UNWORTHY || driam

𝘊𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘰𝘯𝘦 // 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘥𝘰 𝘪𝘵

"Just do it!" Henry cries from across his bedroom. There's a manakin in-front of me that is a symbolisation of my current crush.

"Why?" I ask. "He only just broke up with his girlfriend!" I don't get why Henry was forcing me into this so soon. I guess he doesn't want me to loose the opportunity. But I don't want to be someone's rebound boyfriend.

"Yeah.." Henry begins, stroking his palm across the manakin's fake chin. "BUT, his girlfriend was a toxic, gold-digger."

I slap my hand against my face. "Your just proving my point." I mumble. "If I got with him, I'd be the REBOUND guy."

"Better than nothing." Henry says. "If Lia had a boyfriend I'd totally be her rebound guy. Then, while the guys feeling jealous — as planned — she'll realise she loves me."

Henry naïvely feels like this is a genuinely good plan.

"Hate to break it to you Henry but she would realise she loved you. If anything, everyone — including Lia — would think SHE'S DESPERATE dating you."

"Yeah sure." Henry says, popping a bit of lettuce in his mouth. Seriously, how the fuck does he enjoy that stuff. It's mediocre.

"Can you at least just pretend to be interested in my plan?" Henry asks. "It's not gonna be long until I have to stop renting this from Bobby."

I just stared into his eyes. dumbfounded.

WHY would you even RENT A MANAKIN!?

IS THAT NORMAL!!??

"Ugh fine." I say. I love Henry but I do seriously need to stop agreeing to his stupid shenanigans.

Especially ones like these.

"Now all you need to do is pretend that this manakin is your one true love."

"Drew's not my one true love, Henry."

"Then why have you liked him for almost four years?"

I don't answer. Not because it isn't true or it's passed a boundary but I genuinely don't have an answer.

There is no reason I haven't moved on from Drew.

Yet I just can't.

It's horrible.

"So anyway.. as I was saying, pretend this is Drew, your definite one true love. And ask him out."

"okay." I mumble as if I want to be here.

It's hard to picture someone like Drew as a manakin.

Partially because a manakins hand falls off were as Drew won't even let tears from his eyes in-front of us.

Sometimes I doubt he genuinely likes any of us as friends.

Then I remember it's Drew.

He likes us in his own special way.

I continue to stare into the black circles Henry drew onto the manakin with sharpie to represent Drew's eyes. He was originally gonna draw lips too.

Thank god I stopped him from doing that.

I begin my fake confession with the question, "Hey Drew, can we talk?"

However, I ask this in a half assed tone and then get forced by Henry to re-do it until my voice sounds sincere.

Then I realise that despite how stupid this all is, Henry was right about one thing.

If I want to get through this I'm gonna have to pretend this ink eyed, hoodie wearing manakin is Andrew.

Yay.

So I do. Drew's eyes are grey and this marker is smudged, which makes part of it look grey.

I start with that, using it to create the look of Drew's pupils in mind until eventually I can near enough imagine what it would actually be like to ask Drew out.

But as I pretend through asking the manakin Drew out, the room I'm in disappears from my mind.

The manakin Drew turns to me. I'm completely frozen.

I'm fucking TERRIFIED.

Manakin Drew, who by this point is facing me, looks at me and says in Drew's voice,

"I'll never love you."

I fall to my knees, not sure if it's because a manakin version of my crush just fucking rejected me or the fact that my mind could even make me think that was real.

I keep telling myself that it's just a manakin in Henry's room.

It's just a manakin in my best friends room, made for some stupid plan to find my the courage to ask my crush out.

Manakin Drew's eyes look at me with disgust.

It's just a manakin in my best friends room, made for some stupid plan.

The greenery I see behind him disappears.

It's just a manakin in my best friends room.

He winks at me and mouths, "I'll be back."

IT'S JUST A MANAKIN.

By this point I'm on my knees still, breathing heavily as Henry places his hand on my shoulder, waving the other one in my face to see if I could see him.

I slap it down.

It's sad to admit but this isn't the first time this happened. Not just with Drew as well.

Once every few months, I'll do something and the other person will say something harsh.

It's usually worse than this.

Thank fuck it wasn't that bad this time.

"Maybe we should call this off." Henry says as he chuckles to himself, not entirely joking.

"Yeah." I mumble standing up. "Cya."

I grab my coat on the way out and Henry yells, "Maybe tomorrow you'll have the courage to do it for real."

This time he's defining joking.

At least one of us thinks of that as a joke.

Maybe I should try to as-well.