Jawbreaker

Are Memories of you;

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“Lucy!”

I spun around to see who had called me. I quickly looked away when I saw that it was Justin walking in my direction. He threw an arm around my waist, pecking me on the cheek as he did.

“Hey there,” he said, giving me a smile.

I returned the smile uneasily. “Hey. What’s up?”

He shrugged. “I haven’t seen you in a while. You okay now?”

I nodded. I didn’t exactly feel bad after how coldly I had treated him the last time. But the way Justin was acting towards me now made me feel a bit of guilt for before. Sometimes, I didn’t understand Justin. He acted so good to me, but in the end, I knew that he didn’t really care much. He didn’t really know me.

“Hey,” said Justin, catching my attention. “Let’s go out to dinner this Friday. We haven’t gone out in so long.”

I nodded, not knowing what else to do. “Sure. Where do you wanna go?”

He shrugged a shoulder, opening the cover of the government book that I was carrying around. “I don’t know. Anywhere. You pick.”

I smiled shyly at him, moving my textbook away from him as I said, “Okay. I’ll pick the spot and you’ll foot the bill.”

He smirked at me. “Of course.”

On our way down the hallway, I bumped into a girl. Because my textbook was slightly on the heavier side, and my grasp on it wasn’t so great, I dropped the book.

“Sorry,” I quickly said, letting go of Justin as I bent down to retrieve my book.

I looked up to see Alaina and Lauren standing in front of me.

Slowly, I stood up, clutching my book in my hands. The two of them stared at me for a while. Even though I had seen them a couple of days ago, cried with them, held onto them for comfort, we acted as though we hadn’t spoken in years.

Lauren stared at me, hard, her eyes never relaxing for a moment. She gave me such a stern look and I knew why. I tried to counter it with a softer gaze, a careless gaze.

Alaina held a much warmer expression for me. She nodded at me, sharing an instant understanding with me. Alaina was always the more understanding one.

While Lauren was always quick to judge me.

I noticed that Lauren had gained some weight since eighth grade. Her cheeks were much fuller, compared to how hollow and skinny she was back in our tween years. She wore less dark makeup, holding on the mascara.

She even dressed different. Compared to our nonsensical fashion sense during those years, she had done a complete one-eighty. All the band tees that she used to wear and the cropped pants had been thrown out, replaced by skinny jeans and multi-colored shrugs and printed flats. She even cut her hair in a cute, stylish bob. The flat-iron was abandoned, allowing the natural curls to come out.

But even with the change of appearances, the same stern look that she always showed me when she was disappointed remained on that porcelain face of hers.

And I still hated it after all these years.

I grabbed a hold of Justin’s hand. Both Alaina’s and Lauren’s eyes shot down to our hands. I pulled him past them, not bothering to say anything. There wasn’t anything to say to the two.

I had abandoned and left them in a hurry.

I was no longer the Lucy Holden they would recognize.

I had changed.

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When I was younger, I had a group of best friends. We all survived in the fact that we were pubescent, still learning and growing. We had so much to learn, to experience, and to accomplish.

Our lives were just beginning.

Back then, my best friends were Leo, Alaina, Nina, Turner, Lauren, and Abby. The thing that we all had in common was our will to live. Our want and our need to live carelessly and recklessly.

Eighth grade was one of the best and worst years.

The drama and turmoil was almost too much to handle. They said that once we entered high school, we would discover the real drama. We would see our friendships be torn apart, see our friends for who they really were, and see what exactly it was that we feared the most; loss.

They were right. For the most part.

But we discovered that kind of drama the year before we even entered high school. In just the beginning of our eighth grade year, my friends and I, the group, discovered the limitations to our friendships. The strings that we pulled, the heartbreak that we had bestowed upon one another, there wasn’t anything we hadn’t seen.

Even though it was the hardest year, especially when Abby had moved, it was the year that glued us stuck together. We became stronger as people, closer as friends, and we learned how it felt to really have someone.

And then high school split us apart.

We drifted that summer. I had left for two months, traveling through Europe the year before I begun high school. And when I came back, everything had changed from right then. The phone calls between me and Lauren slowed, coming to a full stop. We kept missing each other, always leaving messages on the machine. During the last few messages, it was evident that we were bored, that there wasn’t anything left to say, and they soon stopped all together.

Leo never called me that summer. He had gone anorexic and was dealing with his own troubles.

Alaina and I were never that close. But we still shared a mutual understanding when we took our separate directions.

I found Turner when we began showing up at the same places, in the same crowd.

Nina was hurt because I didn’t keep contact. She didn’t want to even talk to me after that.

Abby felt too far away. But she still called me occasionally. We kept contact during that summer.

But even though our friendships had fallen apart, I knew how they all saw me. I was the girl that sold out. I was the one who had given up on everything she believed in and had traded in her Panic! At the Disco’s A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out for a rich ass boyfriend and a spot on the dance committee.

They didn’t care much for Turner because him giving into the cult (as I called it) was inevitable. He was always distant. Sometimes we wondered if he really enjoyed being with us. But we saw the way he eyed the clique. We knew he wanted to be one of them.

Those fake, bratty kids that didn’t know when to quit.

Bridget Connors.

But for some reason, she saw potential in me. The moment that she showed me interest, gave me a chance, talked to me, I latched on. I latched on so hard that you had to almost blink back the dust that I left behind when I went to them.

I left without saying another word. I never tried to explain why I did it, or what I even saw in the others, but I knew that it didn’t even matter.

The fact that I had left the group for them was enough.

Sometimes I felt bad for what I did. But most of the time, I just didn’t give a fuck. It was my life and I was willing to live it the way I wanted to. For what I had convinced myself, I wanted to be a part of this new crowd. I wanted to be one of these people.

I wanted to have this life.

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I sat on my bed, messing with my phone in my lap.

Tempted, I slid it open, staring at the screen.

Without thinking, I dialed the number that I had memorized from years ago.

It rang a couple of times.

“Hey, I’m not here right now. But leave me a message.”

I took a deep breath.

“I miss you, Abby.”
♠ ♠ ♠
harry potter was amazing.

i loved almost every second of it.

except the end. the end was kind of like...really? and there were a few kinks. and a couple of things that bothered me.

but it was seriously one of the best hp movies by far.

i'm not excited for the next one, but i'm definitely excited for the last one!

peace ;]