(no subject)
“Life passes most people by when they're busy making grand plans for it. Throughout my lifetime I've left pieces of my heart here and there. And now, there's almost barely enough to stay alive.” But for some reason, I still am. And I’m still trying to figure out what that reason is.
I’ve had my wretched times, but I’ve made it through them all. I guess those times are caused by me settling for second-best. I’m just trying to find people who won’t use someone just because they can, or people who won’t betray you just because they feel like it. I guess I’m just trying to find more people like me.
Last night Laurena and I stayed at Amanda’s until about 3. We were supposed to stay the night, but Amanda’s mom wasn’t home, and Laurena and I ended up getting into an argument with her anyways. “Abbie, listen. We need to talk,” Amanda quietly said.
“What…” I replied subtly. I had no idea what she was about to tell me. So many thoughts raced through my mind as if NASCAR was going on in my brain. In the pit of my stomach I felt it. I knew something horrible happened, but I didn’t know what. I just sat there as stiff as a log with my eyes directly fixed on her. She looked very antsy, and as if she was trying to find the right words to say, but was coming short. “Nathan and I had sex last night. I’m sorry. We were hanging out, and… things just got a little out of control, and… I don’t know what to say.”
My heart immediately split in two, as if half jumped to my throat, and the other half dropped to the bottomless pit of my stomach. I quickly stood up, clasped Laurena’s arm, and headed out the door. We both sat quietly in my car not saying a word. Amanda didn’t come chasing after us, so I assumed that she knew what my reaction was going to be.
“Amanda has been my best friend since 4th grade, how could she do this to me? What in her right mind would make here even think of touching him? Has our friendship of 8 years been a complete scam?” Even more thoughts kept shooting up into my head. Laurena then put in my Jack’s Mannequin CD and played ‘bruised’, which is the song I constantly listen to when I’m upset. I turned my head toward her and looked her dead in the eye, as I began to cry. I slammed my head against the steering wheel and started bawling. Laurena slowly rubbed my back, but didn’t say a word. Laurena has been my best friend since birth, and we’ve grown to become sisters. She is the only person I can trust with my life. We’ve been through absolutely every obstacle you can think of. And from that, we know how to comfort each other without any movement of our lips. She then turned up the heat because she knows that warmth comforts me like nothing else.
“Get out of the driver’s seat; you can’t drive in this condition at all,” she ordered. I got out of the car without saying a word and slowly walked to the other side. She began driving, no destination in mind, she just drove. Driving around always slows down my nerves, so we did exactly that. I just sat there the whole time with my face pressed in my hands thinking of Nathan, and Amanda, and just everything.
Nathan and I began dating in 7th grade, and from the first time we kissed, I knew he was the one. We dated for two years then broke it off. I was a complete wreck because he was my world. Nathan and I bared our souls to each other. We were best friends, and knew every single thing about each other. After we broke up, we were still capable of being friends. However, at times it was too hard. I just wanted to run up to him and never let him go, and just cry and cry and tell him that I still loved him with everything in me. But I couldn’t.
During my sophomore year, things began to change. We drifted even more apart and hardly ever spoke. It was almost as if he was out of my life completely. But one day I woke up and thought, “This has to stop right now. I’m going to tell him how I feel, because if I don’t, then I’m just letting my entire life pass me by.” I believe that if things are meant to be, then they’ll happen. But you still have to make some sort of effort. And I wasn’t afraid to make that effort anymore.
“Listen, I can’t take this anymore at all. I’m still in love with you, and I’m always going to be. I can’t even describe to you how I feel. But when we were younger and were together, every time we looked into each other’s eyes it was as if the entire world had just stopped, and we were the only ones existing. We just stood still, and it felt like a lifetime. Don’t you want to spend your lifetime standing still with me?”
“I honestly don’t think you know how in love with you I really am, and always will be,” was his reply. Since then, we became close again. We dated on and off, but managed to stay close the entire time. When we weren’t dating, we still told each other that we loved each other, because we really did. Our relationship was like nothing I have ever read, seen, or heard about before. But as I grew older, I started doubting what would become of us.
Last year he graduated, and I haven’t heard from him since. The last thing he told me was a line from the song ‘bound to happen’, “For what it’s worth, I’ve always admired you. I always thought we could make it through. Now look what time can do, it took our masterpiece we built and broke it in two. I always believed in you. I always loved you.” He then kissed me on my forehead and went on his way.
4 months have gone by since then, and it still tears me up inside. Even though my friends never asked me about it, they knew how I felt. Which is why I’m reacting the way I am now about him and Amanda. I haven’t talked to him in 4 months, but Amanda had sex with him just the other night? “I don’t understand it. I don’t understand it at all.”
“We both know,” Laurena began to say, “that Amanda has never really been a great friend to either of us. She gets pissed over the dumbest things, and freaks out if we don’t do something right. She’s never been there for us when we needed her. You especially Abbie, have always been there for her. You’re the best friend she ever had; she just doesn’t know it yet. And most likely she won’t for awhile, but that’s okay. Some day, if not today, she’s going to regret what she did, and how she made you feel. Once she’s alone and miserable, she’ll realize everything.”
I believed every word Laurena was spitting at me. It’s strange, because even though I always end up going through something horrible, in the end I have even more faith than I did in the beginning. Life is interesting most times, I’ll tell you.
Laurena ended up driving us to Brandon’s house. Zach, James, Dan, and Matt all ended up being there as well. I told them what happened, and we ended up staying the entire night talking about everything.
I’ve always been closest with James out of that bunch, so I was glad he was there for me to talk with. “Abbie listen, you can’t blame yourself at all for something someone else did,” he said. I looked at him with confusion, and then thought to myself. I then realized that he was right, deep down I was actually blaming myself, wondering what I ever could have done to deserve this. “When is it going to be my turn? Nothing in my life has ever worked out for me. I’m always alone, I have very few good friends, and my life at home is just a mess… Just, when is it going to get better?! Is it ever going to get any better? Am I ever going to get what I really want out of life? Am I ever going to be happy?!” By this time tears devoured my eyes, and my words were coming through every other breath. James always had this weird way of knowing what I’m thinking before I even do. It’s astonishing, it really is.
James and I met through my ex boyfriend Michael. I was a sophomore, and he was a senior in high school. We could tell right away that there was chemistry. And because of that, I always had difficulty figuring out my feelings towards him, and Nathan. However, James had a girlfriend that lived in the suburbs of Chicago, so we knew nothing could ever happen. We shared our feelings about absolutely everything with each other. A lot of times I could even talk to him over Laurena. He and I became best friends the very first week we started hanging out and talking more. At that point in my life, he was the most amazing person I had ever met. And I tend to still think that today.
“Trust me,” he began, “there will be a time when you won’t hurt anymore. And all the time that it takes to get there, will be entirely worth it.” I slowly glanced up at him and my tears began to dry. “I understand, but yet I don’t. I’m just so confused with everything that’s going on. I just-”
“When the time comes, you will fully understand,” he said cutting me off. At that time, my face was very tender and red, yet fully dry. A few months ago when Nathan had graduated, I grew very upset with things, and myself. When I got home, I opened my Bible and the very first thing I read was, “when the time comes, you will fully understand.” And from reading that, I felt so incredible. I knew everything was going to unfold in the end, and I still do. But hearing that come from James, I knew that some day, don’t know when, everything will come back to me, and I will get what I truly deserve.
After a few moments of silence, we heard ‘it’s not your fault’ come on in the background. We looked at each other and smiled. James then stood up taking me slowly with him. He gave me probably the biggest hug I had ever had, and I felt okay. We began walking down to Brandon’s basement where everyone else was, and as we walked the threshold, my stomach grew weak.
“Are you okay?” Laurena could sense the tension in my face. “Yeah,” I slowly replied, “I just got a little twist of the stomach, that’s all.” I walked into Brandon’s back bathroom and stared at myself in the mirror. My head was still racing, but I didn’t hurt anymore. I began to feel very light headed, and then fell to the floor.
I woke up this morning in a hospital bed with Nathan kneeling at my side. He looked at me with hope, and smiled the widest smile I had ever seen. I sat there aching as he went to go get the nurse. In with her came my mom. I was throbbing the whole time. “What happened?” You could easily detect the pain in my words. “Well,” the nurse began, “yesterday afternoon while you were on your way home from church, you got into an accident at the intersection of Dutch and 18. The other driver was barely injured, but you hit your head hard off the dash and immediately went into a coma. Thank God it only lasted 24 hours.”
I sat there quietly trying to soak up everything she was saying. I looked up at my mom and began to cry. However, I wasn’t crying because I was in pain, I wasn’t crying because of learning the shocking news, I was crying because I had finally realized everything. “Can I have a moment alone with Nathan?” I asked. My mom walked over and gave me a giant hug and kissed me on the cheek. “I love you Abbie,” she said. “I love you too,” I said in return.
I turned towards Nathan and said, “I had the weirdest dream.” “What was it?” he asked. “I’m not really sure, I don’t really remember much of it, but I just have the weirdest feeling in the pit of my stomach right now.” I then hesitated, dreading the following words I was about to say. “We… we shouldn’t be together anymore. It’s not meant to be.”
“You are the apple of my eye,” his words flowed out softer than cotton, and I couldn’t bear to look him in the eye any longer. I think our hearts broke at the exact same time. I just knew it was something I had to do. He sat there with me until he had to leave. He then stood up, looked at me and whispered, “I love you.” I stared back and said, “I love you too.”
I called my mom back into the room. “Can you call James please, I need to see him.” “Absolutely,” she said. My mother and I have always been close, but for some reason at that time, I felt the furthest away from her than I ever have before. Half of an hour later I awoke from a nap I decided to take while waiting for James. He walked in and looked at me as if his whole world had crumbled right before him. “Abbie, what happened?! Are you okay? How are you feeling?!” were only a fraction of the questions he asked. I then began explaining, as much as I could, what happened. I told him how I felt, and about the odd dream I had. I remember nothing from it, but it gave me the most unexplainable feeling I have ever had.
The nurse walked back into the room and told me I would be able to leave shortly, but only if I took more medicine. So I took another dose and asked my mom if James could give me a ride home. “Sure, I don’t see why not,” was her reply. The ten minutes it took from getting to my house from the hospital I asked him about Shannon, his long distance girlfriend. He then explained to me that they had broken up. “I need to do something more with my life. I need to get out and help all of those in need. I can feel it in my heart that that’s what I’m meant to do. She just couldn’t understand that. All she said was, ‘You would break my heart.’ I don’t know if breaking up with her was selfish of me, but I just know, that’s what I need to do with my life.”
I sat there a few moments and thought thoroughly before I gave a response. “It’s not selfish of you at all giving your life to the needy. If you feel it in your heart that that’s what you need to do, you can’t ignore it. If anything, I see Shannon as the selfish one when saying, ‘You would break my heart.’ If she can’t see that that’s what you need/want to do with your life, then she isn’t seeing a part of you.” At that time we pulled into my driveway. We turned to each other and looked into the other’s eyes for what had seemed like a lifetime. He got out of the car and came over to my door. As he opened it he stretched out his hand for mine. I was hesitant, but when I looked into his eyes, I felt warm. He walked me to my door and said, “I want to spend my lifetime standing still with you.” He kissed me on my forehead and headed back to his car. I opened the side door and walked up to my room.
I grabbed my Ipod and put it on shuffle. The first song to play was ‘bruised’ by Jack’s Mannequin. I then jumped on my bed and stretched out my body. I turned my head to the right and saw my Bible sitting on my night stand. I reached out and opened it. The first thing I read was, “when the time comes, you will fully understand.”