It Still Hurts

It still hurts, the teen thought, with a sigh.



Today would be their two-month anniversary. Would be. If they were still together.



Ernest bit his bottom lip as he tried to refocus his mind on something else - like the red and pink streamers that had mysteriously popped up around the walls of the school. What were they for, anyway? School usually wasn't decorated, even for holidays; Halloween had been a dreary day where he'd been chauffeured to and from assemblies stressing the importance of keeping safe while trick-or-treating and not bombarding houses with eggs or toiletries -- because they were so obviously going to heed the umpteenth reminder of their lives when they'd so frankly disregarded the other twenty-something, he noted acidly. Marc'd just been a cute face in a sea of people back then. Despite himself, Ernest couldn't help smiling -- the first day Marc had ever talked to him beyond a simple "hey, John wanted me to give this to you" or "Dana said there's a junior varsity volleyball game after school if you're free" was the day after Halloween. Ernest had walked onto him accompanying himself on the piano while he sang -- Marc was always the consummate performer, if nothing else. He was hesitant to label himself a musician; he fancied himself more of an actor with a musical touch than a concert stage dweller. They'd often joked about how they'd run the Vineyard scene in Spring Awakening if they ever got the chance to, Marc playing the smooth, sophisticated Hanschen, who ended up seducing innocent Ernst, played by, well, Ernest. Now that they weren't a couple anymore, though...

Ernest grimaced, shaking off the thought of him and, well, trying to think of something else.



He cracked open the black binder in front of him, flipping to the Spanish 3 section, and checked the calendar labelled with his homework throughout the month hastily.



And then it hit him.



It was February, wasn't it?



Fuck.



So not only was he going to be tortured with this breakup (that'd happened like a month ago, so there really was no excuse for him to still be feeling sorry for himself at this point, he had to remind himself), he'd have to contend with girls looking vaguely like candy canes fawning over men in the hallways (Christmas was long past, Ernest wanted to yell, if only to see their reactions) and, more pointedly, relationships.



Relationshits.



Fuck it. Fuck all this shit. And fuck Marc. Fuck him especially hard.



Why'd it have to be February?