Imaginative Essay

POV: Ian, Kaeleigh's best friend who is in love with her.

Walking through the school hallways is a lot like walking through a zoo. Everyone moves as if they're on display, no one is what they seem like. Especially not Kaeleigh. There was something about her that seemed different. Not different from day to day, different since after the accident. Sometimes we'd be so close while others she'd pretend she barely knew me at all. Right from the beginning of that day I knew it would be one of the ones where she pretended she didn't know me. Everything was going to be harder not being able to talk to her, but I knew that when she was in one of 'those moods' and even if I did get the chance to talk to her, it would just leave me feeling worse than before when I couldn't talk to her. She was walking around with her head held high and her back straight as an arrow, just screaming at people to try and mess with her. She looked like she had the world in the palm of her hand and nothing could hurt her. Kaeleigh was walking around jutting her hips out and swaying them back and forth. Tempting all the boys in the school, and every once in a while she'd shoot them a wink and keep weaving through the crowds.

I love her. There's no way around the idea of it, everything about her is exactly what I've been looking for. What I've been wanting for, well, forever. She's the one. She doesn't know it as much and as often as I've tried to tell her, she just won't hear it. I think she's broken, deep down somewhere inside her she's broken and she needs me just as much as I need her. I just wish she would let herself see what's looking her straight on.

What's wrong with her? No matter how many times I tell her that I love her, she still goes around acting like this. If I could stop I would. I wouldn't love her anymore, but I can't, I love her with all my heart and there's nothing I can do to stop it. I'd do anything to get her to stop putting herself on display with all the other monkeys. Anything at all if she'd just stop, just look at me the same way I look at her, the same way she does in my dreams when she tells me that she loves me.

By the start of drama I'm dragging my feet. Dreading seeing her, knowing she'll either be there and in one of her moods, or she'll be gone. Nowhere to be found. If only I could be so lucky as to have her be gone, it would be for the best if she were out of my life, but no there she is walking triumphantly up to the stage where Madison is standing and giving orders to the freshmen who just want in her pants.

“Ugh, what's that smell? Madison, are you on the rag?” Everyone's laughing at Madison, everyone but me. That's just the sort of thing I would expect from Kaeleigh when she's in one of her moods. Madison's face turns beet red as she sputters offstage. I give Kaeleigh the worst look I can muster, I mean how can she be so mean one minute and then the next just be standing there all innocent-like? As if she didn't even do it, I don't understand her. Nor do I want to right now so I go over and sit next to Shelby.

Shelby's always been nice, not overly so but she's pretty fun to talk to. Even if you can't usually get in a single word. Which is usually a good thing, especially right now when all I can think about is Kaeleigh. Shelby goes on about how well the show is coming along and I almost get dragged into her enthusiasm, cheering up just a bit as I try to push Kaeleigh from my mind. At least until Kaeleigh, the queen of confusion herself slips into the seat next to me and says “She wants us to run lines.” I say nothing and just nod my head, trying to show her just how much her little 'stunt' bothered me. Shelby retreats over to some of the other cast members and commences in chatting their ears off too.

Kaeleigh and I open our scripts without even exchanging glances. Eventually we reach a romantic scene, the backdrop of the chorus singing a big production number and all the other cast members running around like chickens without their heads is a little bit of an odd backdrop but we make it work. Even with all those distractions and even though it's scripted I can't help but imagine that what she's saying to me is real. That she really loves me, wants this to work and will do anything to make it so.

I finally look up into Kaeleigh's eyes since the incident onstage. I know it's a bad idea, but I say it anyway. “Sometimes I just don't know who you are.”