Most Likely To... Fall Head Over Heels (Red Writing Hood version)

This week's prompt: to explore romantic heartbreak. For you fiction writers, here’s a chance to really delve into the psyche of your character. For you non-fiction folk, well, maybe it’s into your psyche you must delve. We all remember that first love, just like we all remember when our hearts broke for the first time.  Write a piece – 600 word limit – about the first heartbreak your character or you experienced.

Note:  A short while ago I wrote a post, titled Most Likely to Fall Head Over Heels, which is part of a series of posts titled Most Likely To..., that tell the story of my life.  When I read this week's prompt, I wanted to write a new post, but at the end, I chose to submit a revised, shortened version of Most Likely To Fall Head Over Heels.  I thought, not only would it be repetitive to write about the same subject (my first heartbreak, that is) twice, but the original post described what I felt perfectly and I would not have it written in any other way.

Leigh and I were the last to arrive at the meeting place. I literally had to keep biting my lips to keep myself from blurting stupid things like, "I love you, Ash. Will you be mine??" Right away I knew where he stood in that room. I could've spotted him from a mile a way, in a sea of a thousand other faces. I felt a smile escaping from my lips when he finally saw me.

And then I saw his hand. It was holding someone else's hand.

I wanted to hate her, but damn it, she was so nice. Truly, sincerely nice. And it wasn’t her fault I fell in love with her boyfriend. Still, it felt like somebody ripped my ribcage open, threw my heart on the floor, then stomped it to pieces.

I couldn't believe Ash had a girlfriend.

What hurt the most, was that I actually got to talk to Ash that night. Really talked. About nothings and everything. We sat next to each other on the bar while everybody else were on the dance floor. The loud music meant we had to whisper in each others’ ears so that the other could hear.

Being that close to him took my breath away. I noticed how his eyes crinkled at the ends whenever he laughed. How his voice reverberated in my ear and how his lips were only a few inches away from mine... How I caught him looking at me and then looked away as soon as our eyes met...

And so I fell even deeper. Even though I didn’t want to. I couldn’t help it. I wanted that voice, that laughter, that person who listened and told me stories as we sat there just the two of us on that bar. I wanted him. I didn’t want that night to ever end.

But it did. We were still talking, oblivious to the world around us, when Ash's girlfriend suddenly came into view. I had forgotten about her, and now she’s back from the dance floor, reminding me all over again that I was intruding on someone else’s territory.

We all went home shortly afterwards; most of the guys were already trashed and the girls were complaining that their feet were starting to hurt from all the dancing on killer heels. I could see that Leigh was in her happy place: sober enough to behave, but not likely to notice my absence from the dance floor earlier.

Good, I wasn’t in the mood to explain anyways.

Just as I was about to climb into Leigh’s car, I saw that Ash turned his head around and looked in my direction. My heart did a little flip, but the sight of his girlfriend walking alongside him blew me back to reality. I quickly averted my eyes and went inside the car.

I told myself I wasn’t going to see him again. Seeing him would only hurt me more because I knew I would fall deeper in love the more I knew him. Could this 'love' be any more one-sided?!? Afterall, Ash had a girlfriend, and I didn’t see him dumping her anytime soon. Especially for someone like me.

I cried when I got home that night. I cried for days after that. I kept telling myself that I was an idiot of the highest caliber, because why cry for someone whom I had only met twice, talked for a total of three hours at most, and had a girlfriend!

Leigh asked me to go hang out with Ash and his brother again a few more times after that night. I always came up with some excuse not to go. She started to give me these funny looks, but I didn't care. My heart was broken. I felt broken.

Then, three weeks later, I got a phone call.

It was Ash.

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**You can read the original, extended version of Most Likely To... Fall Head Over Heels here.