You End, I Begin

2007

A couple of weeks later, it happened again. Somehow, Joel had found a way into my heart and we were in a situation we both knew we shouldn’t have been in. We’d gone for coffee together as we wanted to talk about bands and shows an things. We’d even told Carlie because we both couldn’t tell she was still suspicious about our friendship and although I didn’t know it before, she was right to be.

Once again, Joel and I bonded over our love of music and hen started talking about films and book and so much more. I thought we had finally moved on from what had happened before and could just be friends. We just had so much in common that I enjoyed his company.

As we were about to leave the coffee shop, that was when things changed, not just between me and Joel, but with me and Carlie and everything I’d ever known.

“I wish there were more girls like you around here,” he told me. “Girls I can have a real conversation with.”

“You saying I’m not enough?” I joked.

“No, I would never say that,” he laughed. “I just mean, you have everything going for you, you’re a good looking girl, you’ve got the brains and the personality. I’m glad I can at least call you my friend.”

By this point we were stood outside and as I smiled at his comment, he pulled me in for a hug. As we began to pull away, he looked down at me and could tell from the look in his eyes what he was about to do.

“Joel, we can’t,” I said, as his hand brushed my cheek.

“I know, but I want to and I wish we could,” he sighed. We stood there in silence for a few moments before he sighed again. “Look, Abby, I would never cheat on Carlie, I don’t want to be that guy, please believe me when I say that but I’m just so fascinated by you. You’re so different from the others, I like it,” he smiled.

“Don’t-don’t do that,” I said, pulled his hand from my cheek and looked at the ground.

“I’m sorry, Abby. One day, you will meet a great guy and he will fall in love with everything about you but for now, I can’t be that guy,” he said. I watched as he walked away, feeling the tears run down my face. I was left standing there, alone as usual.

“I need you to be that guy,” I whispered to myself as he got further away.

I’d been home a while when I heard the doorbell ring. Being sat in my room, I didn’t bother going to answer it, but could tell my mom had when I could hear voices and laughter. A couple of minutes later, Carlie came bursting into my room.

“Oh, hey Car,” I nodded, as she stood in the doorway.

As she shut the door behind her, I could see that something was wrong and that she wasn’t happy.

“Carlie, what’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong? How can you even ask me that?” she demanded.

“I’m sorry?”

“I saw you today, Abby, I saw you with my boyfriend!”

“Yeah, we told you we were meeting up,” I told her.

“Do you wanna tell me what else happened?” she asked. I stayed quiet trying to find the right answer. “You know what, that silence tells me everything.”

“Nothing happened.”

“I don’t want to be the jealous girlfriend right now but I know you well enough to know when you’re hiding something,” she spat.

“Carlie, you’ve lost your mind! He loves you and no one else. He is definitely not into me!”

“How can you say that? I saw you two from across the street, I’m not blind, you know!”

“You were spying on us? Did you not trust us?”

“Well, I thought I did but something told me not to and I’m glad it did because now I know my best friend and my boyfriend are hooking up behind my back.”

“Carlie, will you just listen? Nothing happened. It just looked bad, but please believe me when I tell you I would never do that to you.”

“You know what? Tell it to Joel, since you seem to get on so well with him. I’m done with him and I’m done with you,” she said, opening my bedroom door to leave.

“Please, Carlie, don’t do that. I never wanted to come between you two, I never wanted to end relationship!”

“Well, you certainly did a good job of it,” she said. “I don’t what hurts worse; you sneaking around behind my back with my boyfriend or you lying about it my face.”

“Are you really going to throw our friendship and your relationship away over a misunderstanding?”

“This isn’t a misunderstanding, I knew from the beginning you were into him, so I guess it’s my own fault really,” she sighed. “I really cared about him, Abby, and you are supposed to be my best friend, but now I don’t really care if I see either of you ever again,” she shrugged, walking away and shutting the door behind her.

A few minutes later, there was a knock on my bedroom door.

“Go away,” I muttered as I laid on my bed, staring at the ceiling.

The door opened anyway and my mom came and stood in the doorway.

“Everything OK?” she asked.

“Not really. Can you just leave me alone for a bit?” I asked.

“OK, I’m here if you need me,” she said, leaving my room quietly.

----------

It had been a week and a half since I’d last spoken to Carlie and I was already used to walking around on my own at school. Carlie wouldn’t even acknowledge my existence anymore and the group of friends she now spent all her time with gave me constant dirty looks. Joel was also avoiding me. I guessed he’d had a similar conversation with Carlie as I did. He was stood at his locker and I decided I had to talk to him.

“Hey Joel,” I smiled, standing next to him.

“Oh hey Abby,” he said, quickly glancing at me and then back into his locker.

“So, are we just not talking any more or what?”

“Look, I know Carlie spoke to you too, we both said we didn’t want this to happen and it has,” he sighed. “Right now, all I want is for her to speak to me again so I’m sorry Abby, but that means that until she trusts us, we can’t be friends.”

“Oh great, thanks, so all those times we hung out, everything you said about being glad to call me your friend, that all now means nothing?”

“I’m sorry, Abby, I am,” he said, grabbing a textbook and shutting the locker door. “Bye.”

And just like that, I was alone. No best friend. No Joel. I went through the rest of my classes that in silence, doing my work and keeping my head down, and then I went home and cried. One misunderstanding, one bad situation and everything was ruined. That was the moment I decided I had to get out of Phoenix and out of Arizona as soon as possible.