Up to Me

I felt really left out all the time. I’d go on Twitter and Instagram and see people having fun together with their friends, and I’d just be envious. Because I’d never had anything like that. I didn’t know who to blame. I just felt really inadequate, like somehow I wasn’t good enough for friendships like that. And I decided that somehow I was going to fix it by getting a best friend. And that person would open the door to everything else.

That ended up being Zeno. I had yearbook to keep me busy, and I had four classes a day with Zeno, including zero period PE, where all we did was walk and talk. It was great. I was happy.

But winter break came, and I had nothing to do, and he was elusive. Or busy. One of those.

I got really depressed. I would start to question myself and him and everything and wonder: did I really fix anything? It didn’t help that the girl I liked friendzoned me. I told myself that everything would be better when we got back to school.

But, two days before we went back to school, I learned that Zeno and Angela had become a couple. Inside, I panicked. But to him, I had to be supportive.

We got back to school, and it was not the same at all. I didn’t have zero period PE anymore. Zeno would spend his lunches with Angela instead of me, and all the other times I had to talk to him, Angela was there instead.

I lost everything, all at once.

I was already depressed. He was supposed to make it better but instead I felt abandoned. He’d say that he would try to include me, but he never really did. It went on for weeks.

Somewhere in that process, I became very clingy. Dustin was there for me. And I thought, okay, okay. I can be okay. Dustin and I began hanging out more and I just got sick of waiting for Zeno. I had the thought that Zeno had never actually liked me. Which was sort of dumb, but it made sense at the time. Because if someone were really your friend, how could they abandon you like that?

To try to prove it, I removed myself from his life. I didn’t initiate any conversation, didn’t walk with him anywhere. I wanted him to do it. To show me that he cared.

But he didn’t do anything more than he’d done before: apologize and say he’d try harder. I was sick of hearing empty promises. So I didn’t speak to him anymore. Not for two months.

I felt empty, though. In January through mid-March, I was an emotional wreck. Crying all the time, barely holding it together in class. But then I’d hang out with Dustin or I’d work on yearbook and I’d be okay.

But then Christan happened. He and Dustin had been fighting before, but they sort of made up. So Christan ended up taking more and more of Dustin.

And Christan doesn’t share.

Dustin would be evasive and I never felt like I was getting the full story. He’d disappear from school for days with no explanation. I still had the mindset that I needed a best friend, and I thought that Dustin had become that person. But how can you hide things from your best friend? It never got better. He began eating lunch with Brent Sordo, who I refused to speak to, and I was alone again.

I tried to hold on and hope. But I started fighting with Dustin and eventually I didn’t talk to him anymore. I haven’t had any contact with Dustin since May 29.

At some point in April, I began speaking to Zeno again. I heard he got into USC. And I had to decide if I really wanted to carry my grudge into college.

Zeno is now one of the people I talk to the most. Again. But it’s not the same as before. There’s a guardedness there that simply didn’t exist before.

But now I know better. I hope.

I know that I don’t need a best friend to be happy. It doesn’t work. Depending on someone else for happiness will not work, especially if that person doesn’t depend on you.

This summer, I’ve been stable. I’ve been able to do things with friends and be happy with a variety of friends, not just one. And I can do what I want. I’m not an outcast. I don’t have to worry about what other people think.

But I’m still afraid. For college. I’m afraid to see if I’ll go back to feeling left out. There are so many people at USC. 20,000 undergraduate students. So many peole I can connect with and building lifetime friendships with.

But also so many people who can shut me down.

It scares me. On bad days, I lie in bed at night and it’s a crushing burden, the thought that I’ll repeat all my mistakes again.

But on good days, I think that I know better, and I’ll have different and better people in my life. And I won’t have to worry.

Either way, it’s really up to me.