The Choices We Make

Chapter 3- Run and Hide

Matt and I became friends in elementary school. We were polar opposites. He was loud and energetic—the 'king of the playground' he called himself—while I preferred to sit quietly and read under the big oak tree, my haven away from the chaos.

That, however, didn't stop him from trying to befriend me. No matter how much I tried to ignore him, tried to get it through his thick seven year old head that I was not interested in being his friend.

He would sit beside me and have one-sided conversations; my eyes never leaving the pages of my book, but my ears listening attentively to every word that spilled from his lips.

Eventually the sound of his footsteps approaching brought a smile to my face, instead of a scowl. Our laughter and endless chatter dispelling the awkward silence that once filled the air. My book long forgotten on the bed of grass, as we chased each other around the vast wooden base of my fortress.

I had made a friend. One who had promised to spend recess with me, every single day. And he kept his promise.

Until one day he didn't.

That day, I waited for him under our big oak tree. Waited until the bell rang to signal the end of recess, and even after that.

He never showed.

It wasn't that he was absent from school that day. I saw him. He was there. He just didn't show up for me.

I laid eyes on Matt as soon as I walked into the rainbow-colored classroom. He and the other boys were huddled around Dave Lucas, a snotty nose brat who loved to remind us all that he was rich and we weren't. He was flaunting his new collection of hot wheels while Matt and the others looked on in awe.

Hot wheels. He abandoned me for stupid hot wheels.

Needless to say, my little eight-year-old heart was broken, and I swore to myself that I would never speak to Matt Torres ever again.

That lasted two days. My resolve cracking when he sat next to me, under our big oak tree, with a crumpled white peony in hand.

"I picked it myself from my mom's garden. She said you would like it."

And I did. He could've plucked up a blade of grass and I still would have forgiven him. I just wanted my friend back. The one person who made my life a little less lonely. The only person I would willingly place a bookmark between the pages of my favorite book for.

But we are no longer kids in elementary school, and no number of crumpled peonies or blades of grass could ever erase the pain I feel in my heart.

Now how do I get that through his thick seventeen-year-old head?

I glance down at the phone ringing on my nightstand. It's been three days since I found out about Isla and Matt's secret relationship. Three days since I last spoke to either of them. And while Isla just passed it off as me being in 'Bloodzilla mode', Matt had somehow sensed there was more to it than just my monthly mood swings.

He was always the observant one. Too observant for his own good, and now I have to deal with the endless texts and calls and voicemails he leaves on my phone ever since I started avoiding him at school.

My finger hovers over the green button on the screen, tempted to answer his call. To release the pent-up anger boiling beneath my skin. To scream at him, tell him how much I hate him. Hate how he made my heart hurt in ways I never thought possible. Hate the coward that he has become.

But I don't.

Instead, I simply turn my phone off and shove it under my teal pillowcase. Out of sight, out of mind.