Crap. Crap, crap, crap, crap. Months and months of being good, of resisting the urges to know everything about his life. Dammit! All of it down the drain because of two short words said to a girl across the country.
Love ya.
She wasn’t always there. She used to live here, with us. She
used to be his.
She made the mistake of letting him go, and thus, letting me
meet him. Why the hell was I so stupid as to get in the middle of that?
Somebody please tell me. There’s been a thorn in my side for too long
now, and I find I can’t keep quiet anymore. I trust you, don’t betray that
trust. I’m about to tell you my biggest secret.
It was ninth grade, I was young both in age and spirit. The world
and I had yet to discover ourselves. Then I met him, of course, the man of
my dreams. He was everything I had ever wanted, ever dreamed of, and
suddenly he was there. Better because he was real, and he was mine.
I knew it was fate when he asked me out (over AIM), with a joke.
Would you give me the honor of being what they might call,
your boyfriend?
Those exact words in black and white, waiting to be answered
burned into my brain and my heart, of course I said yes.
Thirteen days later I had reason to worry. It was my birthday,
and I was on the phone with him.
“How hurt would you be if I left you?” he asked.
“Pretty hurt,” I answered. I knew that she, Caitlin, wanted him
back. And that he would be more than willing to go straight to her.
“How hurt?” he pried.
“Really hurt,” I answered with slight annoyance, “why?”
“Just because, Caitlin…” His voice trailed off, I gave no
suggestions.
“I’m sorry Bella,” he said.
“What are you going to do?” I asked, preparing myself for the
blow.
“Nothing, I would never leave you for someone else.”
As it turned out, I almost wish he had.
A few months later and summer school was well under way, he came to me
one day, as always, only something in his face looked different. Troubled.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, dropping my books on the bench and
sitting next to him.
“I’m just debating whether or not to show you something,” he
answered with his hand in his pocket.
One thing you should know about summer school was that they
had the same class. Biology. Luckily I had a friend in that class watching
over them, not out of lack of trust, but out of lack of reason for trust. A
valid reason.
“Show me,” I said, trying to be nice. My heart was beating in my
throat as it did every other time he scared me and I knew what he was
thinking. Was it worth it to go through all the trouble for me?
He handed me a note, folded up into fourths. It was actually two
pieces of paper, filled front and back with Caitlin’s confessions of love.
This is all I remember:
Will,
Don’t show anybody this, please. I just wanted to say that I
can’t keep living like this. It hurts so much you watch you and Bella
together. I know she doesn’t love you the way I do, she doesn’t know you
the way I do. I want to be friends with benefits. I love you Will.
Caitlin (Johnson)
Of the full two pages that’s all I remember clearly, because it
says three important things. She loves him. She wants him. She uses his
last name.
I gave him back the note, and he told me, “I wont leave you,
but I don’t know what to do.” It sounded like he did know what he was
going to do. I trusted his word.
“Bella, I need to tell you something,” my best friend said to me.
“What?”
“I saw Will and Caitlin walking together. He had his arm around
her.”
My heart dropped audibly. For a second I think it stopped
beating, then resumed with a fury.
“Really?” I asked heartbroken.
“Yeah, they were walking to her house. Alone.”
“I know that,” I said, “but he walks like that with all of his
female friends,” I explained.
“He kissed her on the cheek.”
“I’ll talk to him.”
I cried for the rest of the night, desperately trying to think of
ways to talk to him, imagining conversations. Crying over and over again
before falling asleep into drenched pillows.
It was a week before I finally talked to him.
“Will,” I said, pulling him away from the group, “C-can we talk?”
He followed me to a secluded bench alone.
“I just…I need to know if…if there’s anything I should worry
about…between you and Caitlin.” I asked slowly, intertwining my fingers into
impossible puzzles and then rearranging them back.
‘No,” he said certainly.
‘Do you promise?” I asked.
“I promise.” he said.
I’ll tell you one thing, and I knew it that day as well. He lied.
A few weeks later he was at my house, checking his e-mail. He didn’t want
me to read any of it, so I watched TV and ate cookies. That night he went
home without signing off. I did the stupid thing I could think of.
Message one: Open.
Read.
Filled with “I love yous,” and “I love you mores.” Confessions of
everything they would do to each other when they were alone. I was pissed,
confused, heartbroken. Butterflies ate away at my stomach, tearing me
apart from the inside out. I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t think. So I did the one
thing I could think to do.
I called Kara. My ex best friend gone psycho. I told her
everything, how I was feeling. She told my life was tough, and hung up. I
was completely alone.
And then I did the thing I never expected. I forgave him.
For months I lived with that knowledge. I figured out the
password and read the messages as they got worse and worse. I fell
deeper and deeper into a hole I found I would soon be trapped in. She
moved, things went back to normal, or as normal they could be with my
conscience eating away at me everyday.
One day he manned up.
“Bella,” he said, over the phone. “I need to tell you something.”
“Why haven’t you been talking to me?” I demanded. I was
tired. Sick and tired of being played, paused and repeated.
“I was going to tell you, god. But you know what, never mind.
Forget why I called.”
“Dammit, Will, tell me will you! Quit the act, just tell me!”
“I can’t! You have to guess,” he said.
Chicken-shit. I knew the answer, but I wanted to hear it from
him.
“It’s about this summer, and Caitlin,” he hinted. As if I didn’t
already know.
“Did you…did you cheat on me?” I tried to sound convincing.
“I’m so sorry,” he said, full of emotion.
“It’s…okay.” I said.
“No, it’s not okay,” he said, once again full of emotions I had
shut off months ago.
“You’re right. It’s not. But I forgive you.”
“How can you forgive me?” it sounded like he might cry.
“Would you rather I didn’t?”
“It’s just…I can’t deal with this right now.”
Bastard. Couldn’t deal with is own shit. So now I had to take
care of both of us.
“What do you mean?”
“Promise we’ll stay friends. Promise me Bella.”
“Will, what are you saying?”
“I’m so sorry. I love you Bella. But…we have to break up.”
My heart shattered. My thoughts ran around in crazed circles. I
felt inside out, the butterflies were back tearing and ripping me apart from
the outside in this time. Goddamn it hurt.
I forgave him.
And he broke my heart.
But I still forgave him.
.
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