Kitsu’s Diary

A candle burns until the flame runs dry. It doesn’t flicker on and off or exuberate nasty flames; it just burns at the same brightness until the flame runs dry. That’s how I choose to live now. I won’t allow anything to falter or affect me anymore, it’s safer this way. My name is Kitsu Bolton and I’m 21 years old, I have a small and concise circle of friends but no boyfriend. I built up a wall around my heart many years ago and no one has been brave enough to knock it down ever since.

It all started when I fell in love with a boy at secondary school called Trevor. He wasn’t just any ordinary boy – or so I thought – there was something special about Trevor. Something that put a sparkle in my eye and butterflies in my stomach. Trevor wasn't particularly good looking or charming for that matter, but he knew how to carry himself so that all of us girls would just go weak at the knees the moment he so much as even looked in our direction.

He was a scruffy, rebellious type of boy - everything a young teenage girl could dream of, so I thought! He would always walk around with his shirt untucked, the top button of his school shirt undone, and his winter coat on inside the building at all times. We weren't allowed to wear coloured coats at school only black ones, but Trevor would always wear a navy-blue puffy coat as he strolled down the hallway almost thirty minutes late, every single morning. We knew that Trevor was coming down the corridor because there would always be a yelling and shrieking sound that followed closely behind him. That was Mr Mayhew, the Vice-Principal. Mr Mayhew spent most of his mornings shouting at Trevor about the fact that he was late, or that he was wearing the incorrect uniform once again! The fascinating thing about Trevor was that he didn’t seem to care; he would make that known more than anything else he did. Trevor was so uninterested in following the school rules - it was almost as if his refusal to conform made him even more appealing.

“I don’t care, I don’t care, lock me up for it!” Trevor would repeat with the most sarcastic tone ever uttered as he strutted off down the hallway with his head bobbing in complete defiance of the Vice Principal’s instructions. There was one occasion where Trevor made a massive scene on the ground floor corridor right outside my classroom. Mr Mayhew was telling Trevor that he was going to be writing a report about his poor behaviour and sending a letter home. We all heard Trevor shouting back at Mr Mayhew.

“Write a report then fam, cool write a report!”

Needless to announce, Trevor spent most of his time sitting in the school’s internal exclusion unit.

Despite all of his unfortunate mishaps and outbursts of defiance, there was just something about Trevor that had all of us girls completely lovestruck. Whenever we heard him walking down the hallway, we would try and peer out of our classroom windows to catch his eye. Sometimes we would try and find some kind of excuse to get out of the classroom so that we could ‘accidentally’ bump into him in the hallway and steal a cheeky little conversation with him first thing in the morning – well once he finally arrived at school.

I had two best friends at Secondary School called Lisa and Jessica.

Lisa, Jess and I all fancied Trevor although we never really spoke about it openly. I’m not quite sure why we didn’t talk about it, but I can only assume it was because secretly, we were all hoping that one day Trevor would ask one of us out and we didn’t want it to be awkward for the others. To avoid any future complications, we just chose not to talk about it. Even when we had conversations about the boys at school, none of us really spoke about their real feelings for Trevor, we just kind of skated over it. I remember one time we were having lunch in the school canteen; I caught Jess looking at Trevor from the side of her eye as he walked past, Trevor gave a tiny smirk back, Lisa and I both noticed but we pretended that we didn’t. I could tell Jess desperately wanted us to bring it up so she would have some excuse to talk about him, but we didn’t.

“He’s so ridiculous,” we would all snigger whenever Trevor pulled one of his obstinate stunts that landed him back in the Vice Principals’ office.

“Yeh, he really needs to get a life,” that’s what my friend Jess would say.

I remember the first time that I met Trevor, I was in Year 9; I was thirteen years old at the time. Trevor didn’t join our school until we were in Year 9, that’s the third year of secondary school over here in London – it’s what the American’s call Junior High. Trevor would’ve been a Freshman in High School if he had stayed in New Jersey with his mum, that’s where he lived for most of his life. Trevor dropped back a school year when he returned to London; he started school mid-year so needed time to catch up on the curriculum. Trevor grew up in London but when he was five years old, his parents split up and he moved to New Jersey with his mother. Trevor lived in New Jersey for about seven years; he moved back to London when he was twelve years old because his mum remarried and moved to the Congo with her new husband. Trevor’s dad didn’t want him moving to Africa, so he sent for him to come and live with him in London. That’s how we met.

Trevor attended a different school, somewhere in North London when he first moved over here; then he transferred to our school in Camberwell as part of a ‘managed move.’ That’s what they call it when you have to move schools because your behaviour is too unmanageable. Although Trevor was placed into our year, he was older than us, only by a year or two though. From the moment Trevor joined our school he had this reputation for being the ‘bad guy’ in school.

So why would he want to go out with me? I used to sit and wonder as I sat daydreaming about what it would be like to walk hand in hand with Trevor around the hallways of the school. I imagined everyone would be super jealous of me and I could do whatever I wanted. No one would mess with me if I were Trevor's girlfriends, so I thought. He was the boy that everyone looked up to. What would he want with a goody-two-shoes like me though?

There was one day that I walked past Trevor in the hallway, by accident, it wasn’t like I planned it or anything; we just ended up being the only ones in the hallway at that particular moment in time. I had walked past Trevor many times before but this one was different – this time Trevor stopped, and he glimpsed at me. It wasn’t just any kind of glimpse it was extensive, warm and heartfelt. I looked really nice that day, I had my hair straightened but slicked back in a bun and I had on some dark brown eyeliner that I didn’t usually wear because we weren’t allowed to wear make-up in school. I just wore it that day because Jess wanted to try out a new look on me, she did that sometimes, brought new make-up and asked me whether she could try it out on me just to see how it looked. I didn’t mind. I knew I stood out that day and Trevor noticed it as well. So, when Trevor passed by me in the hallway he just stopped and took an extended look.

He looked at me with silent admiration, I could tell that he was in awe because he didn’t say anything. Trevor wanted to tell me how amazing I looked; even though he couldn’t get the words out I knew, I just knew.