Writings of a Teenage Girl #4

“Come on Nels, your turn.” My heart clenched. A group of us, six to be exact, were sitting roughly in a circle. The four girls had managed to trap two boys in our ‘circle of girls’ thus forcing them to tell us the name of the girl they liked. People were kind of looking at me, and then glancing quickly back at him, positive they knew what his answer would be.
* “Caitlin, duh.” He said, as if they all should have known. In that split second of shocked silence, the only sound I heard was my fragile heart breaking. Nobody else noticed. It was as if someone had taken a hammer to a crystal glass and all the pieces fell to the hard cement ground, tinkling in the stillness.
I found myself laughing and smiling along with everyone else. The grin on my face was too big- I knew it was plastered on, fake. Still no one said a thing. Heather looked at me, worried that I would start crying. She needn’t have worried. I couldn’t feel anything. Was I dying? My insides felt numb, my face hot, the time dragged on; slowed down to torturous slow motion and all I could do was sit there like a programmed robot grinning like an idiot. I looked everywhere but at him. It was too much for me to handle.
I wasn’t surprised at the mention of her name instead of mine. She was the new girl, the pretty thing; the quiet, shy, and beautiful one. He liked her instead of me. He had moved on, and so quickly too.
My ride came, and we all left. It wasn’t until I was almost home that I began to feel a funny little pain near the location of my hopefully still beating heart. It was as if my heart was that crystal glass, obliterated with one careless swing of a hammer. I should have expected it; we had gotten into a fight over a misunderstanding and it had come back to bite me. We hadn’t spoken since the incident, four days previous, and when we finally did it was cordial and polite; nowhere near the warmth of the flirty, lengthy conversations we used to have. It was his birthday today, his sweet sixteen, and Heather’s as well. She told me that all she really wanted was for me to act normal as possible around Nels. So I had tried to be friendly, to laugh when he told a joke. I didn’t hate himand I never had, but walking to Nels’ house that day after school before he had made the announcement that had broken my heart, I knew she was the ‘new one’. When he had first said her name, and the way he introduced her to us with this cheesy smile on his face. He had eyes only for her. “Make her feel welcome.” Is what he had said. Around us, the whole atmosphere changed. The very feeling of the air crackled with it. It was the beginning of her, the end of me.
Ever since that day I keep telling myself, “You don’t need him, he’s just a stupid boy.” But then I see him smile, my heart strings snap, and it’s back in the hospital, replacing the stitches for the millionth time. I still hurt so much, I can’t help but hurt. I don’t know what to do; even my ‘know it all’ friend doesn’t have a clue. Everything changed so fast. Over just one short week; one day we were happy as can be, and he was hugging me like he never wanted to let me go and telling me he really cared, and that he loved me. The next think I know, he’s distancing himself. Sure, we had discussed that we needed to back off a bit, hold back, take it slower, but he had said he would continue to care for me, and the hug he gave me after that conversation was the best ever. He stopped talking to me like he used to, stopped smiling whenever he saw me. I know why now; he was falling in like with HER. I don’t blame her; I only wish I knew her well enough to warn her.
I guess they wouldn’t call it a crush if it felt good when it was over. All it took was a few words when we were tired; our ability to think clearly whacked out. He got angry at me.
I can’t help but want to feel his hug, hear his comforting words at least one last time.  Whatever goes on in his mind is a mystery I wouldn’t mind getting the answer to. What was he thinking? I like to tell myself, “That’s it, he just wasn’t.”
It is most certainly over, what we had, if we ever had anything. He seemed so ready to get me out of his ‘love life’ that he didn’t even bother to try and stay friends. That day at his house, when I left after the mess of the ‘circle of girls’, I was the only girl he didn’t hug as we said goodbye. The only one. I almost wanted him to call me back after I ran out that door; to call me back and hold me close, and whisper in my ear, “I’m sorry.” But he didn’t.
“Goodbye may seem forever, farewell I like the end. But in my heart there is a memory, and that’s where you’ll always be.”
That’s all he seems now, a memory; a memory that causes me pain. The ghost of a friend who hurt me and doesn’t seem to ever want me back. Heck, he doesn’t deserve me anyway.

~This happened October 11, 2006~
~I am still friends with Nels. We patched up our friendship. He likes Caitlin still. I’ll never again make the mistake of falling for him. ~