Pinky Swear

Chapter 37: Addiction

Ryan Adams

When I was little and different from other kids, I always thought something was wrong with me. It had been difficult for me to interact with kids my age as I was nervous around them, whereas they got along with each other perfectly. Nobody had ever walked up to me and asked to be my friend.

Well, maybe some did, but immediately my stutter started, they would give me weird looks and flee. My short height was also a reason for them to start bullying me.

Samantha Kendall was the first person to had actually found my stuttering cute. She didn’t know this, but the first day I had seen her wasn’t when our families had dinner together, but the afternoon before that.

She had been sitting on the steps of her porch playing with her dolls. I had come out to escape the noise of Kira’s wails as I had sensitive ears. But then I saw this pretty girl sitting on the porch of the house beside ours, her hair tied in two piggy tails, her blue eyes big and bright, the sound of her giggle was the sweetest melody I had heard.

Her cheeks were chubby but added to her cuteness, her lips curved into a smile that made me hold my breath in wonder. How could anyone be that beautiful; that was my thought as I continued to gawk at her amazed.

I thought about walking up to her to see her clearly and possibly talk to her. But I didn’t want to scare her away with my stuttering or make her hate me. So I walked back inside but not without taking a backward glance at her one last time.

When my parents had invited her’s for dinner, I had been excited to see her again. But throughout, I kept my head down to hide my red cheeks as I remembered how I had gawked and drooled over her earlier. I had to come up with an excuse to leave the dining table early so I could hide my stutter before it started.

But then minutes later, I found her in front of my door, knocking and saying she wanted to see me. I thought it was my mind playing tricks on me since I had a crush on her. But I was proven wrong when she started to chat with me and even touched me! She never minded my stutter and wanted to be my friend.

And when we both laid on my bed that night, I realized I never wanted her to go. I wanted her all to myself and would do anything to keep her.

Whenever I talked with her, my palms weren’t sweaty, I wasn’t nervous, and my stutter never made an appearance, unless I was lying to her, though. I made sure we hardly fought and always took the blame, I did everything to please her so she would like me, no matter what. I never needed anyone else as long as she was with me.

She knew everything about me, including my addiction to chocolate. She was my chocolate, my addiction, and I couldn’t get enough of her. So maybe that was why I made her promise me, in the form of a pinky swear, to never leave me.

But my heart was shattered into a million pieces the day she came and told me she was leaving for her grandma’s. I couldn’t believe my world was turning upside down just by the mere mention that she was going away from me. I begged and pleaded with her not to, even guilt-tripped her by ignoring her, but she never changed her mind.

I thought then that maybe she never really cared about me and that I had been over my head by thinking someone as great as she ever wanted anything to do with me. And here I had been planning our future, where we would get married and have three kids in a quiet and peaceful part of town. Gosh, I had been so stupid.

After she left, I hadn’t even realized I had entered into a state of depression. I couldn’t eat, sleep, or even study properly without ending up in tears while thinking of her. But she was somewhere else, happily living without me while I moped around like a fool. My parents noticed how depressed I was and tried to help, but they couldn’t do much.