Distance

16

Najwa never bothers to tweet or text me much. By now, it's been going on for a month, and I'm almost so fed up with it that I could scream. Whenever she IS texting me however, she's never herself. Ever.

Single-word replies. No smiley faces, which she usually always has. No emotion at all, it seemed.

I tried to tell her that I was scared--because I honestly was--and I could sense something eventually happening that would break us up. I was scared shitless because we were so perfect together. I couldn't afford to lose her. I knew if I lost her that I would regret it for the rest of my life. I wanted to be the one to save us, when she wasn't making an effort to. It was almost our eleven-month anniversary. I wouldn't let us stop before a full year.

But at the same time, I was sick and tired of not having someone to be able to be physically with. I wanted her so badly to be here, but every time we attempted to work something out, it wouldn't work. I was starting to debate whether or not it all was worth it in the end. Is she worth this? All this waiting and trying to stay patient and this...torture? Does she even love me anymore? If she did love me, she wouldn't be doing this to me....Right?

Even at this time, I was still making up work I had missed from being sick the few weeks before, plus all of my daily work I had to do to continue to stay caught up. I would spend the time from when I got home from school to the time I went to bed just cramming in more homework. I barely had time to eat or have free-time of my own, and on weekends I did work from when I woke up to when I went to bed. Still, throughout all this, I made sure I texted or tweeted Najwa, because I couldn't just ditch her because I have a lot of work to do. I kept my hopes up that she might come back. I'd listen to our songs that I had on my iPod too, to stay positive.

I was stressed, almost to the point of a breakdown, and I needed someone to talk to. But...she wasn't there.

One weekend, my mom was sick of watching me do all of this homework, so she sort of made me sleep over at my friend Makayla's house to get a load off. I went over there at around 5 PM, and we had a lot of fun. We played her Kinect, went on her laptop, and watched TV for about 3 hours. We stayed up until about 1 AM, when she started to get a bit...moody.

I couldn't sleep, though. I had thoughts racing through my mind that wouldn't shut up. I was trying to think why Najwa would treat me like this; why she would...push me away. Did I do something wrong? If so, why couldn't she tell me? Did I fuck something up like I've done to other people? I sat there in my sleeping bag, Makayla sleeping in her bunk bed, and stared up at the ceiling. I didn't move for literally 20 minutes, and just felt....blank. Numb. Empty. I couldn't cry because I didn't have enough energy or tears left too. Eventually I built up the strength to text Najwa, and she actually replied.

"...Why do I feel like you don't love me anymore..?"

She replied:

"What do you mean? >,<"

"You're not talking to me...at all. And when you are, you're not yourself...I'm scared.."

"I'm....sorry? I'm really really busy >,< Why are you scared?"

"I'm scared for US...Just...I don't know...>,<"

"Okaaaaayyyy? Cool it. I'm just REALLY busy. It's college."

After that, I don't remember how it went. I just remember that she eventually didn't reply for a while, and I gave up and went to bed, not even wanting to cuddle my Bunny for once...

Halloween was a different story. That was a good day, by far. The band and choir kids got to skip half of the day to take a mini trip to the Middle School to watch a performance from a college band and choir from South Dakota. I was super excited to be able to miss a bit of school. And...secretly, to of course spend 3 more hours around Hayden....But I never admitted that. We all got to have first lunch--the hour where I usually have band--which meant I had the same lunch as Makayla, as well as my other friends Johanna and Jordan. My friends Emily, Jenny, Linnea, Laura, Brandon and I sat at the others' usual table. I was sad for a bit though, because sitting at a completely different table meant I couldn't, you know, take little peeks at Hayden like I typically did. I'm not gonna lie, I searched around the lunchroom for a while to find him, but I soon gave up. I thought it'd be easy to find him, with his poofy hair and all, but I guess I was wrong.