Bitter Sweet

Audra, Darrin, and I sit on the bleachers. Darrin is sitting with his back pressed against the wall and he’s looking up at me and Audra who are sitting side be side, leaning into the gap between the steps and the bleacher itself. The three of us are chattering away during some free period we were given. Things like this happen on occasion and this is one of them.

“Jude is skipping again,” I grunt, my eyes are closed but I know that the two around me know that if they were open, they’d show how annoyed I was with the fact that Jude has skipped two days, this being the third, this week.

Does he want to fail? That damn idiot.

“He’s at home playing Wow. He apparently got some new gear,” Darrin states, knowing this information because he had talked with him during a raid on WoW last night. I scoff, along with Audra.

“Hey…I just realized…where’s Brad?” Audra thinks aloud and I watch her head swivel from side to side in search of said boy. I, too, notice his absence and start to search. It doesn’t take long for me to find him and when I do, my heart drops because it’s happening again.

And suddenly I am so very glad that Jude isn’t here.

Jude, if you saw this, would you cry? Would your heart be breaking just as much as mine is when I see you with her? I wonder.

Sitting at the top of the bleachers is our very own Brad with his arm draped around Hailey’s shoulder. She’s leaning into him with a smile that is so large it makes me sick. Just below her eyes is a shade of pink and Brad is no better.

I use my tongue to twirl my lip ring around and around as if just doing that would take this sight from my eyes but it doesn’t and I continue to watch the two. This has happened before, actually it happens all the time when Jude isn’t around.

Hailey and Brad are friendly. Too friendly. I might be the only one to notice this, I might not. The others have never mentioned it so I’m guessing I’m the only one aware, which is why I have no idea what to do.

“They’re doing it again…,” I whisper to myself and I quickly bite my tongue. Glancing at Audra and Darrin, I notice that neither of them heard me or are even aware of Brad and Hailey’s betrayal so I keep quiet.

Hailey means the world to Jude, I know this. It kills me to know this and oh, how I wish it wasn’t true but it is. That boy is head over heels for her, you can tell just by looking at him and it’s slightly pathetic to see how whipped he is, to see how she has him wrapped around her manicured finger. That’s just how Jude is though, sadly.

I don’t want to ruin their relationship by telling Jude what I have seen, what I’ve been seeing. Besides…it might just be my jealousy that’s deceiving me. My eyes could be telling me they’re flirting but it might just be the green getting the better of me. I don’t want to say anything and have him break it off, only to learn that what I’ve been seeing isn’t true. Breaking his heart is not on my to-do list.

After all, Brad and Hailey have been close friends for a while. It isn’t unusual for friends like them to be close. Even if they are flirting, at least they aren’t doing it in front of Jude. At least he doesn’t have to see and get his heart broken. I will not try to destroy Jude’s happiness.

After managing to tear my eyes from the horrible sight, I go back to listening to Audra and Darrin to take my mind off things. I can’t be thinking about Jude all the timealthough I do. I need to try and get a life…

~

My afternoon nap is destroyed the moment the phone rings angrily. Grunting, I grip it and press it between my ear and the pillow. “What?”

“Baby, that isn’t how you answer the phone,” Jude cackles. “But you are so hot when you’re angry.”

“Fuck you. What the hell do you want?” I snarl. Trust me, I am not the happiest when woken, especially by this idiot. I sleep to escape him but it seems that no matter what I do, he comes back to haunt me and I hate it.

“Hailey and I are going on a date and I don’t know what to do! Fuck, Kale, I have no idea. She’s just so bloody perfect that I have to make this date the best thing ever but…I need help.”

Do you know, Jude, that every time you say her name you sound as if you’re the happiest man alive? I wish that I could be the reason you were so happy but I’m not and every time I hear you talk about her it’s like a slap in the face and I realize that; we just aren’t meant to be.

Although my already broken heart is beginning to bleed and scream and beg for me to just hang up and curl into a ball so I can cry until the sun rises in the morning, I ignore it because if this is what will make him happy…I’ll do it. I’ll do whatever it takes so I act as if I’m ok. I act like Kale, not like the empty, broken, shattered shell that I feel like and I sit here and listen to his ideas.

All are so perfect and hearing what he wants to say to her brings tears to my eyes. I choke back my cries and my whimpers. I swallow the lump in my throat. I grip the sheets with my shaking limbs and I try my best not to sound broken when I say, “She’s going to love it, Jude.”

“You think?” He asks happily and that’s all it takes for my tears to fall so I make up an excuse and hang up the phone. The moment Jude is no longer on the other line I throw it across the room where it cracks against the wall and my heart…

It’s been through enough and it’s going to go through more, I know it. I reach up and grip at my skin to feel the goose bumps and I run my hand down my face to feel those tears that are falling so very quickly although they really aren’t making things any better. But I don’t make them stop. I let it happen.

I bury myself in my covers and ask the God my mother prays to every morning to allow this bed to swallow me whole and take me away from my very own misery. I wait patiently for it to happen, for the pain to finally go away and stop eating me alive but it doesn’t and I lie there for hours, feeling those icy finger tips gripping at my very being.

It’s so cold that it burns.

Why do you do this to me Jude? Do you hate me so much that you wish to cause me so much pain that I can’t even feel anymore? Why is it, Jude, that you must test my limits and see how long it takes for you to kill me?

Why, Jude?