by Alice Carina
"I..." What could I say when a grownup guy who always laughed with me or at me broke down crying in front of me?
"She'll never forgive me," he sobbed. "And I'll never forgive myself for hurting her, the least I can do is not hurt her even more. She hurts every time she looks at me, so I'll make sure she never looks at me again. If I could remove everything that hurts her," his eyes flashed to me, "if I could take you with me and hide you from her so she never hurts again, I would."
I watched in silence as he shoved a box in his car and dried his eyes with his sleeves, taking deep breaths.
"Maybe we were never meant to be," he trembled with cold, or tiredness, or memories, or surrender. "Maybe I was just into her because she was the first girl to reject me and I liked the constant chase, having to constantly get her stuff and compete with someone else and win. And maybe she only fell for me because I was persistent, or because she liked to see other girls trying to compete with her and failing, or maybe because we were both too alike, too careless in a matter that needed too much care if it was going to last. Maybe it was just attraction and compatibility and fun, maybe it was never love."
I wondered if he'd spent that night with someone else, if she would've been able to forgive him for a mistake from a time before they felt real to each other. Or if I just hadn't gotten pregnant, if she would've seen a compliment in his inability to be with someone who didn't look exactly like her. While he wondered if they'd never been in love, I wondered if they had truly been.
"Don't say that..." I sniffed, defending my sister's feelings that I'd never seen so true before him.
"She doesn't love me, Katelyn." He bent down to pick up a box but couldn't. He straightened and put a hand on the door frame for support as he arched his back up to the sky in a deep breath. "She knows I'm leaving in the morning. She knows my parents only kept this place for me and will sell it when I join them, so I wouldn't even have a place to come back to if I wanted to. She knows I'm leaving and that I'll never come back, and she knows I'm doing that for her. The fact that you're here tonight and she's not tells me everything I need to know."
"You didn't actually expect her to come here and ask you to stay so soon after everything just because you threatened to leave." I rationalized. "She probably thinks it's just a way to get her to talk to you or a rumor or something."
"If she loved me, she would've had to make sure," he whispered. "If she loved me, she would've had to say goodbye."
"I..." I gave up, too. "I don't know what to say."
"There's nothing to say," he shrugged as he walked outside. "Let me give you a ride home."
"N-no," his offer surprised me. It might've been like the old Kyle - my sister's boyfriend - to offer me rides, but not since that night, not since everyone knew, not since we started building lives over a cracked stone. "It's fine,"
"No, really," he insisted. "Let me say I did at least one thing right in this whole..." he stared at my stomach and never finished his sentence.
"You should stay here," I wrapped my arms around my stomach. It was just us, just me and my girl. "In case Josslyn comes."
"You really think she will?"
I shrugged and turned around for the long way back home.
I hoped that she would for him, for her, for my baby, for me, but I knew that she wouldn't.
Josslyn
This chapter is in Josslyn's point of view.
Enjoy (: <3
*
"Jerk alert," Bernetta gave me her warning for whenever Kyle was near.
My heart jumped at the thought of him.
"Jossy?" She questioned my daze, "You okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine," I barely had the chance to fake half a smile before I felt him behind me. I knew he was there before he even spoke.
"Can we talk, please?" He asked.
"Nope," I slammed my locker loudly, wishing I could slam a door just as violently against him and all the memories.
"I'm leaving," his voice was pleading.
"You've already mentioned that," I rolled my eyes, but the motion was slow and obviously pretentious.
"I'm leaving tomorrow morning." He'd already told me several times that he was going to leave so that I wouldn't hurt anymore. Why hadn't my feelings mattered as much that night? Or the day after when he lied to me? Or the months afterwards that he spent laughing at my ignorance while the evidence of what he'd done slept just a few steps away from me each night?
I'd thought he was bluffing just to get me to listen to more of his lies; he always said he was leaving but never did, my feelings still meaning just as little as ever, not worth more than a lie, but that was the first time he specified a time.
"Have a safe flight," I stretched my lips as widely as I could and made to turn around.
"I hope I don't," he mumbled, and for a moment my heart stopped as I thought of something bad happening to him, but he wasn't mine to worry about anymore, he never truly was.
"Dude, are you seriously leaving town just because she broke up with you? You're such a wimp," Bernetta mocked him, giggling to herself. He'd once told me that no other girl had made fun of him but me, and no other girl ever would, but that was before he made himself the mockery of the entire school.
"I'm not going to hurt you anymore," his voice was thick, and I wondered if he was going to start crying in front of everyone again. He'd been giving me a really cold reputation, not that I minded; guys had been avoiding me because of it and I needed the space.
Why couldn't he hold his tears until the end of the day and breakdown on his way home like I did every day?
"Sweetie," I smiled proudly, "you never had the power to hurt me in the first place." You always had, but I never thought you'd use it, you'd promised not to.
I turned around and went on my way, Bernetta looping her arm through mine as we walked together towards the cafeteria. He didn't follow me, but my thoughts followed him for the rest of the day.
"What did you do to him?" Bernetta laughed as we stood in line. "How did you get him so obsessed with you?"
"I don't know," I shrugged. Probably the same way he'd gotten me so obsessed with him.
Was it because we were warned off each other and couldn't help but get intrigued? Was it the first time we kissed and I realized that I never wanted to stop kissing him? Was it the way he seemed so careless and free with everything, exuding what I wanted to feel? Was it all the plans we made together that I could never go through with alone without picturing him there with me? Was it all the fights and make-ups and tears and laughs?
"Well, it's a good thing you got rid of him now."
"What do you mean?"
"He'd such a baby," she rolled her eyes. "I mean, he's moping around the school and stalking you. Like, dude, get a hint. I can't believe he's actually crying and leaving just because you dumped him. Imagine being stuck with someone like that for years. Oh, my God, can you imagine having a guy like that for a husband?" He was the only guy I'd ever felt enough for to imagine marrying. "Or having a baby with someone like that? He'd probably faint in the delivery room." I wouldn't have minded, so long as he'd been standing or fainting next to me. "Can you imagine?"
"Yeah," I shrugged my shoulders and turned my face away so she'd think I was laughing along because I knew that she wouldn't shut up without a response, then I pretended to be distracted by the food.
Bernetta was just doing her best-friend job; she had to downplay the ex; it was standard friendship requirement. So, she often told me how better off I was without him, how I didn't need him, how he didn't deserve me, how awful he was much to our previous blindness, how I would find somebody else soon, somebody better and never think of him again. She didn't even know what he'd done yet proceeded to call him demeaning names for my sake. I hated how each time I felt the urge to defend him when I knew so much worse about him than she did.
When I told Bernetta that Kyle and I were over, she was only slightly surprised. She told me that we weren't meant to pick life pa
rtners in high school and that we'd been bound to break up at some point, better sooner than later, before I got too attached. But I'd already gotten too attached, I'd already planned to be partnered with him for life.
She asked me why we'd broken up, but I couldn't tell her the truth, I couldn't say the words out loud, and I knew that if they were said to her, they'd be said to everyone the next day, and I couldn't deal with that. Instead, I told her that I just wasn't feeling our relationship anymore, that our spark had died, like it always died with everybody else, that we just weren't meant to be – an excuse that she bought quickly because she didn't believe anybody was meant to be at our age, and she knew all about sparks dying on daily bases.
Because I couldn't tell her the truth, I had to get over him faster, or at least pretend to. I was never that open about my feelings anyway, not with anyone but him. I didn't want anybody to know how much he'd hurt me, that I was stupid enough to let yet another guy break me when I was still so young, I didn't want anyone to pity my disappointment or offer a replacement, so I pretended that I broke him, and his tears and pleadings backed up my act. I almost believed that I had, in fact, broken him.
The first time I saw him crying, I nearly cried for making him cry, but then I forced myself to remember that I was going to cry myself to sleep every night for a very long time because of him.
I wanted him, more than anybody else, to believe that I wasn't hurt. I felt so embarrassed of all my confessions, all my secrets, all my girly hopes and hidden feelings that I'd only ever shared with him. I wanted to take them all back, I wanted him to think that everything had been as much a lie to me as it had been to him, that we were still just as equal as ever, that he hadn't squished me so far below him. But, somehow, I could only maintain my act around everybody else, and my defenses broke down before his pain, exposing mine.
Everyone believed that I was okay, except for him. I would've changed that for the opposite in a heartbeat, but I couldn't. I could never not be myself around him, open and feeling and true, I could never lie to him. I thought the honesty had been mutual, I thought he loved me, I thought he'd always be with me, I thought we'd live out all our plans, I thought we'd get older and get married and have our babies, I thought a lot of things I wished I could take back, but I couldn't.
*
I kept turning from side to side, tired, but unable to fall asleep.
I went over my nightly routine in my head to recall if I'd missed something that was keeping me troubled. I'd distracted myself with homework until my eyes grew heavy with boredom, I'd brushed my teeth and drunk a glass of water, then - as had become habitual of me - the moment my head met my pillow, I'd cried myself to sleep, except that I'd stayed conscious as my tears subsided and couldn't sleep.
I hugged my pillow, I pushed it aside, I tried sleeping on my arms, I tried spreading my arms, I tried counting from one-hundred backwards to one, I tried listening to relaxing music, but nothing worked and, eventually, I couldn't tolerate lying in bed any longer.
I couldn't be still; I kept pacing back and forth in my room, pulling at my hair and biting my nails.
I can't believe I'm doing this. I groaned as I changed out of my pajamas and into proper clothes then snuck past my father out of the house.
I took the shortcut he showed me so long ago. The alleys were dark, deserted, and a bit scary so late at night. I regretted stepping into them the moment I did, but I fueled my courage with my hate for him and went on until his house came into view.
I had so many memories in that house. We had so many memories in that house.
His parents were both lawyers who chased the biggest cases across the country and sometimes even abroad. They loved challenging cases where they almost lost, but they always won; fifteen years and they hadn't once lost a case, but they lost their son almost as long ago. Kyle basically grew up on his own, he was so used to being alone that he never realized how lonely he'd been until he met me, or at least that was he said the first time I spent a night at his house. We spent so many nights at his house...
I forced my way through the memories until I made it to his yard, a tree that he'd often kissed me against hiding me from him, from them.
I saw my sister standing close to him and the knife in my back twisted a little deeper.
What had I ever done to them? I loved her and I was in love with him. How could they do that to me? My own sister... I always looked out for her, always tried to help her out of her shyness and to fit in with everybody else. I was the one who often insisted that she spent time with me and Kyle so that she'd get used to talking to guys so she could someday find her own. Had it happened then? Had it started when I first introduced them in the cafeteria and Bernetta was going off about Sylvia's pregnancy scare? Had that been a sign? Had I set something in motion so long ago? Had she grown naturally attached to him as the only boy in her life while he was trying to be the only boy in mine?
It hurt to look at them. It physically hurt. I actually felt my head hurt and a painful shudder went through my body with every breath.
"You never should've kept it," I heard him say as he moved around her, unknowingly closer to me.
Katie whispered something, but I couldn't hear her.
"What?" Kyle paused.
"She's a baby girl," my sister spoke louder and my whole body froze. I'd already known she was pregnant with a girl, but it only then struck me that it was his girl.
Kyle and I discussed our distant future once. We talked about having kids someday. He said he wanted a baby girl who would be just like me. We sat for a while discussing what she would look like, a mixture of me and him. He was having her with my twin sister, the only person who looked exactly like me. Their girl would be a mixture of him and her; a mixture of him and me. He was having our daughter with somebody else.
Something shifted in the air. I didn't know what it was, but thinking about the baby, knowing her, acknowledging her felt like a point of no-return.
Kyle's hand moved towards my sister's stomach, towards her baby, his baby, their baby, my baby, but he never reached her.
"She's better off without me." He retracted his hand and walked away. He was leaving our baby.
"What about Josslyn?" Katie was crying. I saw myself in her, as if I was watching my future, tired and pregnant and begging him not to leave me, but he was never the type to stay.
"She's better off without me, too." He sighed.
"You've only been trying to get her to listen for what? A week? She needs time."
"This isn't something time can fix," he shook his head as he lifted a box. "In time, the baby will come. In time, she'll be living with what I'd done to her. In time, she'll hate me more."
In time, I'll be living with the proof of what had happened, a girl identical to the one I would've had with him had she never happened.
"She..." Katie trailed off, knowing that time was only going to make things worse.
"She'll never forgive me, and you know that more than I do."
I never would. How could I? Even if I wanted to, how could I forgive him and resume our plans and have kids who'd be my sister's kid's cousins and siblings at the same time? My stomach twisted and I felt sick. He couldn't have us both, he couldn't ruin us both, but he did, and he was leaving three girls destroyed behind him. He was the one most at fault and the only one capable of escaping what he'd created. How could he?
"It took one look into her eyes to know that she never will; her eyes will never look at me the same."
How could he see anything in my eyes beyond the pain when I couldn't feel anything else?
"If I'd known the last time that it was going to be the last..." If I'd known the last time that it was going to be the last... "I would give anything for just one more minute with her, if I could just say goodbye. If I could say goodbye to her warmth by hugging her one last time, or to her voice by hearing her say that she loves me, or to her eyes, or lips, or just her, the Josslyn I fell in love with, the happy, c
arefree girl she was before I broke her. I broke her, Katelyn. I broke her."
He broke me, and he was leaving me broken.
"I..." Katie trailed off again, lost for words.
"She'll never forgive me," he sobbed and I squeezed my hands against my mouth to hold back my own sobs. "And I'll never forgive myself for hurting her, the least I can do is not hurt her even more. She hurts every time she looks at me, so I'll make sure she never looks at me again. If I could remove everything that hurts her," he suddenly glared at my sister, the mother of his baby girl, the mother of our baby girl, "if I could take you with me and hide you from her so she never hurts again, I would."
He said it was for me, but I knew it was for him. He was scared of what he'd done, watching me broken was going to eventually break him, and guys like him ran away too fast to break.
He dried his eyes with his sleeves and trembled with the same deep breaths that were shaking me.
"Maybe we were never meant to be," maybe we never were. "Maybe I was just into her because she was the first girl to reject me and I liked the constant chase, having to constantly get her stuff and compete with someone else and win. And maybe she only fell for me because I was persistent, or because she liked to see other girls trying to compete with her and failing, or maybe because we were both too alike, too careless in a matter that needed too much care if it was going to last. Maybe it was just attraction and compatibility and fun, maybe it was never love."
Maybe we were never meant to be, but maybe that was his choice. Maybe we were meant to be before he decided that we weren't, before he made sure that we could never be.
"Don't say that..." My sister sniffed, the noise covering my own sniffing just a few feet away from them.
"She doesn't love me, Katelyn." He'd grown too weak to carry another box in a matter of seconds.
"She knows I'm leaving in the morning." In a month, we would've been together for a whole year. The next morning we would've been together for eleven months. "She knows my parents only kept this place for me and will sell it when I join them, so I wouldn't even have a place to come back to if I wanted to." He's never coming back. "She knows I'm leaving and that I'll never come back, and she knows I'm doing that for her." He was doing that for himself. "The fact that you're here tonight and she's not tells me everything I need to know."
