I think I was about six years old, when I saw him sitting under the tree which was going to be the place I would hang out the most later in my life. Obviously he was new in my school, cause he was sitting there by himself; no friends around to play with. Only a couple of older boys who were throwing pieces of bread. Even though I was a six year old, I stuck up for him. The older boys didn’t take me seriously, but they stopped throwing. As I walked over to the tree, he looked up. His big blue eyes were watery and he quickly turned his head away.
“Hey, are you new here? I’m Clarissa.” I sat next to him against the tree.
“Yes, I’m James.”
“Oh, how old are you?” I questioned.
“Nearly ten. You?”
“Nearly seven.” Weird how little kids almost naturally add a year to their actual age. I remember sharing my sandwich with him, cause his lunch had been stolen by the older ones. We talked about kids things, and about his old friends, who were now too far away to visit. I had asked him where he lived; turned out he was my new neighbour my mum had been talking about for ages.
I walked him home after school, as he couldn’t really remember where it was. I asked my mum if I could come around James’ house to play. I can clearly recall her enthusiasm and walked with me to the next door. My mum stayed inside chatting with James’ mum, while James, me and his younger brother Nick were playing in the garden. I could hear James’ younger sister Mel crying and James’ mum trying to comfort her.
A few months passed by and, as you probably know how it goes with young kids, James and I became best friends. More inseparable. We were always over at each others houses and sleepovers were quite normal. On my birthday there were only a few friends; three girls, James and Nick. But only Nick cause my mum had insisted on inviting him. We went to a theme park and James and I ended up getting lost and asking someone for help to find our mothers. James, the gent he is and always will be, blamed himself for it, saying he wanted to show me something. James got grounded for it and so did I, for going with him. Argh, unreasonable parents.
I wasn’t allowed to see James, not even to talk to him in school. Cause I was such a well mannered girl, I kept myself to the rules and didn’t talk to him. I remember crying every single night in those oh so long two weeks I wasn’t allowed to see him. I begged my mum if I could come over to his house, but she kept on saying ‘no’.
After a week I gave up begging and just walked over to him in school. “I miss you.” Oh, subtle 7-year old. I looked down at him, as he was sitting against that tree again. He picked up his bag and stood up. “I miss you too.” Then he grabbed my hand and walked me home.
Chapter two: Growing up a bit
I was 13 when things went wrong. Not just with me, but it was mainly James where things went wrong with. He was now nearly 16 and I watched him change. He changed from that all-loving gentleman into basically an arsehole. He sort of ended our friendship by making up excuses when I asked him to go and do something fun. One time I even followed him when he was with his ‘girlfriend’ (slut of the school) Holly. He took her to ‘our tree’ at school and began touching her. I, as a 13-year old, had seen enough to have a trauma for life. The only thing I wanted to do was run up to him and scream in his face what he was thinking. Of course I didn’t have the guts to do it and instead of getting more jealous, I got myself a boyfriend. Phil was exactly two years older than me. He treated me like I was the queen of England and never asked me for anything. Sometimes, when I was walking down the street with him and bumped into James who acted like he didn’t know me, I would burst out crying and then Phil tried to comfort me cause I was missing James so much. We had grown apart. One time, when I had one of those cry-outbursts again, Phil promised me he would talk to James, ‘cause he loved me so much’. He’d do anything to keep me happy. So Phil talked to James, who had punched him in the eye (reason unknown) and Phil broke up with me cause ‘it was for the best’ as he said it. I still don’t know what exactly has been said in that conversation, all I know is that James had both of his eyes back on me again. He told me he had ditched his girlfriend after he had talked to Phil. He figured that, that girl he went out with, was just cause he missed me so much (then why ignore me dickhead?!) and that he felt that he wasn’t able to do the same things with her than with me. I can hear you thinking: so lots of babies, the end. But no, that wasn’t what was going to happen. A few weeks after I started hanging out with James again, my dad announced that we were going to move. Not just to another town, but to another country. We had to move to Germany cause of my fathers work. Just a week after my 14th birthday we went to the airport to say our final goodbyes, James went with us. My parents were saying their goodbyes to the rest of the family, while James and I had found a more quiet place, out of the parental sight. He’d grabbed my hand and pulled me towards him, into a hug. He let go of me and tucked my hair behind my ear. “Clazz?”
“Yeah?”
“I know it’s a bit late, but I think I love you.” He searched for my eyes and waited for any respond. “Oh,” was the only thing I could bring out. He lent in to kiss me, but before our lips had the chance to meet, my mother pulled me away from him. “What on earth do you think you’re doing?! We have to go, come on Clarissa.” My mother screamed and dragged me away from him. I saw James panicking, not knowing what to do. I couldn’t hear it, but I saw him whispering ‘shit’ and started running. He grasped me by my other arm, gasping for breath.
“C…Cl…Clazz…” My mother turned her head to him. She seemed furious. “Look James, none of us really want leave, but we have to. Bye James!” She said sharply and started dragging me again. I pulled myself loose from her grip. “I love you too, James.” I said, loud enough for my mother to hear it. “What?!” She yelled, and James quickly pulled me in for a kiss. “Now leave. If you stay five seconds longer I’ll have to kidnap you.” He caressed my cheek and turned around to walk to the exit.
The first two months he phoned me every week, after that once a month until he finally stopped calling. I tried to call him after that in the weekends, but his mother always said he was working. I couldn’t remember James having a job, not even him telling me it…
Chapter three: Erm, do I know you?
In the next two years that followed he’d phoned me exactly four times. Every call lasted no longer than fifteen minutes, and he basically didn’t tell me anything. He always asked me how I was doing and what was going on in my life and when I asked him something, he’d say he had to run and hung up.
It was two days before my 16th birthday and my mates were coming round, as my actual birthday was on Monday. They all looked very excited when they stumbled in the room, all dressed up. But my idea of celebrating my birthday was watching a couple of films and having a laugh and getting ridiculously pissed. But my mates had something else in mind. Gabby, one of my best mates in Germany, handed me 5 tickets to a concert. A concert for tonight. “Who the hell is Busted?” I asked, looking on the ticket, which had BUSTED on it. I had no idea who this band was. “They’re not really famous in Germany yet, but we think they’re quite good, not to mention the fitness of them all!” Gabby winked at me. The four of them, Gabby, Libby, Hilda and Karen, hurried me up to my room to get dressed as the concert would begin in three hours. Karen did my hair, Gabby searched through my wardrobe to eventually come up with bleached jeans and a top saying, ‘sexy thang’. Hilda, in the meanwhile, was putting on my make-up, making sure that I would look perfect that night. “Guys, guys, it’s only a concert!” I laughed, being surrounded by four girls who were practically taking the air away from me. “Clazz, do you not even realise who these guys are? How fit they are?” Hilda excitedly squeaked. “Ehm, dude… I don’t know them, have never seen them before. So NO I DON’T DUDE!” Libby sprayed some Gucci perfume in my neck, which smelled rather nice.
I got hurried down the stairs again, wanted to leave a note for my parents who were out, but Libby said they had taken care of everything, so I had nothing to worry about. Hilda pushed me into the car, and propped herself and the other three girls beside me. “I… can’t… breathe…” I hyperventilated, to freak the gang out and get some more air. “Oh, shut up you. It’s only a fifteen minute drive.” Okay, so it didn’t work.
After exactly seventeen minutes of hyperventilating and being squeezed in the back of a car, it stopped in front of an Arena. A long queue was in front of it, with screaming girls and tired fathers behind them. Some boyfriends were hanging about, grouped together, laughing and having fun. Me and the girls stood in line, and after 30 minutes of waiting, and a Karen wailing she had to go to the loo, the queue slowly shortened and step by step we got in, tickets getting ripped in half, and Karen running off to find a loo. Hilda and Gabby excitedly clapping their hands as we found our seats close to the front and me following them, sighing deeply every once in a while, hoping this would be over soon. I was hoping we could have a quiet, but fun night in my house. “Oh, I’m so excited!” Libby squealed as the red curtains with the Busted logo opened. Three guys, a tall one, a short one with bleached hair, and a shorter one with blonde hair who looked rather familiar, with guitars walked on stage. The one with bleached hair, or Matt as Gabby called him and went wild when he opened his mouth, said some random stuff and that they would start the first song, called ‘What I Go To School For’.
They did another couple of songs, said goodbye and stormed off stage, to come back a minute later and saying their final goodbyes, or at least, the Matt person did, the other two were quite quiet. Gabby grabbed my one hand, Hilda my other and Libby and Karen ran in front of me to the exit. “What the hell are we going to do?” I yelped, as I was getting dragged away from the comfortable chair. “We’re gonna see if we can get a glimpse of them!” Hilda screamed. And before I knew it, we were standing in front of a gate, waiting for the guys to come out the building. The tall one came out first, and my ears hurt from Hilda and Karen screaming next to me. He waved politely and scrabbled some autographs, I was squeezed against the gate, my ribs getting squashed and smashed. The Matt person came out second, doing the same thing as the tall one, and my eardrums getting shattered by Gabby and Libby’s screaming. And then the last one came, I sighed of relief. Then my heart stopped beating. He looked very familiar. “Oh my God!” I yelled. “Yeah, I know, he’s cute eh?!” Libby replied. “No, oh my God that is James!” “Yeah, I know!” Libby replied again. I tried to break the bars of the gate which was impossible of course. He came closer, scrabbling autographs. “James! James!” I yelled. He heard me and smiled. “Hey, what’s your name?” I was gob smacked, he didn’t even recognise me. “Oh my God James, I cant believe you!” I was getting angry, and had missed him so much I didn’t really know what to do. “What? What did I do?” He joked, and poked his tongue out, writing his name on my hand, which was clamped onto his shirt. “Okay, can you let me go now, cause I have to go.” He begged, but I wasn’t giving up. “James! For Christ’s sake, it’s me! Clarissa, Clazz!” I screamed as loud as I could, tears rolling over my cheeks. He didn’t move for a second, it even seemed if he wasn’t breathing. His hand slowly came to my cheek, between the bars, and wiped away the tears off my cheek. “Don’t cry, I can’t stand seeing you crying.” His hand removed from my face and he turned around, ready to walk away. His head went over his shoulder, “Wait there.” I nodded and tried to get out of the hundreds of girls pushing me against the gate. The girls behind me were still screaming, my gang soon followed my example and rowed up next to me to sit on the street. “You… you know James?” Gabby said, choking in her words. I only looked at her. Not saying anything and waited for what would come. A car with blinded windows stopped in front of us, a window going down and James’ head poked out of it. “Get in. Now!” He screamed, and threw the door open. I jumped in, leaving my friends behind me, who all nodded that it was okay.
The two other boys in the car sat jaw dropped opposite of me. James just holding my hand, and not saying anything, only staring. He squeezed my hand, turned his head to me and smiled, kissing me softly on my cheek. “Missed you.” He whispered into my ear.
He led me into his hotel room, still holding my hand, closing the door, still not saying anything. Out of nothing he started kissing me in my neck, my earlobes and ending in giving me a passionate kiss. He laid me down on the bed. “James, why didn’t you phone me more often?” He looked up, tears in his eyes. “I’m so sorry, Clazz, but I was so busy with the band…” “James, I didn’t even know you were in a band. Your mum always said you were working.” He ignored my words, and continued kissing me, touching me everywhere. He groaned into my ear, letting me know he wanted me. Badly.
Next thing I knew, I was on a plane to London, my suitcases filled with all my belongings. My parents insisted me going back to the U.K. with James after I told them. I was only sixteen, and already going to move out, moving in with James. I knew it was going to be tough; James being away all the time and me looking for a Uni, but we’d get through it, we’d make it, the two of us.
At age 17 I got pregnant of James’ baby. We both knew it was too soon, but we wanted to keep it anyway. We had the room, he had the money. But what we didn’t know, what the doctor didn’t know, was that the baby inside me was killing me slowly. Every day a bit more. I didn’t feel anything of it, all I felt was getting more tired, but that was part of being pregnant, as my doctor had told me.
James had been out, doing groceries as I couldn’t do it anymore. I was too tired. When he got back home, he found me lying on the floor, hardly breathing. I was 7 months pregnant, the bump on my tummy was getting huge, James hardly being able to pick up me and trying to wake me up. I felt his tears falling on my cheeks, crying for help. I died an hour later, along with the baby inside me, along with James’ heart which broke into a thousand pieces as I left his world.
James
The funeral was quiet. Not many people were there. Not even her parents. Two coffins aside each other; a small one, for our never born baby, and a larger one, for Clazz. My band mates were there to support me, my parents were there too. Clazz’s German friends had flown over to her funeral. The four of them were crying, holding each others hands. Me, in a black suit, looking down on the coffin which was getting lowered into the ground. Two men filling the hole up with sand. As they did, everyone, on their turn, threw a white rose on her coffin, which was getting more invisible every second. A small mountain of earth was towering above the ground. I got down onto my knees, touching the fresh earth as I did. My hands in the ground, taking handfuls of sand, slowly letting it slip through my fingers, watching it getting back where it belonged.