Super Avenged

“Miya, it’s completely logical that you should be falling for him,” I murmured beneath my breath. “He’s your best friend. He doesn’t demand anything from you. He comforts you without question. He wipes away your tears and works to put a smile back on your face. He doesn’t smack your ass, and he doesn’t pinch your boobs. He treats you with kindness and respect. Of course it’s only logical that you should be falling for him.”

I sighed and looked up towards the lightening pre-dawn sky. I had tried to go back to sleep, just as Jimmy had requested, but after about three hours of just laying in bed, staring up at the ceiling, I’d given up. So, I grabbed my sketchbook, turned on my balcony light, and went out on the balcony to sketch more. That was where I had been for the past hour, mindlessly drawing and thinking about my epiphany of the night before.

I inhaled deeply before blowing the breath slowly out from between my lips. I glanced down at my sketch, expecting to see a broken heart, but what I saw didn’t help my current situation at all. It was a sketch of a heart with a giant crack running down the middle of it. But the two pieces of the heart were being held together...by an arm stretched to immeasurable lengths wound tightly around it.

The sketch was of my broken heart being held together by Jimmy.

“I can’t even hide my feelings from a sketchbook,” I mumbled unhappily. I closed the sketchbook and put it down beside the lawn chair that I lounged in. Taking a deep breath, I leaned back and looked up at the brightening sky.

I should’ve known that it would be inevitable for me to fall in love with Jimmy. I mean, he was such a nice guy to me. He was the only guy in my history with guys that had been nice to me. He never smacked my ass, not even playfully, because he knew how sensitive I was about that. He always knew when I felt like talking, or when I felt like just sitting in silence. He knew when I needed a hug, or when I just needed to be left alone. I knew I could trust him.

But now that I was falling for him, I couldn’t trust him anymore. That best friend trust was gone now. If I was falling in love with him, he could use that for his own means. I could trust him as a best friend; but as a boyfriend, he wouldn’t be trustworthy to me anymore. As a boyfriend, he could use me for his own selfish desires.

I shot up into a standing position, panic flowing through my veins. Maybe Jimmy had fallen for me, too. If ever he knew how I felt about him, he would expect for us to get together. And then, he wouldn’t be my best friend anymore, but my boyfriend. And I’d long since learned that no boyfriend could be trusted, at least not the boyfriends I had. And how could I know that Jimmy would be any different from them? How could I know that Jimmy would be any different from Brendan?

Jimmy had to leave. Jimmy had to leave now.

I whirled around and slipped through the sliding door. I hurried into the bathroom and gathered all of Jimmy’s stuff up. With my arms full, I rushed into his bedroom and dumped his stuff hastily into his suitcase. I dragged the closet door open and began to pull clothes off of hangers and shove them into his suitcase.

“Miya, what are you doing?” Jimmy asked groggily.

“You...you have to leave, now,” I stammered quickly, still shoving things frantically into his suitcase. “I need you to leave, now.”

“Why?” Jimmy said.

“Please, just go,” I answered, putting his clothes in his suitcase faster. Seconds later, the light flipped on, and I could see much better. But before I could put one more article of clothing in the suitcase, Jimmy’s hands grabbed my wrist and plucked the shirt from my hand.

“I don’t think you’re thinking straight, Miya...”

“No, I’m thinking straight as a rod,” I said hastily, trying to pull away.

“Why do you want me to leave, then?”

“Please don’t ask me that,” I answered, looking anywhere but at him. The last thing I needed was to see any sort of pain in his blue eyes. I might start to pity him and let him stay if that happened. No matter what, he couldn’t stay.

“Why not?”

“Please, pack and leave,” I repeated, raising my voice slightly. I strained to pull my wrists out of his fingers. “I can’t explain. Please, just leave.”

“Miya, if you would just tell me...”

“No!” I screamed, finally wrenching my wrists from his hands. “I can’t tell you, Jimmy! What part of that don’t you understand? Please, just trust me and leave!” Yes, trust me because I might not be able to trust you anymore.

“But what about you being protected?”

“It doesn’t matter,” I answered hastily, going back to putting clothes in his suitcase. “Please leave. Please.”

“Okay, okay,” Jimmy agreed. He pulled me away from the closet and sat me down on his bed. “Just sit there and relax, before you hyperventilate again.”

Within a few minutes, Jimmy had everything packed up. He stepped forward to give me a hug, but I just shook my head, looking anywhere but at him. Jimmy instead settled for a pat on my head before leaving my apartment. And for my sake, I hoped that he would never enter into it again.