you're too young & eager to love

762 words. Not too shabby for a first time attempt, if you don't mind me saying.

This is American Beauty fanfiction. That was odd to type. I'd never really considered writing for this fandom. I don't even think there's enough pieces out there for it to be called a fandom, really. But, anyway, I wanted to explore Angela and Ricky. Even though it would make more sense to explore Angela and Lester. Oh well.

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You were popular in ninth grade. You were popular in middle school too, but it was easier then. A pretty smile and bright attitude could make you Queen Bee. High school, even as a freshman, required more personality, blonder highlights, and all the right knowledge on lip gloss and how to correctly pencil in eyebrows. You learned how to laugh while showing your teeth, how to wear carnation pink, and that a little bit of cruelty was more respected than kindness.

You joined the cheerleading team, and then dance team followed soon after. You picked up an attitude to accessorize your newfound love of Teen Vogue and People magazine. Before that though, just about a week before you started smoking and idolizing Claudia Schiffer, Ricky Fitts sat next to you at lunch and stared too hard. It made you uncomfortable; he rarely blinked, and his gaze was so level, so pointed, that you looked away and swallowed your Snapple too quickly. You snuck glances at him from the corners of your eyes, and he never once stopped looking at you.

You felt stripped apart in your sixty-dollar jeans and bisque lipstick.

“It’s rude to stare, you know.” You used your best get-lost voice, the tone you reserved for acne covered computer geeks that would stare at your hips and cleavage as you walked down the hallways.

“I know.” He blinked, and his eyes looked brighter afterwards.

-

Ricky watched for too long, according to other people’s standards, according to yours.

You never got used to it. Other boys (and most men) stared too, but they watched you like you were meat. Something savory and fulfilling. Ricky stared into you, like he was searching for something. When he finally looked away, you realized it was because you had nothing in you for him to find.

You felt ordinary. Pained.

So, you started plastering your walls with photography that day. You cut so many models from so many magazines that your fingers hurt. You covered every bit of white paint, sinking into eyes and thin limbs, hunting for solace in the perfect contrived ideal of a woman.

-

You see him three years later. He has an expression that suggests that he might know the secret of the universe. Jane is attentive to him, but it’s a silent attentiveness, one you only recognize fleetingly. He sidetracks you; he’s so confident that it unnerves you, so you start telling Jane about the ninth grade and waving your hand around in flourishing gestures. You roll your eyes and stare at his retreating figure.

He’s taller and broader now. His eyes are the same, still bright and too intense, but you find yourself thinking about his serious mouth later in government class. You’re supposed to be learning about the legislative branch, instead you’re thinking about how he scares you, more than a little, but that you like the idea of being recorded even if the audience consists of one eighteen year old guy.

You really think he would record you. You’re prettier than Jane, thinner, and you were photographed once for a magazine so you already can appreciate the importance of a good camera angle. You convince yourself that you have something to offer now that you’re older, now that you know yourself.

You aren’t like these other high school girls. You keep your insecurities in a tiny box beneath your bed, and nobody knows what they are or where you hide them. You tell yourself this each morning, and it gets a little easier to believe each time.

-

He kissed you once. Or, well, you kissed him.

A friend of yours bought some of his pot in the ninth grade, and he found you both smoking a joint beneath the bleachers. Your friend scurried away like a nervous mouse, thinking eccentricity was catching, but your brain was too hazy so you just sat and ran your fingers through the blades of grass. You had never been so high before, a fuzz over your skin, a lightness in your chest.

When he asked you why you tried so hard to be interesting, you giggled instead of insulting him. You didn’t know him well, but he seemed more approachable, more connectable, when confused.

You confused him. For one moment, you held his attention by some genuine reaction of yours. So you kissed him and his lips were chapped and you never told Jane because you hadn’t remembered it until he was kissing her instead.

He would have said that you tasted like roses and lost things.

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