Long Live

"I think I’ve seen her before, she looks really familiar." My friend, Lisa, said as we walked around the block.

Even though the party had just started little less than an hour ago, two of my friends and I decided that we needed a little breathing space because everyone had retreated to the park across from the house. I looked around at the houses, silent for a few minutes as Lisa continued to contemplate.

"You probably saw her on a street corner." I told her bitterly. They laughed, but I remained solemn, knowing that it was most probably the pain and jealousy talking.

"I think her boobs are fake, I mean, did you see those things?" I sighed.

I knew that Lisa was only trying to make me feel better, but it really made me feel worse. It was just another thing that she had that I didn’t. Coming face to face to her for five minutes was enough to make me realize that she was everything that I never was and never would be. She had beautiful green eyes that found their way through your soul in a matter of seconds, long brown hair flowing down her back. She was tall and thin like a model, and dressed in a way that made her perfect body blatantly obvious.

I understood why Bill had wanted her, looking at her now, I couldn’t understand why he didn’t leave me earlier. She was everything I was not, she was fun loving and adventurous. She was probably a goddess in his eyes. The worst part is that Monique had pretended to be my friend for almost 4 months, all along se was trying to convince me to not only leave my boyfriend of more than a year, but trying to get him to fall in love with her whenever I wasn’t around and I never even noticed, not until it was too late and Bill was gone, so I guess that I only had myself to blame.

I crossed m arms over my chest, feeling the urge to burst out in tears again over losing my first real love, but I knew that I couldn’t do that now. I had to show her and everyone else that I was fine, and that I was with Tom now, the guy who would never hurt me like that.

"Bill doesn’t know what he lost." I heard Sarah say softly.

Sarah didn’t say much, but when she did, she tried to make a lasting impression.

I had trouble believing her as I thought back to mine and Bill’s relationship. I could have done so much more from him, but I had so many issues with him and with myself.

Bill was my first real boyfriend and I had trouble expressing my feelings for him from the start, I didn’t know if I could trust him, and frankly, I was a bit afraid. It was the little things that I kept from him, like not telling him I loved him when I truly did, getting mad when he was with his friends, and not seeing him half as much as I could have. When we fought, we fought about my friendship with Tom and Geog because Bill had ever liked nor trusted them. I wondered whether he knew about my relationship with Tom. I wondered if he even cared.

I thought about Bill and Monique, and how she gave him all the things that couldn’t or wouldn’t give to him. It hurt, but I knew that there was nothing I could do about it. He was probably had over heels in love with her by now, that is why I was in the streets instead of at the party. I wanted to gather up my strength before I went in there and heard about how much she loves him.

We approached the house once again, and a knot formed in my stomach as I watched Monique standing in front of the gate. Her silver phone was shining against her ear as she chatted away, laughing loudly while lifting a lit cigarette to her lips. I wondered if it was Bill she was talking to.

As we got closer, I dropped my gaze to the ground, not wanting to meet eyes with her again.

"… I can’t wait to see you tomorrow night, I promise I will make it worth your while... No I am not going to give you your shirt back!" She giggled, "Yeah, I would rather be with you right now, I miss that sexy thing on the other side of the phone. Maybe you should stop by …" She babbled on, and with every word she said, I died a little bit more.

I quickened my pace, avoiding brushing passed her. I couldn’t really explain how I was feeling, I felt that I didn’t have the right to be angry, and I couldn’t be sad anymore. And even though I still missed Bill and thought about him every time I looked into Tom’s eyes, I knew that I had to move on because he had already moved on and there was no way that he would ever come back to someone like me.

I took a deep breath and slowed down again, making my way to my friend’s bedroom. I had been there many times before and had started to feel quite comfortable walking around on my own. The house was practically empty because the party had been happening outside, so when I closed my friend’s door, I was completely alone.

I stood against the closet, sliding down and eventually reaching the floor. I wasn’t going to cry over him again, I wasn’t going to let myself. I took a deep breath and pinched my right thigh, calming myself down.

The curtains were opened and had a great view of the party going on outside, silently watched everyone dancing to the beat of music that I wasn’t familiar with. I could see the cloud of smoke surrounding Monique and her friends, and people diving into the pool who already had too much to drink. I shook my head, knowing that no matter how much I wanted to go out there, it wouldn’t end up in my favor. I was invisible next to her.

I switched my gaze to the left side of the window where a group of people were huddled together; the window was open so I could hear bits of their conversation.

"Have you ever seen anything like her?" I heard someone whisper.

"She’s beautiful! It’s not fair."

"I heard her boyfriend sleeps over almost every night."

"I bet she keeps him happy!" They giggled loudly.

I turned up the radio a bit louder, drowning out the rest of the people outside. I started to listen to the song playing on a station I just tuned into, in the back of my mind I recognized it as a song that played at a funeral I attended 5 months ago, but as I listened to the words, the cut a lot deeper than I had expected. I started humming along with the tune, remembering the words as the song continued.

"Maybe I didn’t hold you, as often as I should –"

"Dude, what are you doing?" I heard my best friend say as the door swung open.

I looked up at her, suddenly feeling like a retard. I watched as she slid down beside me, pulling her new phone out of her pocket. I watched her scroll through her playlist, pulling faces at all the songs and finally stopping at a song by My Chemical Romance. She turned down the radio and turned up the volume on her phone, and then placed her phone on the ground between the two of us.

"I don’t blame you for hiding in here, the party is lame and the people suck."

That’s the thing I loved most about m best friend, she didn’t try too hard to cheer me up and even though she could see that something was bothering me, she wouldn’t ask me because if she didn’t already know, I would tell her soon enough.

“She looks like a whore and she talks like a bitch. I’m just saying." She added, continuing to "can through her phone.

I looked at her and cracked up, "God, you’re such a hobo."

She started laughing too, looking in my direction. She looked around the room and took out a large pack of salt and vinegar potato chips, there was nothing we did better than sit around and eat junk food, no matter what was going on around us, and like every other girl, it made me feel better.

"You’re going to be okay, right?"

She asked after minutes of silence, only the sound of crunching chips filling the room. The thing about Leah was that she didn’t really date or have boyfriends. She didn’t trust men at all; only because she has been watching her friends get hurt for so many years. Leah was also antisocial when it came to people outside of her tight-knit group of friends; she didn’t like meeting new people and was very shy around them. I guess I never really understood her, because there was only a hand full of people who saw how amazing she really was.

I thought about her question like I had so many times that night, and considered everything I had heard about heartbreak in my entire life. Everyone always said that it hurt like hell, especially the first time, and I would know, but they also said that it gets better in time. And I was lucky; I had Tom t fix my heart that his brother had destroyed.

Tom really did give me moments where I really just wanted to jump up and dance with happiness, and that was something not even Bill could make me feel. Tom made love songs seem okay again, any music actually. It was hard t explain because not only did my break-up with Bill made me eat less and sleep much more, every time that I attempted to listen to music, a big hole in my heart appeared and I had to turn it off. Music was my life, and Tom gave that back to me.

"I think I’ll be fine." I said, picking up another chip to throw into my mouth.

We sat there for about half an hour before we heard my friend’s mother yell everyone to gather around, I assumed that it was time for everyone to make a speech. I gave Leah one glance and saw that she had no intention of getting up, so I remained firmly seated.

We could still hear the laughter of the rest of the guests, the voices of our friends and people we haven’t met filling the atmosphere, drowning out the music. I never thought that I would be the one hiding out in the house while all the fun was going on outside, but I had grown used to my comfort zone since Bill and I were over, I didn’t like being around large groups of people, especially people I didn’t know.

"Dude, she said there’s cake!" My friend yelled in my ear. My head snapped up when I heard her voice, realizing that I had zoned out again.

Leah started tugging on my hand, pulling me up. No one came between her and her cake.

We walked through the house together in silence. The closer we got to the glass doors that lead to the back yard, the faster Leah walked. I could feel the corners of my mouth twitching, amused at the thought of how excited she got at the thought of cake.

We reached the yard and stood in the crooked line formed in front of the table. Much to my dismay, Monique was standing in front of me and I was forced to stare at her for another 10 minutes. I knew that I couldn’t face it, maybe in a few weeks or months, but not just yet. Without drawing too much attention to myself, I tugged on my friend’s arm. She understood immediately, pulling me back and taking my place in line so that I was standing behind her.

"… I don’t know why she’s so upset. She’s the one who broke up with him." I heard a familiar voice say right behind me. "She has Tom anyway, but I’m telling you, she’s just using him."

I took a deep breath, not bothering to turn around, and stepped out of the line. I could feel the anger bubbling up inside of me because of the words I had just heard one of my closest friends and the hostess of the party say, after she was the one who was there to comfort me when I was crying in my room.

She didn’t know the whole story, because I was too humiliated to tell anyone. It was just Tom who knew, because he saw everything.

I took one last look around the small crowd of people and walked through the house and out the front door, pulling my phone out of my pocket. I punched in my mother’s number and waited for her to answer.

"Mom, can you please come pick me up? I’m ready to leave." I whispered, starting to shiver in the cold again.