The Thing He Coveted Most
It was the thing he coveted most. And it was destroyed, by the people he had kept closest to him. In the raging fire his dreams, hopes and aspirations were destroyed. All because he tried to love someone considered wrong for him. Considered wrong by the specials.
Eloise was her name. Shorter then most with light strawberry hair. Freckles adorned the plump features of her face. A slightly curved nose sat just off centre — below her bright green sparkling eyes — above her light pink lips that so often curved into a shy smile. She was average.
His name was James. Dark and very handsome, taller than most with dark brown hair. Smooth skin that was evenly tanned from too much time in the sun. A straight nose below deep blue eyes. And his confident smile that shattered most girls hearts from one look. He was a god.
In the crowded, pushing-pulling corridors of an unremarkable school in an unexceptional place their eyes met. In the falling stars that surrounded that day, their heartfelt connection was spread to the world's edge and back. But as his heart pounded, his feet carried him away. He couldn't; he wouldn't. Who was she? Nothing but the standard student that he saw everyday in this place. Except she was new. Different, wrong. And he didn't like it. He belonged elsewhere, with the higher class of pupil, the specials. She wasn't one of his group.
He heard everything else said to him that day, the laughter of his so-called friends, the jokes they told, the cruel words they said to anyone strange, and the compliments they paid him so many times. His so-called friends who he knew would laugh and speak so horrible to him if he told them how he felt about the appearance of what he thought most likely to be an angel. And yet he did not care what they thought.
She didn't know what to do; who was she to fall in love with the guy everyone adored but never spoke to? Even after years of being near him, she had been here five minutes and had only stolen one glance at his beautiful face. She had only looked into his eyes just once. But she did not care that he was off-limits; she did not care that he was considered to be out of her league. She wouldn't care if they were ridiculed and hurt. She loved him and didn't care what they thought.
Secrets always have unhappy endings. When two such different people met in the secret moments he had spare, in secret places at secret times, they must have known it wouldn't have lasted. For not long one loyal to the specials realised that the pair of star-crossed lovers were passing words of affections to each other, whenever they could. Secrets always have unhappy endings. The betrayer of the specials and his unholy lover must pay, so thought the specials. So the group of perfect heavenly demons planned how to split the boy with brown hair and the girl so unremarkable apart.
A choice is how this ends. A terrible choice to be made by the male who only followed his heart to this standard student. The choice between the girl with strawberry hair or his so-called friends. It was the most difficult dilemma. The thing he coveted most he lost, in one simple word he said to the group of specials. No. Two letters, one syllable, one word. And that was when that singular word changed into a longer, more powerful word: revenge.
It was the thing he coveted most. He lost her; in a gunshot she was gone. And they expected him to go back to them. The ones who destroyed the thing he loved most. He didn't. In a simple sip of a clear vial of plant extracts, he went to join the thing he coveted most.