Goodbye

The weekend passed with unnecessary slowness, and Monday was no different than the days before that. Andrea refused to speak to me, and Justin called me at least fifty times a minute. I still felt like a hypocrite, and I still couldn’t get over myself long enough to forgive the only boy I’d ever loved. Maybe I didn’t deserve friends anyway.

After all, I was bitter, rude, and too proud to ever admit to my own mistakes. Kicking Justin out of my house had been a mistake, and I had known that the second he left my bedroom that day. We used to fight like that all the time, but never over things that big. That was the difference. It was never that big, and whenever I told him to leave, he wouldn’t. He would just wrap his arms around me and hold me against his chest until I calmed down.

In the end, I always knew he was right. And this time it was no different.

“Can you just forgive him, make out with him until your lips go numb and live happily ever after so I can have my best friend back, please?” a voice said from behind me in the cafeteria line. I turned, and gasped when I saw it was Andrea who had spoken.

“You’re talking to me again?”

She smirked, and flipped her dark hair over her shoulder. “No, it’s your conscious.” I smiled, and her smirk grew. “But really, he came to my house Nat. Asking me to forgive you, so that he could feel less like he ruined your life”

I snorted and rolled my eyes, and paid for my single coke. Seems, I had lost my appetite.

“He didn’t ruin my life. And I really am sorry that I didn’t tell you.” I said, turning to face her as we walked.

“I know you are, Nat… And I’m… I’m not mad anymore. I thought about it, and well… I wouldn’t have told me either. But you can’t tell Justin we’re friends again, because I told him I was ignoring you until you two worked things out.”

Again, I snorted. “Yeah right. I’m not telling Justin anything” I stated. Andrea rolled her eyes and sat down, looking at me as I sat as well.

“Natasha, you gotta get over this. He left, but so did you.”

“Yeah, I moved two hours away. He moved a whole other country.” I said pointedly. Andrea opened her mouth to speak, but she knew I was right. “Dree, it’s so much harder for me to track down him. He could have easily looked me up in the phone book. Me on the other hand? They wont even release what part of Atlanta he lives in, let alone his freaking postal code, or phone number!”

“Okay, okay you’re right. But Nat, that’s the past. And now he’s here, trying to make it up to you. He’s trying, I can tell this is hurting him. He’s in love with you!” She said, leaning forward with her eyes bugging out of her head.

“I thought he was in love with you?” Andrea rolled her eyes.

“That’s what I thought before I saw the way he looks at you”

I ignored her. “Anyway, isn’t it like, disastrous for best friends to date? Doesn’t like, every relationship that starts like that, end in complete failure?”

“Yes negative, most best friend-started-relationships don’t end well. But some of them do, and you and Justin are practically strangers to each other now.” She pointed out. Yeah, strangers with a painful history.

“So you’re saying, I should go up to him all like ‘ohmigawsh, Justin Bieber! I love your music, can I have a picture?’ or something?” I asked, as I played with the rim of my unopened coke. Andrea laughed and threw a pea at me.

“No. Why are you always so sarcastic? Just start over! Or ask him to sing you that Taylor Swift song, about regretting leaving and shiznat?” Now that made me laugh.

“I’m sure he doesn’t regret it. Look how much better off he is”

“Yeah, fame and fortune wise. But he’s walking around with his broken heart in his hand” She pouted.

I stood up and looked down at her, as I fixed my backpack on my shoulder.

“Yeah, and mine in the other. If he thinks I’m just going to let him back into my life just like that, he has another thing coming. He may be hurting, but I promise you. He is feeling nothing like what I felt when he left” I snapped, then turned and walked out, leaving Andrea at the table looking dumbstruck.