I Won't Call This Hell

I stayed outside while John got on the bus. I was still nervous about seeing them, despite how loving I know them to be. I've been an unforgivable bitch for the past month and a half, and if I was in their situation... I wouldn't forgive me. I guess that just shows how great of a girl I am.

I took a deep breath, leaning against the metal of the bus. I listened carefully for the conversation rolling out inside.

The commotion that had been taking place inside died down after John shut the door behind him. It took a while, but finally, someone spoke up.

"What's up, man?" I let my eyes shut as I listened to the dull whisper of Jared's voice. I waited a few more seconds before I heard John reply.

"I... I don't know."

"Did you find her?"

"Did you try calling her?"

"We were going to call her, but.."

Two or three voices spoke up at once, each with their own words, rushed, trying to throw some comfort at John. So, maybe, he had been having a crappy summer. Maybe I had ruined what was supposed to be a great summer for him. I took a deep breath; I wasn't making this easier on myself.

"No, no," John said, somewhere, to his friends, to my friends. "I went looking for her, called her brother..." He was talking to my friends. Telling some story about how he found me to my friends. My friends, who I was afraid to face. The people who had been there for me through all my dumb shit, even when they were wasted, even when I was pissed at John and he was mad at me, and when we broke up and I got about two million text messages from each of them and... I ignored all of them.

Not any more.

I opened my eyes, yanked the bus door open and hurried up the stairs. John was standing there, looking at all of them, but they were looking at me. Mouths dropped, eyes darted between John and I, tongues lolled in mouths.

"I'm sorry," I cried. I was sorry, so so sorry. More so than I was toward John, even. I looked toward them; swept my eyes across their faces once, twice, three times. Aaron, Kennedy, Vito, Garrett, Pat, Jared... I got lost in the faces as I looked over them. "I'm a bitch. I'm sorry."

It was the laugh from the back of the area that catches my attention. "You are a bitch," Max said, taking a step toward me. "You made me think you were doing something nice; a little nice surprise, and you send skinny boy over here on a chase for you, the rest of us are freaking out, and I look bad because i'm the one who let you go. You fucking bitch."

Max is right beside me now, and as he speaks these last three words, he wraps his arms around my shoulders. I don't know who gets up next, but in a whoosh of noise as clothes rub against one another and shoes hit the floor, I'm engulfed in arms of my friends, the ones who I was a bitch to, who love me still.

This cannot be real.