As we kissed

As we kissed, it was beautiful, explosive, magnetic. I couldn’t imagine anything better.

Suddenly, I realised who I was kissing. What the hell was I doing? I pulled back to see his smug face.

Anger pulsed through me.

Bang!

I punched him square in the face.

Oscar yelled out in pain. His hand rushed up to clutch his already bleeding nose.

‘What the hell Grace!’ Oscar exclaimed.

‘Sorry.’ It said in an automatic response. Except I wasn’t sorry. In fact, I was a little proud that I managed to draw blood in one hit. I guess all those self-defence classes were paying off.

‘Why did you do that?’ Oscar asked, still holding his face in pain. I thought he was being a bit dramatic. How hard could I have really hit him?

I’m not just some joke you can bully and then kiss in the middle of campus just to give your friends a good laugh.’ I knew that Oscar's entourage had to be around here somewhere. I started calling out into the dark ‘Ok, come on guy,s I’m sure you got a good laugh, but you can come out now.’

I looked all around. Nothing moved. This was ridiculous. What more could they possibly want from me? I walked off the path towards one of the surrounding shrubs. If I needed a good hiding spot, it looked like the right place.

‘Come on guys,’ I said as I walked around the bush ‘you can come out now.’ I was vaguely aware of Oscar following me.

‘Hey,’ he called, ‘what are you doing?’

Honestly, this boy could act frustratingly dense sometimes.

‘What does it look like I’m doing? I’m looking for your gaggle of patrons to come out.’

I saw Oscar's lips move as he repeated what I said, processing the information.

‘Pete and the others are long gone, they left the party before us remember,’ he played.

‘Sure they are’ I said with a sarcastic roll of my eyes. Really, it was one thing to tournament me all year in school, it was an entirely different thing to treat me as if I didn’t know what was going on.

‘Hey,’ Oscar called again as I continued to search our surrounds for his friends ‘where are you going?’

‘Stop following me.’ I demanded, exasperated by his presence. I just wanted him to go away. I wanted him to stop continuing with this charade.

‘Come on, please, I thought we were having a good time, ’ Oscar said, nearly sounding sincere as he grabbed my hand, like he had permission to do that. That was one of the most infuriating things about Oscar he just assumed he had the right to do whatever he wanted. He was a posh twat as far as I was concerned. Just because he had a trust fund that could buy this college did not mean he had the right to grab whoever he wanted, and it certainly didn’t mean he had the right to kiss whoever he wanted.

Oscar had been messing with me all year. It started right on the first day of school. We had both gotten into the same prestigious course, electrical engineering at St. Orwell's College. The classes were small and the hours were long, so I knew I would have to make friends with a few people in my course since we would be spending so much time together. I was nervous but excited. The lecture hall was excessively big for the class size. I decided to sit somewhere in the middle it wanted no one to notice me. I did see a gang of people sitting up at the back who already appeared to know each other. Oscar sat in the middle of them, spreading out his body across several seats so those sitting next to him had to practically drape themselves across him to talk to the others. We locked eyes as I realised I was staring back at the group.

‘Hey,’ Oscar called down to me, silencing his court ‘do you not want to sit with us?’ He smiled tauntingly. I had played this game before, back at my old school. The popular ones pretend to be your friend while they laugh behind your back for their own amusement. This was not an actual invitation. It was a test to see how desperate I was to sit there and get the privilege of adoring Oscar like the rest.

‘No thank you.’ I said as I turned back to my work.

Just like that, I was on my own. There was no getting around it. I had openly displeased the king. I couldn’t make any friends. No matter how hard I tried. No matter how many different ways I approached the conversation. No one wanted to talk to me. My whole life suddenly became very lonely.

It didn’t help that things only got worse from there. Me and Oscar’s repertoire grew more hostile by the day. Every day I would come into class and he would have some sort of derivative little comment to say to me like ‘So I see someone having a rough morning’ he said the day I spilled coffee on myself.

‘No as rough a life as you’ll have when you’ll be a finalising your fourth divorce in the future’

‘At least someone will want to marry me.’

‘Only for your money. Luckily for you because it’s not like you have a personality.’

‘Says the grinch.’

‘Says the Hugh Hefner wanna be.’

And then class would start and we would wait planning out our next move of attack. I can’t say I never enjoyed it. But at the end of the day he had friends, parties he was invited to and enough money not to care if he failed the course. I on the other hand had no money, no option but to be top of my class and no life. I could win every battle of wit but we both knew it meant nothing in the end he had already won.

Finally, things erupted after the class list was posted. I had come first in the class. Oscar was just behind me coming second. We still had another two semesters left but so far I was winning. I practically skipped to class that morning. As I was about to enter through the double doors I heard my name being spoken.

‘Grace can't be top of the class. I just don’t get how that freak beat me,’ I recognised the voice, it was Oscar ‘I mean she comes in here every day, sits alone by herself, throws every insult she can think of back at me and she is first in the class. You are that obsessed with studying?’

Tears welled in my eyes. I ran to the bathroom and cried for an hour. It was the first time I missed a class. How could he be so mean, I thought, he made me like this, and then he has the audacity to call me a freak. I was just trying my best, and now I’m crying alone in a bathroom, knowing no one is going to come and find me.

That’s when I made to decision to stay silent. Whenever Oscar tried to engage with me I didn’t talk back I just ignored his existence. Beyond polite pleasantries, I intended to keep my head down and just get through the course.

Then a week ago Jane, one of Oscar's disciples announced that she was doing a big birthday celebration and everyone was invited. I wouldn’t have gone except she came up and handed me a handmade invitation. I thought I would go and just see what it was like since this was the only party I’d been invited to since starting the course and I probably wouldn’t be invited to another.

I picked out a pink sequence backless cocktail dress to wear. I arrived purposefully late, so the party was already in full swing. Immediately, when I entered, Jane was on top of me in an all-consuming embrace.

‘You came.’ She squealed. She was clearly drunk. Mercifully, Jane handed me a full red solo cup. I wasn’t sure what it contained, but I drank it up. The next hour became a blur of music, talking and colour. Somewhere in the mix of it all, I ended up on a couch talking to Oscar. I don’t remember how the conversation began, but I remember saying, ‘You know I don’t hate you.’

‘Really?’ he responded, taking a sip of whatever he was drinking ‘You could have fooled me.’

‘What I mean is I don’t think you're evil. I don’t like you, obviously –‘

‘Obviously.’ Oscar interrupted

‘-but when you are not being a class-A WASP I’m sure there’s something good about you. Thus you are one the ‘highly dislike and definitely avoid list’ and not on the ‘I hate you list’.’ I ended proudly and nodded in finality.

‘How are you getting home tonight?’ he asked.

I looked around and realise we were one of the few left around. How long had I been talking to Oscar I wondered?

‘Come on, I’ll walk you home.’ He said, getting off the couch and putting out his hand to help me get up.

‘No, I’ll just get a taxi,' I replied, pulling out my phone from my purse. I tried to switch it on, but the unreliable thing must have died. I couldn’t order a taxi, and if something happened while I was walking home, I’d have no way to call anyone. I had no choice.

‘Fine,’ I gave in, but you’re just walking me home. That’s it.’

‘That’s it.’ Oscar agreed. ‘Now that I have been introduced to your complex list system I’m just dying to make it onto the ‘vaguely dislike and somewhat tolerate list’.’ Oscar smiled.

I snorted a laugh ‘Fat chance.’

I should have warned him that I lived far enough away, a good half an hour's walk when you are wearing runners. It would take us at least forty-five minutes to get there as I tottered along in heels. Even in my four-inch stilettos, Oscar was still a good inch taller than me, and his fluffy curly blonde hair gave him another inch. It didn’t feel like forty-five minutes as we walked. I learned Oscar was surprisingly funny and perceptive as we laughed about our lectures, classes and classmates. I supposed I could understand why people gravitated towards him. Oscar could be incredibly charming when he wanted to be.

When we made it to my apartment, I turned to him. I didn’t realise how close we were standing until I looked into his eyes. I didn’t even think as he kissed me.

Oscar was standing close to me again. His eyes blazing with so many emotions, curiosity, suppressed anger and a soft kindness. He repeated himself ‘What happened I thought we were having a good time?’ The pain from my strike must have finally subsided. I felt hurt. Tears reached my eyes as I spoke.

‘We were,’ I looked up at the stars, unable to look at him, ‘until you kissed me.’ I took a hard-earned breath. ‘I mean, why would you do that if it wasn’t all some big joke to you?’

Oscar stretched his hands out to emphasise the obviousness of his statement as he let some of his anger slip. ‘I don’t know because I wanted to; because I like you; because you’re like the prettiest girl in our year, and I thought that ever since I saw you on the first day of class; because you are the only one who challenges me.’ He rubs one hand through his gorgeous golden hair, exasperated by this. ‘I mean, I sit there in class and barely listen to the teachers because all I’m thinking about is what can I say to you to get you to talk back?’ Now Oscar is the one upset. I feel myself getting colder as these revelations keep coming. ‘I’m sorry if what I said ever hurt you.’

I look up to the sky again, needing a moment to process everything he just said. ‘Christ. I never cared about the insults. Honestly, coming up with different ways to bruise that ego of yours has been the best fun all year. But I heard you after the class list came out. You called me a freak and a weirdo.’

‘Ok,’ Oscar says calmly ‘I did that. I was angry. I didn’t mean it. I’m sorry. It was just that you weren’t giving me the time of day and then I came second to you. It all felt like you were this elusive dream I could never quite grasp. I was frustrated and I said those things to let off some steam. I shouldn’t have it was wrong.’

‘I stopped talking to you because of what you said.’ I wanted to see how he would respond to that, to my conviction to throw him out of my life. I did it once, I could do it again.

‘Oh, I know.’ There was something evil glinting in his eyes. 'I didn’t know why until now, but I noticed. It drove me mental. That’s when I knew I was a goner.’ Oscar came close to me again. Closer than all the other times. ‘I love you, Grace. I’m sorry that I ever hurt you.’

At that, I kissed him again. A joyous, full and passionate kiss. This time, I didn’t punch him in the face afterwards.

I think we shocked people when Oscar and I came into class on Monday with his arm around me, and I began the only girl at the back of class draped across him.

The End.