PROLOGUE

DEAR ARABELLA,

When I was fifteen, you were everything.

You were Arabella Jones, perfection in the eyes of her surroundings. With that infectious easy-come-easy-go half-smile quirking at the corner of your lips, carving laughter lines and dimples into your sweet cinnamon skin, it's hard not to resist you and every swing of your hips is the rhythm of which your heart beats.

At first impression, you appeared to be the typical run-of-the-mill Sunday school girl. Sure, you were nice and you were sweet; you wore a cross around your neck and you had your heart stitched across your cardigans, you won prom queen twice in a row and you were captain of the Riverside High School 'Raptors' in a predominantly white school, but you never let the colour of your skin allow people to treat you differently. People said you had a dark side, though. And as I got to know you, they were right. There are many layers to a person- you were everything and anything. You were confident, present, ethereal. You had the ability to make anyone fall in love with you and people hated you for being so damn cool and in control at such a young age when I, like, everybody else at that time had no idea what the fuck was going on. 

People would feel privileged to have your attention because you're like a block of perfectly concealed emotions. Who could blame you? You have a reputation to uphold. Church on Sundays, community service on Saturdays, cheerleading practices on Monday and Wednesday afternoons, Friday night dates with your quarterback boyfriend. You're the poster child for teenage Mother Teresa, which is why they think it's impossible for you to have flaws. But you do have them. We are, after all, humans and our qualities are finite, just like our existence.

There were some instances where you're possessive and I'm afraid the only love you've ever known is toxic love. Maybe that's why you pushed me away- because when somebody started to show you something that you've never felt before and you get a taste of what it feels like to not be in the driver's seat and it's out of your control. Not that it justified why you froze me out but I understood. Sort of.

I didn't regret you, though. I spent middle school rolling my eyes at your popular clique while secretly admiring you from afar. You were Church Girl Arabella. You even dated my jock of a brother for a while. And sure, you were dating my brother when we came to be but I didn't think one in a million years you'd notice a girl like me. Dawn Wilson, the scattered but somewhat together, innocent but corrupted, unfashionably dressed, entirely pessimistic about life nobody, who everybody stayed away from and spent most of her life smoking up in a basement with kids who would go nowhere in life. And I was fifteen when we first properly interacted and fifteen when I truly fell in love for the first time. I didn't think it was love at the time- just pure fascination with how totally unprecedented you are and how no matter what, you maintain kindness as a virtue. I thought it was an infatuation, and maybe a little lust in there too. I didn't think what we had would still be burning in my mind twenty years later.

I was unaware of how something special was happening only until years later when it had already happened and I was a little too late to realize what was happening was something really, really wonderful. I loved everything thing about us- an odd friendship and then a love of queasy knees and passionate kisses exchanging between whiskey-flavoured lips in the dark, waking up in the morning with a pounding headache and you nestled in my arms. A fire and ice mismatch of innocence and rebellion, your dark hair and my green eyes, your dark brown eyes and my rust-coloured hair. Our fingers entwined as we watched stars on our backs, observing life go by in our small town while we laughed about how the world was going to hell; you'll clutch at the rosary on the neck and wonder if the faith that had been embedded into you was something you can really hold on to.

We were seventeen and fearless. I guess being with you gave me that dash of youth, that velvety sheen of the innocence of being a teenager and invigorating my bitter, cynical self into someone I genuinely like.

And look at us now. I'm pushing forty and I'm still writing things about you. Theorizing and trying to feel as if you loved me like I loved you. Maybe you don't. Maybe I was just something you wanted to try out. Maybe I was something you wanted to sample. Maybe I was the best thing that ever happened to you. Maybe we were just two girls bored to death.

There was nothing to distract us. The presence of technology was only partially existent and we relied on human interaction to express affection, not emojis. Phones used to be supplementary, but now they are mandatory as they had become an extension of who we are, what we are up to, what we enjoy, what we dislike, where we are going, and so forth. The other day I was heading to work downtown and I was about to board the train when I realized I didn't have my phone. I went into a full panic mode and then I calmed down as I borrowed somebody else's and asked my husband to just drop it off for me. When I calmed down, I was ashamed at how dependent I was on it. Anyway, the main point of this was that I miss the days of simpler times where we used to visualise a dreamboat in our minds, and draw them up ourselves, instead of instantly having a photo handed to us on a platter.

And the years growing up in the 90s was our last chance to really soak up what it was like to really have the majority of our time soaking up human experiences. And I think that's what made you really special, Arabella.

Because you know we were young in the midst of your hormonal teenage years, and we were confined to the limits of our tiny suburban town where nothing ever happens so everything seemed stagnant. With nowhere to go with what seems like nothing to do, boredom and frustration sets in, and in that ennui arises our insatiable need to experiment with our sexuality, substances, and different relationships. And in doing so, you kind of find little bits of yourself in everything your curiosity set out to discover.

So thank you, Arabella, thank you so so much.

I miss you.

Rest in peace,

Dawn Wilson. 

-

this made me strangely emotional?

idk

anyway, there we go!

the prologue of american teenagers!

feels weird not to be writing with a british accent in mind.

also dedicated to ofdivinity.