The Boy Who Wore Boat Shoes

By: Sophie Anna

00⎜The End

           “So, we’re in agreement?” she questioned.

           “Yeah,” I answered back somberly.

           “You’re not going to go nuts and slash my mom’s tires or start stalking me, are you?”

           “No, Liz,” I assured her with a sigh.

           “Okay.”

           “It’s because of Collins, isn’t it?” I forced myself to ask.

           “A little, I guess.”

           “You love him?” I inquired, but it wasn’t so much of a question as more of an assertion that, yes, she loved him. I stared at the gorgeous girl before me, wondering how she would answer. Her blonde hair was just barely falling over her face in such a way that I was tempted to reach out and tuck it behind her ear, but restrained myself. She was quiet, not saying a word. As painful as it was, I took her silence as a sign of affirmation, so went on. “You do. Well, Liz, it was an honor to be your first real boyfriend, despite the fact that the relationship was partially built on lies.”

           “And it was a pleasure to be your second real girlfriend,” she returned with a weak smile.

           “I’m going to try to quit the, uh, pot, you know,” I told her, not so much for her sake, but for mine. I wanted her to know that I was still a good guy, even if I had made mistakes. The closure was what I needed.

           “You’re going to make a girl very happy one day, Eric,” she said as I scanned her pale face for what felt like the last time, though I knew that it wasn’t. We would still be interacting in school and socially, due who our friends were.

           It was my second real relationship, and just like the first, it was ending on a negative note. I always managed to screw things up. If it wasn’t the pot, it was something else. In this particular case, we had both lied to each other. I wasn’t the perfect boy she thought I was, and she wasn’t the perfect girl, either. She had her own issues, and just happened to be a world-class athlete who was probably better at basketball than I was at football. The foundation on which we blindly chose to build a connection wasn’t a good one, thus leading to a terminal outcome.

           She was already infatuated with my ex-best friend when we started dating, and I was in a state of denial about it. I didn’t want to accept the fact that she was never really “mine,” and she couldn’t see that I wasn’t the guy for her, even from the beginning. There were too many differences between us, and it just wasn’t meant to be. If two people were disconnected from an affiliation even before it started, then a breakup was inevitable.

           I looked at the girl I had barely gotten to know over the past few months, despite thinking that I had her all figured out. Even with a lump in my throat, I still managed to choke out a few more tough words. “And you’re going to make Collins happy. He loves you.”

           “Why do you say that?” She laughed, her face dimly illuminating. “What need is there to bring the ‘L-Word’ into everything?”

           “Liz,” I began to address her skepticism, “Dylan was my best friend. Sure, he had crushes on girls over the years, but it was nothing like this. Do you think that he’s the type of guy that would punch somebody for just anyone?” She shook her head slowly, the wavy strand of her hair that was out of place moving about. I felt as though I was spearing my heart with a sword willingly as I said more. “Liz, he loves you.”

           “Okay, fine,” she shrugged, humoring my accurate theory on which she still had yet to be sold, “but how are you so sure that I love him?”

           “Because you’re not a bad person, and I have a feeling that you wouldn’t have cheated on me with just anyone. You’re not that type of person—even if Dylan had initiated the kissing or whatever,” I expressed, wondering how I was able to get that viewpoint across without bursting out crying and curling up into a ball on the floor. “When you’re with him, what do you feel like inside?”

           “Paralysis,” she replied almost immediately, confusing me a fair amount. The answer didn’t make the most logic in the world, and wasn’t a metaphor I found easily relatable. Sensing my misperception, she continued. “It’s indescribable. As if I can’t move and don’t want to.”

           “Did you ever feel that with me?” I questioned softly, already knowing the foreseeable response.

           “No, when I was with you I just felt nice. Like nothing could ever go wrong,” she whispered with a somber smile, probably reminiscing about the times that we spent together that actually qualified as being “good.” Overall, if I had to assign a grade to our relationship, it would be a solid C. The good times outweighed the bad, but there was still a considerable amount of memories not needed to revisit.

           “So how is that different than with Collins?” I asked, curious as to how “nice” could translate into “let’s break up.”

           “With Dylan, it’s like everything around me washes away, nothing else matters, and I’m powerless but still secure,” she reflected, and I could practically see the sincerity in her light eyes of blue. “Were you in love with Mackenzie?”

           “Yeah,” I gulped, taking in a deep breath of air as everything came flooding back, “I was.”

           With Mackenzie—my first girlfriend, nothing had started out ideal, either. She was my best friend’s older sister, and I had practically grown up with her. For some idiotic reason, I had consciously agreed to date her. I lost one of my best friends (as ironic as it was, he was now the boy that Liz was leaving me for), and eventually another close friend.

           I had known that she had a reputation for being a bit of a “heartbreaker” beforehand, but didn’t believe it. She was Mackenzie Collins, the girl I had known since I was five, and I was Eric Wilson, Mr. Perfect. I had thought that there was no way anyone could have possibly rejected me, and then she did. The worst part of the entire situation was my naivety and how I didn’t see it coming. Mackenzie dumping me wasn’t even a notion in my mind at the time. I had loved her.

           After recovering from my first real breakup, I pretty much swore off girls. Sure, I would talk to them and they would aggressively associate with me, but I didn’t date. I couldn’t. I was a loser who was afraid of hurting my most important organ again, so protected it in the best way I could. Then, Elizabeth Turner came along. Blonde hair, blue eyes, clear skin, nice clothes, legs, a brain, and an attitude like no other. There was something captivating about her that reminded me of Mackenzie, in a way. I liked her. She was the first girl that I had a real “crush” on since Mackenzie Collins, but I was scared, so put off the terms “boyfriend” and “girlfriend” for as long as possible. I didn’t want history to repeat itself once again—which it ended up doing, anyway.

           Liz met Dylan Collins and it was all downhill from there. They became good friends, and I knew that he liked her in a more than friendly way. There was some connection between them that I couldn’t understand, because at the time, I hadn’t known that it was even a variable. Liz played basketball. Dylan also played basketball. He had a bond over a sport, while all I had was a pretty face and a life that appeared “perfect.”

           Dylan told Liz about my continuous usage of “illegal narcotics,” as the cops put it, and I found out about her secret basketball career. The real reason that we were breaking up, however, wasn’t because of the drugs or the basketball—no, it was because of love. She was in love with Dylan, and I still wasn’t fully over Mackenzie. It was for the best, really.

           I was pulled out of my own inner monologue as she hesitantly asked something in regards to how I felt about her. “What about with me?”

           “No,” I glanced down at our feet—Jordans and boat shoes, “it wasn’t the same. I know what you’re talking about—helpless but completely safe.”

           “And does it fit your definition of love?” Her eyes were wide with fascination.

           “Yeah,” I sighed, recalling everything she had talked about when I was with Mackenzie.

           “I’m sorry, Eric,” she said in a muted tone.

           “Don’t apologize, Liz, it wasn’t your choice—your heart’s to blame for what happened, really,” I smiled vacantly. Even if I was aching on the inside, she didn’t need to know. “You don’t choose who you fall for, Liz, that isn’t in our control. You can, however, choose what to do about it.”

           “Wise words for a stoner,” she commented with a faint smirk.

           “I told you, I’m trying to stop,” I said earnestly, wanting nothing more than for her to believe me. I had already told my parents (that had been the hardest part—seeing their faces of absolute disappointment) and was going to get help over the summer. I wanted to get my life back on track. Focusing back on the girl before me, I exhaled deeply. “Tell him.”

           “Tell him?” she reiterated in disbelief, as if the idea was absurd.

           “Tell him,” I said once again. “You both deserve to be happy, Liz.”

           “Thanks, Eric,” she grinned gently, biting the edge of her lip in a way that made me want to just kiss her all the more than I already did. She was so beautiful.

           I shook my head, a small smile etching its way to my face as I looked at her one more time. “I should go.”

           “Yeah, I guess,” she said, not disagreeing with me, like she was eager to be rid of me from her life—which I couldn’t entirely blame her for. I wanted everything to end, too.

           “Thanks, Liz,” I said as she gazed into my eyes for one of the last times.

           “For what?”

           “After Mackenzie, I thought that it was the end of the world. No other girl in school compared—and then you came along,” I laughed a little, though it wasn’t real. “Liz, you were pretty, outgoing, smart, different, and just, well, you. You weren’t my rebound by any means. No, you were better. I know it’s dumb to think and maybe even dumber to admit aloud, but Liz, you really helped me. Thank you.”

           Instead of verbally responding, she leaned in closer to me, turning her head marginally in order to delicately plant her pink lips stripped of all products on my cheek. As she leaned back, I knew that that was it. We were really splitting up, and on relatively amiable terms. It was much easier than it had been with Mackenzie.

           “Goodbye, Eric Wilson,” she bid, opening the front door of her house for me, as we had been standing beside it during our entire exchange.

           “Goodbye, Elizabeth Turner,” I responded with as much solemn sincerity as she had. I walked past the large doorway and out into the natural air of the temperate day in the middle of April. Glancing back quickly, I noticed that she had already closed the door. It was really over.

           As I walked away from Elizabeth Turner’s house, everything finally sunk in. I was graduating high school, leaving New York, getting help, and it was finally the end of this segment of my life. When I got to the West Coast in the fall—to Stanford—I would be able to begin again. No one would know who I was, and I wouldn’t have the reputation and pressure of being this “perfect” person anymore. All I wanted to do was start over and not look back for a very, very long time.

A/N: Mkay. So, I think I'm crazy for writing this, but it was brought to my attention that Eric didn't get his happy ending like everyone else, which is why I'm writing an entirely new story about him. This may have looked familiar. It's the beginning of the last chapter of TGWWJ, because it made the perfect prologue and I was lazy. If you have no idea what I'm rambling about, that's fine. This story is based off a character from my other story, The Girl Who Wore Jordans, but you DON'T need to have read that to understand this. Aside from this chapter, Liz will (probs) not be in this story. Hope y'all like it. Beware that the first few (or twelve) chapters are not up to my personal writing standard, but as the story progresses, I promise my writing improves. Yeah.

-Sophie