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I was untouchable, unattainable, charismatic and charming. I held my pride like a sword.
In their eyes, I’d always be beneath them.
Find a purpose. As if that was the easiest thing in the world. To find a purpose when everyone around you already found theirs. When it was instilled on them since birth. When the one thing you loved, the career you thought you’d be working towards, crumbled beneath your feet.
I didn’t say much to anyone. Silence was the best option. Silence didn’t start arguments. Silence left no room for vocal judgement.
“I don’t get feelings for people. It’s just a crush.” Feelings were for the breakable. I was strong.
In a world short of love, I had to be wanted. I was wanted. I felt wanted. Never loved, no. But I was wanted.
Was I so bad? Was I a hard kid to take care of? Was I too needy? Too clingy? Too weak?
You don’t know yourself,” he countered, shaking his head. “You think fitting in with a bunch of assholes is going to fulfill you? What are you looking for?”
He was silent, but not shy. Maybe he liked to present himself as such, but there was something to him that screamed attention. Now attention could go one of two ways – either you sought it out, or it found you. I couldn’t tell if he was both, neither, or somewhere in between.
Maybe I was just a hater of all things. Maybe I liked being a hater.
Ah, that was a long time ago. Best not dwell on the parts of your story you couldn’t rewrite.
I was always a clever girl, a creative one too. Maybe that was my flaw. Maybe I fell in love with the potential of people, not who they really were.
Must be nice, I thought. To enjoy things without looking too deeply as to why you enjoyed them, why they existed – why they made you happy.
“You try to intimidate people.” He inhaled and exhaled within two breaths. “You don’t need to do that with me.”
Those assumptions changed the trajectory of my life. No one would make bad assumptions about me again. I didn’t belong to my father’s legacy, nor my mother.
Sometimes two people, completely opposite and far apart were tied by an invisible chord. No one could see it but the people inside the knot. That knot was too hard to break, so we didn’t break it. We let it tighten around us, we let it shape us, until we morphed into someone new. Someone better.
It sounded dramatic, but when you had nothing, the people you gave yourself to filled the void that was left stripped and barren.
Pain became happiness. Happiness became pain.
Maybe I did project. Maybe I did see what I wanted to see. But how could my poor, little brain do that to me? I wanted nothing more than to be loved. I deserved it. The world owed me.
Where you are bold and impulsive, you’re also the kindest, most generous girl I’ve ever met. You wear your heart on your sleeve. You value love over everything, even in the absence of it.”
You’ve lost a lot. You downplay your pain. You act like it doesn’t exist, that it isn’t a part of you, when it became you.”
Fawn had been my friend for ten years now. She’d seen the relationships, the hookups, the toxicity of what I’d accepted because I didn’t know any different. My home life was non-existent [still is] and everyone resented me. My mind made it worse.
my bff 🫶🏻
Strangers who didn’t feel like strangers.
don’t know what kind of delusional world she was fucking living in.
It slipped out of my mouth, but I didn’t regret it. He was being an asshole and he needed to know.
I had to wonder if I went down that same road, if I married an alcoholic, would I become one? Would I have children with one? Would those children succumb to the urges I couldn’t fight?
After sending a dozen roses to Fawn’s doorstep, I followed up with a box of chocolate and fuzzy peaches. I was the best boyfriend ever.
Maybe, but you’re like a hue of each other.”
From what I gather, you two seem so similar but don’t want to admit it. That maybe, you both orbit around each other – a hue of something.”
Good enough to fuck,” I stated. “Not good enough to love,” I accepted.
That was also the moment I realized how little of myself I had left, when I was trying to please everyone else.
“It’s never the people I want in my life that come around. I feel like I’m waiting for someone to understand me, and no one ever does.”
“I understand you,” he whispered. “I understand you.”
Fire burned the back of my eyes but I refused to cry. Ever since the beginning of our friendship, I felt like Fawn saw right through me. All the little cracks, the rocky exterior, the crumbled foundation of my life – she knew. She loved all the pieces of myself that I hid from the world. She loved me when I didn’t think it was possible. She never made me question if I was worthy of it, because to her, loving me came as easy as breathing.
Dad wasn’t even a piece of the puzzle anymore. All he did was come home, whine and complain about some aspect of his life and repeat. All his problems somehow involved yelling at Mom and me, as if we were the punching bag he possessed.
Never in my life did I want to hug someone so bad, to hold them and erase the horrible parts of their past. If he was happy, I was happy. When he laughed, I wanted to be the one who caused it.
But looking back at the past three months, seeing how quickly time sped by with him around, it didn’t matter if our pain and comfort held hands. As long as they were interconnected.
You could be the greatest person, perform the grandest gestures, but if that someone never valued the love you showed them in the first place, they never would.
She looked like a shooting star. She looked gorgeous. She looked mine.
“What are you staring at?” she practically barked. A smile spread across my face. “Something that belongs to me.”
“The bed is my second choice Blu, but your comfort is my first.”
much I knew – Whether I let her go of her or not, she’d always be my Blu.
Maybe we used each other, maybe we helped each other. Semantics. It was all the same.
I wondered sometimes, if I would be the one to exit or the person who would try. Sometimes, I was both of those people – sometimes I was neither.
I’m sorry.” I was constantly apologizing to the people I cared about. When would they see through it? When would they decide they’d had enough?
You stayed and you toughed it out for pieces of shit who never deserved you, broke you and you stayed because a part of you wants to feel like you did something right. That you made something work. That you tried. Because if nothing redeemable came out of your commitment, then you burned for nothing.
“Show me your emotion, please. Show me the real you. I don’t think you show her enough.”
You fucked me over,” I started, bleeding into the pain I felt for months. “You fucked me up. And yet, you come back every time. Why? Why do you insist on doing this to me?” His response may have been the most honest thing he’s ever said, and that terrified me. In one breath, he shattered my soul. “You let me.”
I always envied her, but maybe it wasn’t from a place of jealousy. No, it came from a world of adoration, of love. She was incredibly kind, soft-spoken and talented. Her parents had wealth, but she always worked for her success. A talented writer, an even better friend – The single lifeline I had that kept me afloat.
It was a peaceful thing. The feeling of not feeling. Knowing that the person beside you loved you, flaws and all. I never had to try and pretend to be lovable, not with them – I just was.
