Oh My Mona

The next morning undeniably horrible. My head ached, my eyes were weary and I just wanted to melt into my bed sheets. I didn’t get up for a while; hoping that maybe the day would wait for me to arise from my slumber. The day did not.

I rolled over to look at my phone where my heart just sunk from my chest right down into my toes. I should be excited Mona texted me but as I stared at my phone I couldn’t feel anything. The feelings just weren’t there. Had I lost them? Dropped them out my pocket at the calamity party last night like a wallet? For a second I was alarmed that I didn’t know, what do you do with a feeling of unknowing? There was a lump in my throat.

I turned my phone off again and curled back into the sheets. Mona could wait. I had to let my swollen bruised heart heal a little first.

It was 3pm before I even attempted to get up.

On the bad days, you just have to take a shower and get out of bed, eat some food if you can. That’s all you have to do. Then you can rest again. God I was so tired. I stopped remembering if it was physically or mentally.

This hangover was really hitting different today huh? Try as I might, I couldn’t ignore the messages from Mona any longer. The last time we had messaged was on her birthday, I’d wished her a fantastic day and all she had replied with was a thanks, I stared for a while at her profile picture; she was on the beach and she was 15 again, her black hair loose wild, tanned salt kissed skin and warm eyes. She had been wearing a sundress. It suited her.

My eyes trailed along the string of recent messages,

‘Xavier we need to talk.’

‘Hey are you awake yet?’

‘Wake up idiot.’

‘Please we need to talk.’

‘Xavierrr.’

‘Cher is asking me what happened last night I don’t know what to say.’

‘Xavier?’

‘Please?’

The last message sent tremors down my nerves like hot little lightning. I wanted to hear her say please, I wanted the word to roll out with soft syllables on her tongue. Get a hold of yourself. Finally, I managed to type out a reply and sent it, flopping back down. Even that made me exhausted.

I went to close my eyes again but my phone buzzed on my chest. Quick replier wow. ‘Do you want to meet up?’

I stared at the message. I did want to see her, run my fingers through the black coiled locks of her hair. Stop thinking. Don’t think of her that way. It took me a minute to forge a text, ‘Sure, drop the when and where. I’ll be there’. I’ll be wherever you lead me was the silent unspoken words.

Two hours later I was stepping off the bus at the park, running my fingers through my hair, perhaps as a nervous tick. There was a group of them in the park. So not just me and her. I swallowed the rising nerve.

Her friends were very different from mine, the space around them felt warm and filled, like pooling honey. They laughed wildly and freely. They laughed like Mona. We hung around in the park for a while, until it started to get dark, chugging liquor out plastic ups and singing to the speakers. It felt odd, but they didn’t seem to mind me being there, they were frighteningly accepting of me and that was what worried me most. What were they thinking.

Midway through listening to Paper planes, Kile jumped off the bench and began to do a handstand, his shirt falling over his eyes and taking a few steps whilst upsidedown before crashing onto his face. Laugher erupted on the bench and Cher lept up after him, skipping over the group and hauling him off the ground. When she pulled him up I could almost see the electricity that sparked between them; they looked cute I’ll give them that. Something in my gut twisted at that, a sort of bitterness. I was nothing short of sour. Full of vileness. I ached to look over at Mona but something in my kept me looking at Cher and Kile.

Cher was pretty, her chestnut curls hanging low around her collar bones, face alight with joy but she wasn’t Mona. I wanted to bite my nails into my plan every time I though of her, she was so close to me right now that if I turned around I would’ve see her perched behind me, knees tucked in and head back with her smile.

“So Xavier, when did you ask Mona out?” There had been the question I had been dreading. Act natural, don’t mess this up. “Friday.” What was it? Sunday now? How had the weekend passed so quickly? Cher’s eyes lit up in surprise and she looked to Mona, “I didn’t know you liked her after you stopped hanging out with her… I can’t tell you how many times I told her to ask you out.” She smiled and turned back to Kile, leading him back to the bench and hoping onto it.

What.

Mona had stopped hanging out with me no the other way round. And what did she mean told Mona to ask me out? Either Cher was delusional or I- I frowned. Mona took a sip out her almost empty cup behind me, “Cherr don’t be weird,” she paused to give a tipsy hiccup, “it’s not like that i swear.” Her words were slurred and her movements slow.

God how badly I wanted to reach out and touch her. Her cheeks were filled with colour over her brown skin, eyes relaxed and sparkling in the last of the evening sun. I stayed with them until the group began to disperse, till it was only Mona and I left.

We walked to the bus stop in under the dull yellow street lights. Mona was looking at me and as I looked down at her, it made the bottom of my stomach melt, like a pit of honey, soft and melded. I had to look away.

She wasn’t mine.

She was a fragment of my imagination.

The life I wished I had.

She had only invited me because of some stupid mistake the night before.

Was I dreaming it?

I had to stop. I just couldn’t walk anymore.

Mona looked up at me, brown eyes which I could’ve looked at forever.

Look away.

I shut my eyes under the light of the street lamps, the buzz of evening moths.

“Xavier?”

I blinked.

Would it be stupid to kiss her right now?

Yes it would.

The last time I did that she ran away.

That’s the reason everything is like it is now.

“Is it because i kissed you?”

That’s the only thing that came out my mouth.

How could I bead to look at her right now?

Mona stopped. Her brow knitting together, the smile fading from her face.
It hurt to watch.

“What?”

I repeated myself, “Is it because I kissed you on New years. Is that why you stopped talking to me.”

She didn’t reply.

And just like that I messed up again.