Lie.

Date?

Daniel and I talked more and more, which was great. He was an amazing friend, but there was a problem. I hadn't talked to James since he told me to have faith. I didn't know what he meant by that and it drove me completely insane. That's one reason I liked talking to Daniel. Nothing he ever did drove me completely insane. He was perfect.

Okay, so that was the one thing that drove me completely insane. He's perfect and I'm not.

Wait. Everyone is perfect. Except me. I mean if I was perfect, then James would still talk to me but instead he avoids me and talks to Faith. I wondered why it took him so long to leave me and how long it would take Daniel.

At least Daniel walked me to class everyday for now. He asked me questions, but not the annoying, mind blowing, and deep questions that James loved to ask so much. Daniel asked questions to get to know me. It was like he was sincerely interested. I was truly interested in him too, so I asked him the same kind of questions in return.

The thing was though, no matter how many questions he asked me, he would never know me. I believed that no one would ever know me. Not even myself. I didn't even know myself. I surprised myself often with how horrid I was.

•••

My phone rang. Luckily it was not 3 o'clock in the morning. Otherwise I would've been really mad at someone.

"Maybe it is James." I let the words slip from my mouth before I had time to think about it. I'm not sure if I was hoping for it to be James, but it didn't matter. It wasn't him. I probably should have known who it was going to be. "Hey Daniel. What's up?"

"Nothing much... Do you still want to see that movie?" I couldn't figure it out. Why would he ask that?

I mean, of course I wanted to see the movie, but sadly I was not going to see it. I mean James had already seen it with Faith, I had assumed. Who else would I go with? Maybe I should have had faith. That was funny. I laughed into the phone before I could get my words together. I'm sure my laughter confused Daniel.

"Honestly, I had forgotten about it."

Lie.

Too bad Daniel doesn't know when I'm lying. But I have noticed that since I haven't been talking to James, I haven't been lying nearly as much. Maybe he was the only reason that I lied. "Oh. Well if you still want to go... I'm planning on going Saturday and you're welcome to join."

"Oh really? Who all is going?" I was hoping it would be a large group.

I was thinking about how maybe James liked the movie so much that he wanted to see it again and he would be in the group! Who was I kidding? He probably wouldn't want to go if he knew that I was planning on going. I felt like he had been avoiding me, but it might just be that he was so focused on Faith.

"I was hoping it would be just you and me." Woah. I should have seen that coming, but I didn't. Had I been stringing him along? I mean I knew that I kind of liked him, but it simply didn't feel right. Maybe I was hung up on another guy. No that couldn't be it. It had to be something else.

"Like a date?" I asked this and tried to act nonchalant.

"Something like that." He seemed kind of sad when I didn't sound as excited about his date idea, but how could I have been?

"I really think we should just stay friends for now." I said that so softly that I feared he wouldn't hear me, then I would have to repeat it.

"We could go as friends."

"I don't think that will work out." I can't believe I was being so flat out with him. I was just trying to get off the phone. I didn't want to say I wanted to go with him because I didn't. Or did I?

"Well if you change your mind then we can go." I'm sure that I should've been thanking him for the offer and other things of that nature, but I didn't know what to say or how to say it.

So it just stayed dead silent on the line for a while until he said, "Oh. Sorry. I have to go. Talk to you tomorrow." He waited for a response and he didn't hear one. Click.

I felt extremely bad. I really wanted to tell him my whole life story, my ups, my downs. I don't know if he would've listened. I didn't care at the time. I just wanted to tell him and then he might be able to understand a little bit. The problem with that is that he shouldn't get too close to me. It always ends horribly. It's always my fault. Always.

I also wanted to tell James my life story, but I hadn't and he moved on. Then I wouldn't tell Daniel. Sooner or later Daniel would move on too. Then I would have even less faith. Not that I had much at the beginning of this anyway.

Let's just say that I've been through a lot. The thing is that I just hold it all in: the anger, sadness, and confusion. I never scream. I never cry. I hardly ever question anything. Why would I do these things when no one cares? Not that I blame them. If I had a choice, I wouldn't care about me either. I tried to have faith for James and Daniel.

"Grace. Have faith. Please." I told myself these lines over and over that night, hoping that I could have faith. I knew it was going to be hard, but I was going to try. I was planning on stopping my bad habits and opening up to Daniel and going on that date and not worrying about the little things and going with the flow. I wanted to love life for once.