• You’re a really good friend Abby.

    I stared at my ceiling for an hour today. I don’t think I blinked. I could be wrong though. I always seem to be wrong lately. Friends, family, I thought I could trust them all, but one by one they’ve let me down.

    It’s mostly my fault though. If I didn’t bottle up my hurts and just say something, then maybe they’d recognize when I’m hurting. They don’t even know how their words affect me. Him especially.

    I don’t know what I’d do if I couldn’t talk to you about this.

    The day Sara came running to me I felt like the most horrible person in the world. I mean, she is just this crazy amazing person who has never said a cruel thing in her life and part of me is glad her boyfriend broke her heart.

    “I don’t know what to do anymore,” she said. She had just stopped crying, but tears still hovered in her eyes. “I can’t seem to stop thinking about him, but every time I do it’s like my heart is breaking again.”

    I felt sick. Her tears made me want to cry. Just my sympathy drive overreacting. I spent the night with her. I fell asleep at about three. She didn’t sleep at all.

    Everyone else I know keeps telling me what a jerk I am, but I just couldn’t lie to her anymore.

    “I want to cry, Abby, but I think I’ve run out of tears.” My heart broke for her at those words, and at the same time there was a well of happiness bubbling up inside me. I am the most terrible, awful person on the planet and I should curl up and die somewhere.

    Sara skipped school that day. I wanted to, but decided to both punish and reward myself. I’m a selfish masochist. David was at school, but I couldn’t talk to him. I was Sara’s friend first, and as such I was expected to hate for at least a little while. I wanted to so badly.

    He was standing with his guy friends when I walked past. They were joking, but he just stood a little off to the side. He’s always been more comfortable around girls. He met my eyes and I gave him a small smile. He was hurting too, maybe just as much as Sara.

    You’re so easy to talk to. I know you won’t be all weird about it tomorrow.

    A week went by before things were semi-normal again. Some of us were talking to David again, even though Sara wasn’t nearly okay. She was accepting, and that was good enough for me. He caught up with me after school one day.

    “Can I talk to you?”

    He led me to his car. How many times had I gazed at that white Saturn, just wanting so bad to be invited in. It smelled just like him, that warm, comforting smell that I knew so much better than I should.

    “I’m glad you agreed to talk,” he said. “No one else wants to talk about what happened.”

    “You know I’m always here for you,” I said.

    “I know.”

    I hope that we can always be friends.

    He told me about how he and Sara never had time for each other anymore. He told me that his heart hadn’t been in their relationship for a while and that he felt that they should break up before either of them could get hurt anymore. He told me how bad he felt that he had to hurt her.

    I realized that I didn’t know him nearly as well as I thought. But the more he talked the more I wanted to hold him and stop all his hurts. I wanted to be closer to him than I’d ever been to anyone else. I wanted him to know everything about me. I wanted to finally let out everything I had been bottling up. Was he looking at me like he wanted to kiss me? I wanted him to so badly. I wanted-

    “You’re a really good friend Abby.”

    …What?

    “I don’t know what I’d do if I couldn’t talk to you about this. Everyone else I know keeps telling me what a jerk I am, but I just couldn’t lie to her anymore. You’re so easy to talk to. I know you won’t be all weird about it tomorrow.”

    “Um, thanks,” I said. Butterflies were fluttering up my throat.

    “I hope that we can always be friends.”

    Hope shattered in my heart. I may have mumbled, “Me too,” or something like that. He drove me home and that’s where I’ve sat ever since. How could I be so stupid? He just broke up with his girlfriend. Why would he even consider wanting me? And she’s one of my best friends!

    I am the most horrible monster of a person to ever walk the earth. I shouldn’t be allowed to have friends.

    End.