Chapter Text
Summertime Sadness
Its the sad truth, isn’t it? The fact that you’re better off alone. No friends, at least no best friends that you bear your whole soul to. You can have acquaintances and have friends but always have your guard up... but the fact is, you’re easier to be alone. That way your heart doesn’t hurt, you never have to worry about being replaced or being stabbed in the back. You don’t have to worry about them hanging out with other people. You don’t have to worry about someone you’ve known most of your life just casually mentioning hanging out with someone they know you’re insanely jealous of. Because that hurts. You try to play it cool, but you know... deep down... it just... it kills. And thats the worst feeling in the world.
So I am alone... maybe it’ll be better when I get to college. Just...this summer was supposed to be about friends and working and everything else... it was supposed to be about socializing, getting out there and hanging out with my best friend. I guess that’s not happening anymore...
1
I’ve always been this introverted person, it’s taken so much energy to socialize and be around people I knew and make conversation. Conversation never came easy to me... (well, vocal conversation). But even so, I’d had a surprising amount of friends during my schooling years. Despite our differences (and I was different than everyone else... that I knew) we were still friends and hung out.
This summer was different however; instead of hanging out with my best friend in the world (the only person in the world where conversations weren’t hard for me), I stood on the sidelines and watched him make new friends. It wasn’t intentional, at least I don’t think so. It just... he just... forgot.
I wasn’t even miffed that he forgot about me, I mean... I’m not all that memorable. It’s that he forgot about our friendship, that we’d made plans for the summer. We’d been inseparable over the last two years and I thought that meant something with our friendship. I thought it would mean that he wouldn’t forget. That he wouldn’t just... move on. Even if we were moving on to different sections in our lives (me to college, he staying home and working). I’d expected us to stay close. To... be as we always were.
But the calls stopped coming, the texts never answered. He was suddenly always out when I went to visit, it was like we never existed, like we were never friends. And that stung. That he could just forget.
I refused to believe he did it deliberately. He wasn’t the type. And I understood, a little. He had been flighty and had hung out with other people before... just, not like this. He didn’t ever drop me before.
The thing is, we were like the bestest friends in the world. He knew my secrets, I knew his. I knew what he would say before he vocalized it, he knew what I was thinking about when I worried. We helped each other out. Sure, we’d had a few tiffs, where we’d seen too much of each other and needed a break. But those breaks were maybe half a day, maybe a night. Never an entire summer.
We were together all the time, whenever we had class, we’d be huddled up in the corner making fun of the teacher or gathered together against one or the other’s lockers. After school we were at one or the others house. We were everywhere together. Sure, sometimes he had dates and things he needed to solo himself for. But he’d be calling me the next day or coming over to my house to describe the night to me in perfect detail afterwards, huddled under the covers and giggling like the little schoolgirls we were.
Two years doesn’t seem like a long time to some. But in reality that’s half of high school- what seems like the longest part of your life. And in those two years we both went through some serious stuff. He realized he was gay, my parents split, etc. etc. Yet we’d always prevailed. We’d been through everything together, we were each others rock. Nothing got between us.
We were together all the time, that’s what gets me. How could he have just forgot? It wasn’t like we just saw each other at school or only once a week. It wasn’t like we were two different people. We were practically one in the same. My first thought every morning was what I would do with him that day. And I guess that may have been my problem, just a tiny bit, that I cared too much. But he didn’t know about it and it wouldn’t have scared him off even if he did. Either way, it’s like I’d never existed in his mind, like he’d never thought about be at all. Just forgotten it all.
The first time I saw him since graduating was at the gas station on main street. I’d been paying for my coffee when he and another bloke entered the store, bell tinkling. He didn’t even notice me, was the thing. He just continued into the store like there wasn’t anyone important he was passing by. It’s a little understandable, after all he was a little preoccupied with his new friend to notice me staring at him.
He and his bloke looked gruff, dark brown clothing and unshaven faces. He had grown his hair out a little longer and let it’s unwashed strands hang into his eyes. Not only had I noticed this, but I also noticed a new tattoo on his collarbone. I flinched at that because c’mon, he couldn’t have called to tell me about it?
I escaped the station before he could notice my staring and flinching, because I never liked confrontation. At this point I would have been just happy if he conversed with me and never brought up the three weeks of terrorizing separatism.
Fuck, I would have been fine with him going anywhere if he came back to me in the end. I would open my arms without question and welcome him back like nothing happened. That was the type of person I was. I didn’t care what happened as long as it wasn’t endangering. I didn’t care if he’d hurt me, I would’ve opened my arms up to him coming back no matter what. I wouldn’t have said anything either. I would’ve just let it slide, ‘it didn’t matter what happened that we weren’t together, as long as we were together now’ type of deal.
And I guess that’s the worst type of person to be in the end. Because it’d been three months before he’d thought to talk to me again. At that time, I’d dropped everything I had built while he’d forgotten me and ran back to him with open arms, just to be turned around and told goodbye officially.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Guess you wanna know how I’d survived the summer. That is, if you’ve read this far ahead you must be interested. You must be saying ‘theres no way he just left you’ and that, my acquaintance, is what I’m here to illustrate for you.