Dare-Devil Spirit

I met him on my first day of high school. Dark hair, olive skin, and mischievous smile. A real head turner! I disliked him instantly. He was too arrogant, one of those brats with a cocky walk who changed girlfriends like socks.

Two weeks into high school he was already dating a girl from my class and a curly brunette in 9C, who wore tonnes of make up and a violent red lipstick that made her look trashy. His macho tricks worked wonders on those silly twats! At 16, he was a renegade! He smoked. Drank. Slept around. A real bad ass!

We named him Cri Cri d’Amour, after a character in a popular French sitcom. A real love cricket, he even won Miss Turcu’s favours, our bitter Geography teacher, whose fiancée left her at the altar 100 years before.

“Don’t you ever get tired?” I’d ask him in a mocking tone. “They are so predictable, so boring!”

“No, the more shit you feed them the more they’ll take”, he’d reply with a devilish smile.

We were like cat and dog for a year. In tenth grade, I humiliated him publicly. I slapped him for wanting to kiss me. “I will get you!” he hissed before turning around.

He started by sweet talking all my friends. They were soon convinced he was madly in love with me. Everything became about me and me alone. He sat next to me in class, wrote me love notes and bought me flowers.

Suddenly school was not so boring and waking up in the morning was a blessing. He made a habit of meeting me at 7.45am, at the corner of a ramshackle on my way to school. I would notice him from far, leaning against the old fence, smoking a fag and smiling sheepishly. He looked so dangerously gorgeous! He would kiss me on the cheek and tell me good morning.

Soon we were writing each other love letters. He wrote for me the lyrics of every love song we listened to, and made tapes with my favourite bands.

And then things got weird…suddenly I was supposed to stay away. He carried a terrible curse that would kill him exactly on 31^st August. He had nightmares, the light bulb in his room would explode every other night, and his death was going to be by accidental electrocution. The more I heard, the more I wanted to save him.

I felt sucked into a nightmare, where his favourite past time was self inflicted razor cuts on his arms and cigarettes burns on his chest. I was a ghost, losing weight, sleep, and my mind.

He broke up with me that summer, before school ended. “You don’t sleep with me…I don’t want you!” It was all just a bet that he lost because his time had run out!

The following year he moved to another school. Word got around he’d slept with our young Chemistry teacher, who also happened to be the headmaster’s daughter. Things got ugly and although it was all hush, hush, everybody knew.

Five years later, we meet by chance. Two older, wiser friends. At 23, he is a fresh divorcee, a “victim” certainly. He is still dangerously charming.