He Doesn't Know. I do.

Life is all about the choices we make. We choose to work out for 20 minutes or eat a hamburger. We choose to call up a friend or wait for them to ring you. We choose to buy our mother's flower's instead of chocolates; because even though they'd love either one, they'd love to keep their figure the same, even more.

The most important choice I made recently was date Jesse. Now, all our choices aren't always great. In my case, Jesse was a bad choice. But, for the most part, he treated me right and looked out for me when we were together, so I started to really like him. Maybe even love him.

My best friend didn't love him. He didn't like the guy. And Jesse didn't like Darren either. I guess I did put my foot in it by dating my best friends' "sworn enemy", but me and Jess just clicked, so Daz had to deal.

Unfortunately, he had dealt for too long and within two months, we weren't talking. The more time I would spend with Jesse, the less Darren would even bother to look at me- which made me spend more time with Jess because he made me feel like someone cared.

It was a vicious cycle.

"Hi, can I talk to Darren please?"
"Speaking."
"Hey... uhm, it's Miranda."
"Oh... What do you want?"

"I just wanted to talk. How's things?"
"Fine."
"Oh, that's good to hear."
"Anything else?"
"What? No, I just wanted to see how you were doing. You know, being a... friend."
"Okay. Bye." *click*

Those were our phone conversations... When we did have a phone conversation. Now, he just refuses to answer the phone, and if I do call and his mum answers, she'll leave the phone for him only to have him hang up on me.

I was walking down the empty hall after school had finished. It doesn't take long for all the students to shove books in their lockers and bail at the end of the day. I had to stay back and talk to the Drama teacher about one of the scenes I had to act in. But all that was sorted, so now it was just me, walking down a hallway and scuffing my chucks against the floor, occasionally hitting a locker. I stopped when I heard a door slam and my ehad snapped up and my eyes widened.

Darren's eyes stared right back.

We stood awkwardly, 20 metres away from each other, me fiddling with my lip ring and him with his hands dug deep inside his shorts. I sighed, taking a step forward and crossing the hall, opening my locker. I grabbed the books I would need for the weekend and put them in my shoulder bag, shutting the door slowly, looking to my right to see Darren had moved and was now stood right in front of me.

He walks softly.

"Why?" He whispered harshly, stepping in front of me as I tried to move to his side.

"Why what?" I asked back, my voice small. I never was one for confrontation.

"Why are you dating him Miranda?" He sighed, putting a hand on my cheek to make me look at him.

I gulped, and looked into his eyes, biting my lip ring again as he curiously studied my expression. "...Because I want to. He's nice, and treats me right and-"

"Is the one person I hate the most! What did I do to piss you off so much that you want to even touch that guy?"

"Shut up Daz, just 'cuz you don't like him!"

"Yeah, for good reason. He's taken away my best friend!"

"You didn't even get along with him before we were together, so that's not even an excuse."

"He's dated one of my best friend's before and then dumped her on her arse, but by then she wanted nothing more to do with me so I lost one of my closest friend's. I just don't want the same thing happening to you."

"Yeah, well I'll be fine. Excuse me."

I pushed past him and hurried towards the door, but I didn't make it too far before Darren's hand was on my wrist and he spun me around, using both hands to hold my neck as he forced his lips on mine. At first, I just stood there, until he slowly moved his thumb against my cheek and my eyes slipped shut, my body relaxing a little.

"I don't want you to be "just fine"," He whispered, his lips moving against mine. "I want you to be the happiest you've ever been and feel like you're on top of the world every single day," He said. He sounded like he was pleading with me to agree with him.

"Darren, I can't just du-"
"Yes you can. He doesn't deserve you."
"And you do?"

He pulled back to look into my eyes, nodding. "He doesn't know you're favourite colour is lavender, even though you normally say purple. He doesn't know that even though you love to go swimming, you still don't know how to water ski and are scared to learn. He doesn't know that you're hair has that stupid cow lick and that a fringe wouldn't work, no matter how many times your girlfriend's beg you to try it."

My lip trembled and I felt my eyes sting with tears, but didn't let them fall.

"He doesn't know that you've got a birth mark on your arm, but can't see it because you're so tanned. He knows you're "hot", but he doesn't know you're beautiful. And the most important thing of all is that he doesn't know you're standing here right now, instead of making out in his car when you'd rather be cuddling on the couch, watching The Notebook."

I laughed and rested my hands on his, pulling them from my face, so he could link our finger's together.
"He doesn't know those things huh?" Daz shook his head, looking intently into my eyes. "Then I guess that's a good thing, because at least someone knows me completely," I added with a grin, pecking his lips quickly. He laughed and brought me into a hug, turning me around to walk out of school and walk home.


That day, I think I made a good choice.
Well, I must have. Darren just walked off the stage with his graduation diploma. We've made it two years, now we've just got the future to worry about.

Nothing compares to a quiet evening alone...
I have no clue where that came from.