…Hope Of It All

Why is it that every time a story is written I’m that side character no one remembers?

I was sitting on the grass of my school lawn, eating chocolate and listening to Joclyn talk about the updates she did in her blog. Something about new features and new topics to write about in it, when they both walked past us like we weren’t even there and went to sit under the apple tree across the lawn. Together. They were both together. I mean, of course, they were together. Everyone knew it. It had been weeks now. Weeks. While I still felt like I was trapped back in time every time I looked at him. Most of the time, I couldn’t even breathe from the nostalgia of wanting to turn back the time and stay there. Was it so bad that I wanted what she had? That I wanted back what I had for a split second before it slipped through my fingers like sand?

I could taste the jealousy on my tongue like poison. And it hurt. Because I hadn’t intended that. I wanted to think I had it all under control. That I knew this was going to happen. That James would most definitely go back crawling to her. I tried so hard to be something he would miss. So hard, it hurts. It hurts in so many places in so many different ways that I couldn’t even put it into words. It hurts that I wasn’t enough. It hurts that I did this to myself when I knew it would never have ended like I wanted it to. It hurts that I’m the only one who thinks this way. Because the second he got a chance, he slipped away from me like a moment in time. Because I was left alone to deal with everything that happened after what he called ‘just a summer thing’. And most of all, it hurts because I was actually falling for him.

Why did I have to be the thing he could use to pass his time while Betty made up her mind about them? Why did I have to be second to everybody? I could never have my own story. I was just a side character in everyone else’s story. It wasn’t… fair. It just wasn’t. I wish he’d known I did everything in my power to make him see me. He made me feel like I was special. Like I mattered and then left me to pick up the shattered pieces of my heart on my own. I used to cancel all my summer plans with Joclyn just so I could hang out with him. To show him that he meant everything to me. But I should have known by the signs he gave me. Like all the times he asked me to meet him behind the mall.

I hate the feeling of betrayal. I feel like gagging every time I remember thinking I had him. Like I did it, I won him over. I felt so accomplished but it turned out to be nothing. Nothing but a feeling.

I actually thought they were over for real this time when she switched her homeroom once school started and how she avoided him everywhere she went, refusing to say a word to him or listen to anything he had to say.

I guess I should have known that wasn’t real. That I was really just living for the hope of it all.