the party, part xxxii (32)

And, of course, get hurt she does.


Though they get grips on a tentative friendship, everything’s still there. Still in the forefront of their thoughts, still taking over every time they see each other. Doesn’t help that he brings up things from their past, the happiest times she’s still clinging to. He doesn’t feel anything like that anymore, after all, but it hurts her.

She has to let go of those memories so she can focus on the ones that will help her get past all of this. The moments when he would shut her out, when he would get so quiet that nothing she could do would help. The moments he would be downright nasty to her, and make her feel like she’d done something wrong – when, in reality, she’d done nothing at all. The times when he made her feel insignificant.

But those moments are hard to focus on.

Because of all the times when he made her feel vulnerable, untouchable, defenseless, invincible…a bundle of contradictions wrapped into one mess of a girl. The moments that pop into her mind when she’s on the edge of dreaming and can’t force them out. The times when she wanted to wrap them into a pocket of time and forget everyone else for just a short time longer.

He can’t stop at that, though. Of course not. No, he starts texting her best friend, and starts liking her. The best friend that liked him before he and our girl ever went out. That, apparently, hadn’t stopped even though she saw what he put our girl through.

Pretty low, huh?

So it all explodes, things get messy and complicated, and our girl doesn’t just lose him all over again – no, she ends up losing trust in BOTH of them. She won’t admit it, at least not to the best friend, but it’s going to take a whole lot of time before things ever go back to normal.

At least now, though, she’s starting to learn more about herself. She auditioned for One Acts, made it in; joined the school’s GSA; started dedicating more time to writing her novel; discovered a park by her house where she can go to think. Basically, finding out things that will help her become the “her” she desperately wants to be. Not this sniveling little ingénue she seems to have turned into these past months.

So…where will the next chapter see her?