Jawbreaker

Abby Sue was one of the youth.

She was only a girl of sixteen, and yet, she had lived longer and fuller than anyone else I had known.

She had been a friend.

She had been like a sister.

She had been the very best.

I had known her since I was in sixth grade, and since then, we had been good friends. She was there during the years that was hardest for me, knowing well enough to be a good friend to me, and not asking more than she should. For her, pointing out the bad was not her way of dealing. She pointed out the good. The better.

During our eighth grade year, we had become closer. It was then that the group had formed. A group of silly adolescents who lived by the same standards.

Sharpies.

Black eyeliner.

Live by no rules.

But when it seemed like the group had gotten closer, becoming stronger, she had suddenly moved. It had happened so fast that when her mom pulled her out of our school system, none of us really knew what had just occurred. It had gone from seeing her everyday, hearing her laughter and angry ranting, to sitting at the lunch table, trying to figure why it felt like something was missing. She was gone and I couldn’t help but miss her.

The next town over became her new territory. There, she found her calling, her family, her friends. She became new, mature--happy.

I felt awful knowing that she couldn’t have that here, with us. But her mother did what was best for her. During her years with us, she found herself some new friends and fell into a bad crowd. She began drinking and doing things that none of us had even imagined her doing. She wasn’t the Abby we had known.

When she reached her new home, she abandoned all those bad influences and lived a life that was her own. A much happier life.

And then she died.



Justin stood in front of my doorway when I answered the door.

I drew back from him, slightly annoyed by his appearance.

He wore a striped, button up with well-fit jeans, showing off his long legs. His hair was tousled with hair product while his crisp, clean collars were popped. He leaned against the door frame, looking straight at me with those dark, azure eyes.

If I had been the same girl I was back in eighth grade, I would never have dated such a prick like Justin. But I was sixteen now and I had changed over time. I took off from the group, leaving my roots, and enrolling in a different crowd. A much, much, different crowd.

He smiled a sympathetic smile in my direction, leaning forward and saying, “Hey babe. I’ve missed you.”

He leaned over, planting a kiss on my mouth. I didn’t move an inch.

Justin pulled away, reaching out to swallow me in his arms. I didn’t move towards him, but rather stayed still in this position. I didn’t want to see him. I didn’t even want him to be touching me.

“Justin,” I said, muffled by his crisp shirt.

“Hmm?” he asked, breathing on my neck.

“Go away.”

He immediately pulled away from me, his hands on my shoulders as he looked at me with wide eyes.

“Excuse me?” he asked.

I didn’t even bother to hold an expression for him. “Go away.”

“But--” he started.

“Just leave me the hell alone,” I told him, turning away and heading back up the stairs to my room. Where I spent most of my time in solitude. Ever since the funeral.

We had lived in simpler times as kids. Going to her funeral, sitting down in the same pews with the people that I used to call my best friends, I realized how much we had all changed.

And when I looked at Abby’s friends, the new ones that she had made during her short period of time away from us, I realized how different we were from them.

They were exactly how we were back then. Different, unique, strange, and careless. They all sat there, with their backs straightly erect to us. Not a single one of them moved during the entire service. The rest of us were crying in the back, shoving tissues to one another as Duncan had passed around a box of them. We were shaking, bent over, holding onto whatever we could to endure the pain.

But they faced it, proving to hold their strong faces for Abby. Because they had known how much she frowned upon crying.

Then again, I didn’t know how emotionless they really were. I couldn’t see the front of them.

I sat in front of my computer, staring at my Facebook page. It was opened up to her profile. I stared at her profile picture, her arms spread out across her friends, smiling wildly as she stood in her homecoming dress.

I loved that that was her picture. She radiated off her exuberant personality. In just one picture, in one setting, it said all that you needed to know about Abby.

She was full of life.

My shoulders sunk a bit as I thought of how disappointed Abby would be in me if she saw how I was living my own life. How much I was wasting it away.

I stared at the picture a little longer before closing out of the page and turning my computer off.

After the funeral, we all thought it would be a huge lift off of our shoulders. We, as in the group. The group of grown up adolescents, who had finally come together after all those years.

But even after one day, I didn’t feel any lighter. In fact, I felt heavier.

I needed to heal.

I needed to let go.