28 September 2009

The Party, Part XVII (17)

She’s lost the will to put down her thoughts, her life, in words.

It’s not him, not entirely, but something more. Who would ever read her words, hear her story, and care? It’s the story of thousands of girls across the world; what makes her so interesting when others are going through the exact same thing? Sure, there are variations, but what makes her’s seem more noteworthy?

It might just be life in general. Her birthday came and went; a blur of friends, presents, homemade cake and bowling. He was there, even if it was awkward and strained at times. Surrounded by those she cared most about, why did she feel like something was missing? Searching her thoughts later she can’t come up with any semblance of a reasonable explanation.

And then her best friend had to get out that paper.

She’d been having her own problems with another one of their Crew Boys. Circumstances made things difficult, but he genuinely loved her. Our girl reads the nine-page letter he wrote her, sighing as she wished someone would ever care enough about her to do the same thing. “You are truly one of the sweetest guys I’ve ever met in my life,” she confesses to him over the phone. “She is so lucky to have you.”

It might seem stupid, but our girl lives in her stories now. Slips herself into her heroine’s worn-out Converse and kicks some major jerk-butt. And, of course, she always ends up with the guy of her dreams. Not one who will treat her like every other one in the world. One that thinks she’s special and interesting as the person she is, not who he can make her into. One that she can’t ever imagine is actually hers.

But, in the words of Cute is What We Aim For, ‘what’s a crush to do’?

The night of her birthday he tells her, as nicely as possible, that she needs to get over it, they never had anything anyhow, and, although he had liked her, the feeling went away as his ex’s feelings for him came back. “It’s not like there’s some switch I can flip and make it all go away,” she sighs into the phone, exasperated. “It’s not as easy as that.”

“Then work at it,” it seems he all but snaps at her. Combined with a whopping three hours of sleep and cake overload, the day after our girl’s birthday is one of laziness and muted anger. In the quiet first hours of the next day, he is not something she can deal with. Not something she wants to deal with, if this is how he’s going to act like. She’s admitted she messed up, tried to smooth over her mistakes and mend relationships that have crumbled. Him? He can’t even see what he did wrong, let alone try to come along and fix it.

So, is this destined to crash and fail, or can a great friendship be salvaged?

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