and it doesn’t matter if she likes you back or not; the important thing is that I’ll always be
the second choice or the best friend or the little girl. And you’ll leave. One way or another,
sooner or later, you’ll leave and I’ll still be here, standing still and fading into the background
when everyone else is moving forward. I’ll throw a pity party and won’t invite you, but I’ll just
find someone else to like and you’ll be gone from my mind, you’ll just be another folder in my
memory labelled .
And it goes on and on and on.
*****
It’s my sixteenth birthday and there are dozens of people around me in a circle and I feel
strangely trapped under their smiles. It’s time for me to make a birthday wish.
Me: I wish I had a friend.
Everyone stops moving/talking/eating for a second. All eyes turn to me, angry-confused-hurt-disbelieving and they all think it’s a fabulous joke, laughing and laughing and laughing because that can’t be true. Someone slaps me on my shoulder, tells me I’m real funny, and
says I have tons and tons of friends and that I’ve just wasted a perfectly fine birthday wish.
He’s the most honest liar I’ve ever met.
But they’re not friends with me, they’re friends with the mascot of the school and that’s not
me. I’m just me. Just me, nothing else, and everyone loves me but no one really knows me.
*****
You: You’ve cut your hair short.
Me:
You: It looks—it’s a good look on you.
Me:
You: Look. Unrequited love can be survived in a way that once-requited love cannot.
Me: I know.
You: You do. (sigh) You do, that’s why this can’t work. You’re more ready to love me than you
love yourself. You don’t want people to know what you’re like. Sometimes I think I got you
figured out, and then you put on a different act. It’s so hard to tell when you’re being you and
when you’re not. It’s hard. I know it’s hard for you but it’s also hard for me too, you know?
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