Betty
I changed my homeroom. I just couldn't bear to look at you every day and torment myself with questions I couldn't even find the words to ask.
Despite my efforts, you always find a way to get back in my sights. I can't escape the rest of you. Stains of your touch, your smell, your taste, linger in my memories. I stare out my window looking for a sign and I convince myself I have found one when I see that skateboard outside. I watched you skate down the old trail by my house, the one we would ride together.
Was it colder than it used to be?
I never thought you'd do it, I never saw it coming. I heard the rumors, and I didn't want to believe them. But the most painful part wasn't being told the truth, it was that I already knew.
Letting you love me was the worst thing that I ever did.
But letting you go might be worse.
I have this dream where I see you again, where you actually show up. That's the whole dream. You, standing in front of me. Me, looking back at you. I'm frozen, stuck between choosing you or choosing myself because it feels like I can only truly keep one. I want to choose me. I want to take one last look at you crawling back to me before I scream go fuck yourself and slam the door on us. I have this dream of us in the garden where you apologize. You tell me you love me, you miss me, you tell me you're sorry. You, standing in front of me. Me, looking back at you. It's beautiful, it's not real. I want to choose you. I want to trust you, I want to believe we are just kids who don't know anything and we are growing up and making mistakes and learning from them, but how could you have made this one?
The sound of my favorite song snaps me back to reality, but immediately takes me somewhere else. I'm back in the moment I knew I was losing you. You, mister everpresent, who seemingly vanishes only when I need you, and never when I don't. I see myself alone in the corner while my song plays, and that's when he asks me to dance. It was a new feeling, to be seen like that. But I wanted you to see me.
Thinking you loved me was the worst thing that I ever did.
That night welcomed the whispers that would haunt me as I dreamt of you. Leaving me to wonder if you'll ever show up again as something other than a figment of my imagination. You, standing in front of me. Me, looking back at you.
Did you ever even think of me? Did you hesitate? Did the broken cobblestones you walked on home lead you to where you really wanted to go?
I imagine you with her in the sun and I wonder if you wished it was me. I see the two of you in her car, driving backroads with the windows down, chasing sunsets and counting stars. And I hear the radio playing the perfect soundtrack as if capturing secret moments only for your ears to share. I can feel her lips softly kiss your lips and the closeness of her skin pressed against your skin, and I wonder if you could ever know me so well. I smell the salty bite in the air and the changing of the seasons and I wonder if you're changing too.
Today is my party. Today I'm surrounded by my friends who love me and the people who truly know me. I haven't seen you in weeks.
And then you actually show up.
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