Love. Ugh. What a sick little thing it is. It’s like a incurable epidemic. When you catch it there’s no getting rid of it. It just crawls all over you skin, into your blood, and then it takes your heart. It takes your heart like a weed, suffocating it until you need that weed to live. Then of course, the cause of that love, that disease, decides that you aren’t worth it anymore. Then it leaves. You find yourself left with out anything. Alone. With out even your own heart.
I have fallen in love before. But my loved did not have a happy ending. It ended with me on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere, soulless.
‘Your young.You’ll get over it.’ They say,‘There is someone special out there, just for you.’
Well all of those things are not true. I am not young. I have never been young. I will not get over this. There will never be someone for me.
I’m not trying to be a pessimist, I’m just being honest.
My whole life I have been my own mother, my own father, my own god. No one has ever been there to help me. My mother was a prostitute, and my father was one of her clients. She was a drunk and a druggie my whole life. I was the one who made my dinner, did my homework, and made my bed in the corner of our rat infested studio apartment. Just one month ago, I gave up. It was after my mother had come home from a ‘date’ where she had had one two many drinks. She called me names and slapped me.
Usually a little slap wouldn’t matter to me, she had definitely put me through worse. But something happened when she hit me, like she slapped the sense into me. I realized that I didn’t need to put up with her. I could do whatever I wanted. That was my right. As a human being.
So, I packed my tattered old backpack up with all that mattered to me. ‘War of The Worlds’ for entertainment, a jar of kim chi for nourishment, and a couple of outfits so I wouldn’t look too homeless. I walked out of the front door with out a word of protest from my ‘mother’. To be honest I half wished she would have come out and yelled at me for leaving. Or that she would apologize for how terrible a mother she was. But she didn’t, because she wasn’t even alive any more. She hadn’t been alive for as long as I remember.
I hopped on a train and went to Los Angeles. I begged on the side of the road for a couple of days to get money. What else could I do? I sure wasn’t going to be a whore. That was the one thing in the world I would refuse to do, be a whore. Because that is what destroyed my mother.
I walked into Starbucks one day, feeling pretty stylish, I had just bought a new dress with the money I had saved and I had 8 dollars left. I wasn’t stupid with money, I usually just spent it on things I needed like food or transportation. But today I was feeling a new sense of freedom, of aliveness. I bought a 10 dollar dress from H&M and washed my hair in the sink of a Wendy's. My thick red curls hung loosely over my shoulders and my face shone with excitement. I walked up to the Starbucks counter.
“What can I get you today?” The cashier girl said.
I looked at the menu. Venti? Grande? and what the hell was a ‘macchiato’? I didn’t know Spanish! My school never had language courses. I took a deep breath and said the only thing I understood they had.
“I’ll have a tall coffee,” I said, trying to sound confident.
“Um, OK,” The girl said, giving me a funny look. “That’ll be 3 dollars and 73 cents.”
I pulled four crinkled dollar bills out of my back pack.
“Here you go,” I said passing them to her. 
She put them in the cash register and gave me my change along with my receipt. I took them an followed everyone else's example of waiting for their drink. I got my coffee, very confused at the sized. Hadn’t I ordered a tall? I shrugged and took a sip. It tasted burnt, like ash or something. I went and sat at a small table, taking little discussed sips of my 4 dollar coffee.
While I sat there, thinking about the strange position I was in, a man came up to me.
“Hi,” He said, smiling and showing sparkling white teeth.
“Err, Hi,” I said, confused.
“Do you mind if I sit?” he asked gesturing towards the seat on the other side of the table.
“Sure,” I answered. Trying to measure him. He was wearing a green t-shirt, on of those expensive ones that look vintage and a pair of sharp jeans. He smelt and looked very clean, he had a little but of scruffy facial hair.
“So, what’s your name?” he asked.
“Scarlet.”
“Mmm, like Scarlet O’Hara.” he said, as though he was a master charmer or something.
“Who?”
He laughed. “Scarlet O’Hara, from ‘Gone With The Wind’.”
“Oh, I’ve heard of that.” I said, feeling the awkwardness level rising, “What’s your name?”
“Miles.”
“It’s nice to meet you.”
“So, Where are you from Scarlet?”
“Nashville,” I say. It was a shame I was unable to hide my accent.
“What are you doing in L.A.?”
“Um, I’m actually just coming through here for a visit,” I say, not knowing what to say. I didn’t know why I was here.
“What a coincidence,” Miles said, a sly smile spreading on his face. “I’m here for a visit too.”
That was how I meet Miles. The road was pretty straight from there, I went and stayed with him at a hotel, feeling quite the princess. He and I slept together, which I had completely prepared my self for the moment he invited me to stay with him. After a couple of days going to the beach and visiting restaurants that I had never dreamt of being able to afford (he payed for everything), he invited me to go on a road trip with him.
“We’ll visit all of those little ghost towns you see in movies,” he said, his blue eyes sparkling.
“Hmmm, alright I’ll go!” I said laughing, as though I even had to think about it.
We packed our few things and started towards Colorado in his car. He had a nice, shiny car, with smooth leather seats. We went to Rocky Mountain National park first. It took some time to get there, we had several days of driving non stop and sleeping at cheap motels.
When we did get there Miles put up the tiny one person tent he had.
“What!?” I yelled when I saw it, “This is tiny!”
“I wasn’t expecting to take anyone with me,” Miles said, smiling his sneaky smile and walking towards me. “We don’t take up much space when we sleep anyway.”
I gave him a little smile back and turned awkwardly away. He took me round the waist and pulled me so our bodies were pressed tight against each other. His mouth fell onto mine and his tongue pressed through my lips.
“Mmm,” he said, kissing my neck, “Shall we test our tent?”
I let out a nervous giggle “Really Miles,” was all I could say.
He pulled me down into the tent with him kissing my neck. I made love with him, because I was in love with him. I had been in love with him since the morning after we first had sex. He was handsome and he was gentle with me. He would whisper in my ear telling me he loves me in the early hours of the morning. But for some reason now felt different.
“Miles,” I say, as his tongue glazes over the half moon of my breast.
“Hmm,” he answers.
“Not now miles, we can’t do this now,” saying this, I hear my voice sounding firm, authoritative.
“Come on Scarlet,” he says his hand wandering up my shirt.
“Miles!” My voice come out harsher then I intended. I tear myself away from him.
“What!”
I straighten out my shirt. “I don’t feel good.”
“Ahh” Miles says a look of comprehension crossing his face. “You have your monthly . . . err . . . thing.”
“Yeah,” I lie. My period wasn’t due for another 2 weeks. But I was feeling sick.
“Sorry, I wont bother you then.”
“Thanks.”
Miles and I spent the rest of the evening roasting hot dogs and marshmallows over the fire, telling scary stories, and all of that camping stuff. This was the first camping experience I had ever had, and it was going wonderfully.
That night I woke up in the middle of the night with extreme nausea. I stumbled outside of the tent and puked by a tree. Miles didn’t notice, thankfully. I stayed out there the rest of the night. Reading in the dull moonlight when I could concentrate. I still felt super sick.
The next morning I asked Miles if he could drive me to a clinic. I lied and told him that I had bad cramps and that I could get a prescription. The truth was, I just needed a check up. I had never got sick as a child. Even in the dirty conditions my mother and I lived in I rarely got sick.
The clinic he took me to was a cheep one, one that you could get in without any special papers. Perfect for me.
The doctor felt my stomach, took my temperature, and listened to my heart.
“Looks like you have a bug,” he said. “It should subside within about 48 hours.”
I thanked him and went back to the camp sight with Miles. Two days past and I did not feel better. In fact, I felt worse. I did my best to hid it from Miles but I couldn’t. Before I knew it 5 days had past and Miles started asking questions.
“What’s wrong with you?” he yelled one morning as we ate our breakfast of eggs cooked on a skillet over a fire.
“Nothing!” I said, trying to seem as innocent as I could.
“Well then why don’t you want to go hiking?”
“I just don’t feel the best,” I say, looking down.
“Oh come on!” Miles said, rolling his eyes, “You’ll be fine, just suck it up and come.”
“I was throwing up all night Miles. I have been really sick for almost a week.”
A strange look passed over Mile’s face, one that I had never seen on his face before. He knew what was wrong with me.
“What?” I said, in response to his face.
“Nothing,” he said, “Just get in the car.”
The tone of his voice was tough, I sat in the car, my backpack at my feet just in case I needed it. Miles got in the driver’s seat and started the car, he drove out of the national park.
“Where are you going Miles?” I asked, confused.
Miles sped faster and faster down the lonely road. He didn’t answer me. I kept quiet for a long time, starring out the window. Before I knew it an hour had past, we were far from the camp ground and pulling into a little diner that was in the middle of nowhere.
Miles turned to me. “Your a little bitch, you know that?”
Shocked, I let out a little laugh “What?”
“You were pretty, and you were willing” Miles said, his face completely tranquil. “You were the easiest, slittiest little thing I had ever meet. I figured you were some teenage runaway or something so I took you. And well, I knew this would happen. It is inevitable really. But I don’t want to drag a sick girl around, so I’m letting you go now.”
“Miles . . .”
“Get out of the car Scarlet.”
I did as he said, opening my door and stepping out.
“Grab your bag and close the door.”
I took my bag and closed the door of his car.
The window was rolled down so miles could still be heard.
“Welcome to the AIDS club.” he said, a grim smile on his handsome face.
He accelerated his car quickly and left me in the dust.
And here I am. Sure I had only known him for a little while, but I was completely head over heels in love with him. The tears began flowing and I sobbed for what seemed like forever. My love. How could he leave me?

Impressum

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 06.05.2010

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