Left Behind

BRYCE
“Why are you acting so weird, Bryce?” Aliyah stared at me with a worried expression. She sat in her bed looking over to me as I sat at her desk. I wanted to be as far away from Aliyah as possible. I always seemed to get into trouble when I was with or around her so I liked to keep my distance.

I will admit that I was out of it. Carter, the girl that I’m in love with, and Kristen, my ex girlfriend, had just left to go to a baseball game together. I knew that Kristen had to be setting her up with Peyton just to make me mad, but I tried to ignore her. “Honestly, I’m pissed off. Carter and Kristen are hanging out all of the damn time and now she’s acting like I did something wrong when I know I didn’t!”

“Well, Bryce, if she’s stupid enough to listen to anything that Kristen says then she isn’t good enough for you.” I looked at her and she was eyeing me. I almost could have left her sitting there alone, but I was too nice to do something like that, despite all that she had put me through already. Aliyah had been thinking that I liked her since the second grade, but I never did. I always stayed as far away from her as possible.

“Maybe she’s too good for me.”

Aliyah laughed. “That’s not it. If you think that Carter is too good for you then obviously you have a fucking problem. Just look at her she’s fucking—”

“Beautiful. She’s the most beautiful person that I have ever met, inside and out, Aliyah. And she’s the complete opposite of you because she would never call you her best friend and talk about you behind your back like you’re doing to her right now.”

“Well, I guess she’s not like you either then, Bryce. I mean, you did sleep with me while you and Kristen were dating.” She smirked at me and I could feel my fist clenching. I wanted to choke her to death, but that wasn’t something that I knew how to do to a girl.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Aliyah laughed before lying out across her bed. “Oh I know you don’t.”

I got up and left before I had the urge to slit her face open.

+

Laken smirked at me, and I glared at him back. He kept trying to convince me that Carter had me under her spell and that I’d do anything because she has me “in check”. I guess it made since on his part since I dragged him to the baseball game to make sure Peyton didn’t make any moves on her.

What was I supposed to do; let another guy take away the person that means most in my life?
So, we sat in the stands and while Laken watched the game, I watched Carter. I admired how strong she actually was because she came a long way. After everything that happened to her throughout her life, she never seemed down for long. Of course she had those times where she was really down, but I loved being the person that brought her back up again.

She sat with Kristen and Trevor laughing and cheering for Peyton. She looked gorgeous bouncing her hair in every direction and smiling, and tilting her head backwards when she laughed too hard. She needed to be mine, and she would be.

As soon as I saw her get up to go to the concessions, I had the perfect excuse to go and talk to her. I wasn’t going to let anything or anyone hold me back from getting what was mine, and Carter was mine. I followed her to the stand, and stood behind her until she was finished ordering. When she turned around and saw me, she sighed, loudly, and started to walk away.

I followed behind eager to know what her problem was. “Carter, come here!” I yelled after her as she went to sit on a bench. I sat beside her and stared at her as she tried to ignore me. “You know you forgot your food.”

“I ordered nachos and the cheese isn’t ready, Bryce. Now, what do you want?”

“Why are you acting so… rude? I never did you anything, and I’m worried that maybe I did do something, and if I did, I want to fix it, but I can’t fix it unless you tell me.”

She shrugged and placed the extra money into her pocket. “Can we talk about this later? Okay cool.” She got up and began to walk toward the restroom, probably so that I couldn’t follow her in. When we got to the wall, I pushed her up against it so that she couldn’t move.

CARTER

He pushed me against the wall, and I didn’t know how to respond. Bryce never would push me up against the wall, so I guessed that I was probably getting on his nerves. He stared directly into my eyes and I was almost scared to look back because I knew that he’d see that I was hiding something. He was too good at reading me.

“You know what, Carter? I’m tired of being the mother fucking nice guy. I do whatever the hell you tell me to do, but you can’t look at me and tell me why the fuck you won’t talk to me! It’s my turn, alright? You’re going to listen to what I have to say because this shit is really starting to piss me off.”

I was surprised, really. Never had he ever said anything like that to me before, or talked with that much force in his voice, or cursed after every other word while talking to me. I couldn’t do anything but stare at him because I was speechless for the first time in my life. So I nodded and he continued to stare at me.

“Well, go ahead. Tell me what I did!” he said again.

“You said for me to listen, so I’m listening.” He gave me a look that he had never given me. Maybe I was aggravating him or something. “Okay, fine. Don’t tell Kristen that I told you this.”

He sighed. “Well, this ought to be interesting.”

“All she told me was that you and Aliyah had sex while you were still dating Kristen. And I don’t think that it would be right to talk to you if Aliyah had feelings for you once before, so…”

“So you don’t want to talk to me anymore?”

I hesitated to respond, but ended up saying, “Well, is it true?”And I could see his eyes get angrier and everything; but I tried not to look at him in the eyes. “I’m sorry,” I continued, looking away. It was hard not to look at him since he had me against the wall, his hands on either side on my body. Plus, he was so close to my face that I could smell the minty gum on his breath. “Look, Bryce, it just wouldn’t be right. She had you first. Plus, how could you cheat on your girlfriend? That’s trashy, and I wouldn’t want to associate with someone who might try to do the same thing to me…”

“I would never do—look at me, Carter.” He took it upon himself to turn my head towards him, and when I saw his face, I could have cried myself. He looked so fragile and innocent, and lost. I felt like the guilty one when it should have been him. “I would never, ever, do something like that to you—to any girl. What Kristen told you, it never happened! She’s my ex; of course she’s going to tell you things to make you not want to talk to me.”

“She looked serious, Bryce.” I stood with my arms folded, and I wasn’t giving in. It had to be true because Kristen looked more serious than I had ever seen her. "And I think that I may actually trust her."

“Forget Kristen and forget Aliyah. This is about you and me. You need to stop worrying about everybody else. If you don’t believe me, at least tell me one time that I have lied to you. I at least deserve a better reason than what you’re giving me.”

I sighed in defeat. “I don’t know, Bryce. Just leave me alone, okay?”

“Do you mean it? Do you really want me to leave you alone for good?”

“Yes.” No.

“Well that’s fucked up, Carter! I do everything that I can to make you happy, I go against my parents and get in trouble just so that I can spend a couple of hours with you, we spend so much damn time together, and you’re going to tell me not to talk to you anymore?”

“I’m sor—”

He hit the wall next to me and a jumped. I was about to cry, I could feel it. I never had relationship problems, so I didn’t want to deal with this.

“No, don’t give me that bullshit, because if you’re through, then I’m done trying. I’m not gonna chase after you. You make me feel like your bitch or something.”

Before I knew it, I was drying my eyes with the sleeve of my jacket, and he continued to stare at me not saying a word. Usually he would jump to the rescue, but instead he shook his head. Maybe he was actually disgusted with me, or maybe that was how he coped with wanting to cry or something. But he wouldn’t cry over me—nobody would. My own parents didn’t bother doing so, so why would anyone else?

“I’m really sorry,” I said again wiping my eyes. “I’m not trying to hurt you or anything.”

“But you are hurting me. You would think that you would catch on by now that I do all this stuff for you because I…” He paused. “I give up. I’ll leave you alone since you want me to so badly. Not one time in this entire argument did you even consider changing your mind.”

I did change my mind!

“You know that I have all of the time in the world for you, but right now, you’re wasting it.”

“I…”

“How can you be breaking up with me and we don’t even date?” he said irritated. I felt really bad for even starting this argument, but I didn’t know what to believe.

I felt vulnerable because I was crying like a baby while he glared at me, probably happy that I was crying. I didn’t know what to do, plus it wasn’t his fault that I was emotional, I just couldn’t deal with all of this.

“Stop trying to make me feel bad. You know Aliyah likes you! I couldn’t do that to her.”

“She’s not even who you think she is, Carter. Plus, I don’t want anything to do with Aliyah. I just want everything to do with you.”

“Everything?”

Before I could move, Bryce took my face between the palms of his hands. I didn’t want to move then, but I had this silly thought that I had to be the tough girl that didn’t fall for any guy’s tricks. “Carter, I spend every minute thinking about you, and your mind is clearly made up, but you don’t just kiss somebody like you kissed me and then never talk to them again. I have been trying to get you alone for the longest time, and you’ve ruined the entire thing.”

“What thing?”

“It doesn’t matter anymore.”

“It matters,” I quickly responded. I wanted to know what he was talking about. Maybe I didn’t deserve to find out.

He dropped his hands from me, and stood in front of me. “I just bought you a necklace, that’s all. Not that it meant anything,” he said sarcastically. “Well, maybe it meant something to me, but it wouldn’t have meant anything to you.”

“But why did we need to be alone?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “I just wanted to express to you how I used to feel about you. No big deal, really.”

I could feel the guilt rising up. “How do you feel about me?”

“I said ‘used to’.” He shook his head before pointing behind him toward the game. “Your boyfriend is done playing. You should go tell him how great he did.”

“Bryce, he’s not my boyfriend.”

“Whatever.” He began to walk away from me. That’s when I knew that I was wrong. I don’t know why I was pushing him away from me. I was being ignorant. Stupid. I always did that. I always pushed people away.

I didn’t know what to do anymore.