Chapter 1
He’s gone.
You loved him so so much. And he’s gone. I miss him and his smile and his hugs and his kisses and his smell and his habits and his eyes and his cuddles and his love and his presence and his touch. It hurt enough during the summer when you couldn't see him. And it crushed you to find out that they couldn’t go to your school, as well as your other friends. It crushed you. The whole image of having a good school year collapsed. Shattered. You are broken, but at least you can talk to him, and at least you can call him. At least you could say you were still together. Then you thought it was going to get better because you were able to text him and call him, and video call him, you could see him. He’s so cute and you just wanted to jump through the screen, cuddle and hug him, kiss him, tell him everything, and even lie there looking at the ceiling thinking about him. You couldn’t but at least you could see him. All the late-night conversations that you had with him were more than you could ever want. Those videos he sent. The texts you replied to. The way that he would always say how he loved you. And even though you had to hide it, you felt better. You thought that you might be able to do something. He asks you to his school's Homecoming, and even though you knew you wouldn’t be able to be there with him, the idea of it, and the fact that he asked you made you melt. It made you feel so warm inside, and it made your whole day. Then you got caught. She took your communication away from you. You cried for hours, and you wanted to leave your house, find a bridge, and jump off of it. You wanted to walk onto the freeway and stand there until you got hit. Your reason for going forward was gone. Your hope was stamped out. You cried while you sent the text that decided that we wouldn’t be able to talk 1 on 1 anymore. At least you could text him at school on your friend's phone. He didn’t respond. Does he not love you? Is there someone else? Maybe it's just too painful for him. You don't know. At least you are still together. You thought he might be dead, but hopefully not. The next week your friend comes up to you. “I’ve got good news and bad news”. Turns out he broke up with you. It was along the lines of “We should try to date when we’re older so that our parents are getting in the way because your mom hates me and my dad is making me break up with you.”. You become numb. You saw it coming, but did it have to come this soon? Your day sucked. You can’t stop thinking about him. You walk past the house that reminds you of him. You say things he said, you see people he was friends with, you remember that day. You remember every single date you went on. Every time that you called him, and how often you wished him to be there with you, especially on lonely nights. You always hope in vain that he’ll be there anywhere you go, even if he lives 3 cities away. Who knows? He’s got relatives, maybe someday he’ll come visit them on one of those days that you walk past that house. He’ll see you in the window, and come running after you. Hug attack. Hanging out. Cuddling. Kissing. Loving. You know that this is in vain but it's the only thing that's keeping you going. You can recall the way he smelled, the way he kissed you, how he would hug you, how warm he always was. He was like a walking blanket. And even though he had so many hard times he was still like a little kid in some ways. He would dance around, smile at you when he saw you, and his eyes. Oh, his eyes. Big brown pools of love. They were just OUGH. They were so pretty. I could’ve looked at them for hours, and they would unravel all my darkest secrets, all my fears, and yet I would still feel safe in their gaze. But how would you ever see him again? You won’t. Maybe someday. You’ll drive to wherever he lives even though you don’t know where he is. Hopefully, you’ll knock on his door, he’ll answer, and you lock eye contact. You stand there for a minute. “Hey.” you’ll say, with a little smile. You wrap your arms around his neck. Hopefully, he’ll still love you. But there are other people. People he talked about at his school. People who were pretty. People who would easily replace you. It’s quite possible that he could move on. Maybe you should too, but you can't forget him. He’s everywhere. Anywhere you hope to see him. Maybe he’s a bit taller and maybe he grew his hair out a bit. But overall he’s the same guy you fell in love with. Even before you were together, you had a massive crush on him. It hurt so much that little period you didn't talk. But that assembly brought you together again. He asked for your number during the 5th period. You had to wait for ur mom to approve his number, but you know. It was still good you got it. One day he was just hanging out at your corner at lunch, and you called him over. You asked to hug him. Omg, this man's hugs I can't. He pulls away and asks what’s wrong, “Why did you need a hug?” I just wanted to hug you but I couldn’t say that, so I just said I needed a hug. He looks confused but you just smile at him. During the first semester when you first met him in your English class, you slowly became friends with him and his best friend. The key memory you have of him is during October when you had some extra candy, and you wanted to give him something bc this man is better in every way, so you just gave him some. It was a king-sized KitKat and/or Twix so you just gave it to him. “Really??” he asked. You just nodded, and you were so happy the classroom was dark, you were so red. He was sitting next to you and so he just hugged your arm. You fell immediately. You could not describe how happy that made you. He was so nice to you. You heard things about him, but love made it blind, and I’m so glad it did. It leads to happiness, even if it dwindles later. I think that was the happiest you’ve ever been before. During the summer nights 2 am calls with crackhead energy brought smiles for so long. Even if your brother was there hovering over you guys, it was still so fun. You still love him. And you’re scared of letting him go. You do not know if you're supposed to or not, because you don't want to hurt him and whenever you see someone attractive you feel like you cheating in some weird way. It just hurts. There are so many people out there that are better than you and you’re scared of him finding those people. You feel like you don't deserve him, but you also have a very close connection with him and you’re scared of severing that even though it's probably not even there anymore, but you still hope that it is. He’s on your mind 24/7, and you can’t get him out. It’s so hard and so painful, but it's also your comfort. It’s warm inside when you think of those memories. It’s just… home. You can't stop thinking about what might have been. The things that you planned to do. All the movie dates, nights under the stars, restaurants, staying up all night and being crazy with each other, going to dances, and just being together. Just cuddling. No words, and yet the love is so strong between you that it's almost tangible in the air. But it's all gone. You have such a little chance of seeing him anytime soon, and you are terrified that he’s going to move on, and you are scared that he won't like you later in life, because who knows how you’ll change. Every song you hear seems to be taunting you. Each night you put your head into your pillow and you try to tell yourself you're strong because you’ve gone one more day without him here. Everything brings back memories, that are supposed to be happy, but they become sad because of the way that life has treated you. You texted him and you sure it hurt and you shouldn’t have because it's just making life more painful. But you couldn’t handle the pain and he’s probably moved on and he probably doesn't want to talk to you, but you don't know, but in the end, you feel bad because it hurts you so much and you do not want it to hurt him like its hurting you, and you wonder if he’s already hurting, but you feel selfish and you probably are because why would he care about you that much after he broke up? It's not his fault but you don't want him to hurt and you blame yourself. If only your mom wasn't so stupid and he thinks she hates him but she doesn't, he just feels like that and you tried to tell him and it doesn't work because he didn't believe you. You want to cry and cry and cry and let it all out, and your headache is getting worse, and your eating has gone down, and you’ve just been depressed more but you don't know if you can do anything about it because you want to be in your feelings. You scared to be happy because when you were happy it just hurt all the more. You don't want to desensitize yourself but it's the only way that you can think of to not hurt so much. But you can't desensitize yourself so you just sad all the time. You act happy for the benefit of others, and sure, you're happy sometimes, but it's never the same because your brain is hard-wired to think negatively. You just can't get over yourself. Why are you so selfish? Why do you care so much? WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS?!! Why can't you just be normal, why can't you just be happy why can't you just feel better, why can't you be like you used to, why does so much happen to you? Sure you deserve it but still, why? Meeting you was fate. Becoming your friend was a choice. But falling in love with you, I had no cotrol over. And now the happy memories hurt the most. If only life was a game. I could grand theft auto his heart like he did mine.
POV: He friendzoned you. Ouch. I hope you get over it. Sometimes you think you are when you listen to that music or go dancing. But the mind plays dirty little tricks on you. You think about him all the time. Less than you used to, but still quite a bit more than you probably should. You feel like you waiting for something that meeting that will never happen. You will always care for him even though you are not together and even though he’s far, far away from you. And now you can't talk to anyone about it. You can't confide in Sydney about it because she’ll just tell you to get over it, and you haven't talked to Aubrie about it because you don't know how she’ll respond and it never really comes up. You would talk to Addalyn about it, but you don't see her very often, and when you do, there are too many people around and it seems like it should be more of a one-on-one thing. You still make up fake scenarios about him though. What would you do if you moved and ended up going to his school? You would wave at him. He would just glare at you. The hard thing about it is that you’ll never really know until it happens, which isn't very likely, but you might have anxiety and therefore you have to think of every possibility and plan out everything that would happen, what you would say, the place you would be, the smells in the air, the season, the time of day, what your wearing, what their wearing, how they look, how your feeling, but the thing about it is, every single thing about that might happen, but the way you would react to it would be drastically different. If you saw him in public, you would probably just hide, or look away, and so would he. Why would he want to talk to you? Even if he did, you just made it look like you didn’t want to talk to him, and you’d just sit and think about it when you got home. It would always be on your mind and then you’d go to school and tell people, and you’d go home and think about it a little more, and you’d just think about it all the time. None of this has to do with anything it’s kinda just letting everything out. Meh, who knows what would happen, we might as well just let things be.
Sure it’s not very likely that you would move to his school, but it’s more likely that most not likely’s. To think I opened my Chromebook to get a pose reference and ended up writing a long paragraph about all the unknown. The ins and outs of your mind and your thought process, meanwhile he sits in the back of your mind, just waiting until you close this document to jump to the front and consume every single thought you make. Bah, life’s so damn annoying. How do I get it so that he’s not in control of my life anymore? I don't know what to do with this anymore. I think I should probably just wait it out, but it’s not that hard, it’s like sitting through Hurricane Katrina, singing your happy little waiting song as you suddenly get swept away by the waves, sitting on your lawn chair, drinking a coke, got ur sunglasses on. It just doesn’t click. The puzzle doesn’t connect. The waves of thoughts just keep coming and I can't just ignore them. Whatever happens. Love me or hate me, it's up to you. So long as my heart beats, I will wait for you.
POV: you need to fix your fucking life. What happened to you? Where did the old you go? Why are you so damn annoying now? You miss your old friends and you want to be friends with them again but why the hell would they want to be friends with you when you’ve changed so much? You still talk to two of them. One of the ones you talk to is still a close friend. The other you think doesn’t like you very much anymore. That last person though, you’re positive they don't want to be friends with you or have any type of relationship with you, not even the classmate status. You never wanted to lose them. And they left. Yeah, it was for their good, and you're happy about it but they don't ever reply to your texts, and when you saw them something felt off with how they were looking at you. Sure they hugged you, but did they want to? Maybe they left the school because they didn't want to deal with you anymore. Fuck. It hurts. It hurts so fucking bad that they used to LIKE you. You liked them too. Who the fuck knows what would’ve happened if you had ever gotten together? I don't even know if I want that now. Maybe I do like him. They saved your life through the time when you were so toxic. You're still toxic but back then it was so bad. But they stayed with you. You feel like you did something wrong and fucked up your relationship with them but they say that they're not mad. And maybe they're not mad, and you just overthinking it but it still hurts like a million hells. They went through so much shit with you and maybe you helped them along the way too. You don't fucking know anymore and it hurts like shit and you wish that you would just be numb and have all of your feelings go away because life hurts too damn much for this shit. Behind every one of your smiles, there is a better sadness that no one else will ever see or feel.
POV: You losing your brother. All he had to do was be in a good open relationship, and already loves him more than he loves you. I don't know, I guess I just feel replaced, which is completely fine, I mean, I deserve it I suck, and I don't even know why anyone would like me like wtf anyways time to pass away. Even your mom thinks that he’s got a bias for him.
