The Places I've Cried in Public

by Holly Bourne

It looked like love. It felt like love. But this isn’t a love story.

I smiled at her widely to try and show her we were the SAME and we could BE FRIENDS.

I could’ve hugged her. Because, had it been up to me, I’d never have mentioned seeing her ever again even though I was desperate to.

Hannah isn’t my friend any more. I don’t really have friends any more.

This was still Before You.

The original 'there was before you, and there was after you'

“What if you can’t wait for me that long?” “You know I will.”

trilby hat.

Ew

I’ve hardly been eating and my parents are worried, and I’ve hardly played guitar and Mrs Clarke is worried, but the only person I want to notice all this and worry is you.

with that quiet authority that would turn out to be the undoing of me.

I still worry I’d do it all over again.

I literally just cried in public.”

“Yes, Taylor Swift isn’t taken as seriously as she should be,”

I felt drunk on the giddiness of it… …because I’m a fucking moron.

It felt weird and yet…right? Sort of. I wasn’t sure. All I knew was that the night had tumbled completely out of my control.

Casual ownership of me. Another humdinger of a red flag. A flag so red a bull would freaking eat it.

I hate you all of a sudden. The hatred arrives distilled and putrid.

Same

I wanted to turn to my left and roll my eyes, but nobody had sat on my left because I have no friends now.

We leave behind echoes of our lives everywhere we go, trapping them into the fabric of the world around us.

I made it halfway to college and then got all messed up by your lack of message,

And he’s had loads of girlfriends before, never seems to treat them well. He always refers to them as ‘psychos’ afterwards.”

"she said she hates you with the power of a thousand suns"

Reese, you were waiting outside my music lesson, you will recall.

Again, ew

He reached out for my heavy tote and I honestly found it romantic rather than patronizing and archaic, because we’ve established already that I’m a giant idiot.

It didn’t occur to me as weird that he knew my timetable because…well, we’ve explained the whole idiot thing.

I’d never taken drugs before but I guessed this was what they felt like – heady and racing towards euphoric, and like you were running too fast for your legs.

And bad for you

My memory map is the most underwhelming collection of compass points ever. But, I guess, isn’t that always the way with dramatic moments?

And, here I am, still a mess. A mess with no messages on her phone. Let alone a message with three kisses.