bright pink sunhat droops over my bright blue eyes. Drops of my melting strawberry popsicle dot my sundress and the peeling paint. A breeze rustles through the pots of flowers that line the porch.
Done with my popsicle, I chuck the stick back and run out into the lush grass until I reach the swingset. As I began to swing, Jack, the neighbor's son, walks over. I smile from ear to ear, he is one of my best friends. He yells across the yard "Hey, let's play!" and jumps into the swing next to me. We planned on playing all day long, like we usually do, but the sun was too hot. I felt like it was burning through my porcelain skin. We decided to play inside.
Jack was one of my best friends. We always played together, despite the fact that my mom dressed my like a fairy and he was coated in dirt. We looked so ridiculous together, him in a monster truck shirt, and me in a pink sparkly sundress. But I couldn't imagine a better friend. We played with his toys and my toys for hours, we didn't care what it was, we always had fun together. I didn't want to admit it but I did everything he asked like a lovesick puppy dog. He wasn't like the other yucky boys then. He actually hung out and did want I wanted to do sometimes and was never mean. Back then, all the other boys pushed the girls in the mud, laughing and calling them losers to their friends. But I bet each one thought the girl was pretty and wanted to apologize. I'd like to think so at least.
But on that hot summer day, something was different about him . . .
We went into my playroom, painted as a kingdom fit for a princess. We began to play with the legos, making towers and trying to topple the other's first. I got his final tower down, rolling a super boucy ball right into the center and the two foot tower collapsed. Jack's eyes widened. "No!" he cried, "You can't win! You are a GIRL!" He got up and ran to my cheat of Barbies. I couldn't stop him and I loved my Barbies so much, he wouldn't do anything to them. Jack ran out of the room, grinning. I chased him downstairs and out to the porch. I saw him disassemble my Barbie and plunge its limbs into each plant, flower petals falling everywhere. I stood there shocked and my eyes began to water. Why was he doing this? I thought he wasn't capable of that, that he was better than all the other mean boys. He turned around, dirt under his fingernails, and looked away, sobbing. My eyes welled up with tears, red puffyness surrounding them. He continued to watch, a smirk on his face. I looked again and the tears began falling down my cheeks. I began to screech. I wanted him gone. he had destroyed one of my most precious possessions without remorse. I screeched, and told him to never, ever, ever come back. He simply turned around and walked away.
I sat down defeated. I gazed at the Barbie limbs submerged in the dirt blankly. Flower petals lay crushed at the base of each pot. The setting sun illuminated the crinkled red petals, fading into the peeling paint. I just sat there crying as the reds and oranges filled the sky, my tears falling to my sundress. My heart felt like one of those crushed little petals, my body might as well be cut up into little pieces too. I didn't know what this feeling was. it was a mixture of hate towards him, but at the same time, I wanted to see him again. I felt like I needed him, that I wouldn't know what to do without him. And to figure it out, I sat out on the porch and cried, trying to make it go away, but this ripping in my heart never left me. My mom came out and looked at my red eyes. She told me I should go to bed soon, it was late. I nodded, with one last look at the sunset, I followed my mom inside.
This seemed like the way it would always be -- boys treating girls badly. Even when I was three I learned this lesson. All I knew then was that I never wanted to see him again . . .
Lyd1212
"Can't you see that I'm the one who understand you? Been here all along so why can't you see? You belong with me . . ." -Taylor Swift, You Belong with Me
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