So Alone

Chapter 3: The Emily Era (9th Grade)

   Over the course of what I call "The Emily Era," things got a bit hectic. The once sweet bundle of joy turned to be a very depressive, narcissistic, girl. And of course, Lance turned to me for help and guidance. The girl with no prior experience to a relationship due to being rejected by the very man who is asking for MY help.
I loved both of them equally at first, they were my two friends, so I agreed to help them. This caused me to be stuck in the middle of two bulls knocking into each others skulls.

   In short, Emily was jealous of me. She claimed that Lance cared for me more even though he is sweet to all of his friends, and even sweeter to her. Or so I thought.. If you look back on it now, he was overly sweet to me, but we both know me and him were just very close friends. We would never have gotten together. She even brought hate to the stupid promise me and Lance made; The promise that we would always be friends.
   "I asked him once to stop talking to you and he talked about some promise. He doesn't do stuff like that to me. You must be special." She basically told me. I wasn't at all mad and tried to convince her that she meant more to him, but she wasn't buying it.

   Lance started to act cruel to me during Marching Band practices due to Emily being overly jealous. He would yell at me. But at school, he was his normal self, except a bit too flirty. I was getting mixed signals and grew to be confused and angered. At school, he would hug me and, again, repeat to me "I'm always here for you" every time I grew to be upset. Little did he know the anger was really directed towards him!

   One day, I had enough. He knew all the paths I took so it was time to me to take different, longer, paths to get from class to class. After completely ignoring him in History, I took a long path to get to band. I had to sit on the ground due to my chair missing.
   He sat next to me. "Please stay my friend, Kaitlyn.." He whispered. I felt weirded out.
   While I was heading to English, Lance found me and chased after me yelling my name. "Please, Kaitlyn. Please stay as my friend." I gave him an angry glare.
    While I was heading to Math, my final hour of the day, he found me again and hugged me. "See, this proves I want to stay friends." He wouldn't let go and I sighed.
   "Lance I never said I would stop being friends with you. You just treat me differently at school than you do in Marching Band."
   "I know.." He said sadly. I felt bad.
   "I'll still be your friend."
    He smiled. "Thank you, Kaitlyn."

   Even though he felt remorseful, he didn't change. Stress grew stronger in me, so did my anger. One time I even asked him permission for me to punch him.
   Emily looked at me, "That's not nice-" She was cut off by Lance containing a sad face. "Yeah, go ahead. I deserve it." I put my anger into my punch and punched his arm. I decided to sit at a table with Lance's twin brother, Matthew.

   I got up to get a drink, trying to avoid having a conversation with anyone, when Lance's mom spins around and says happily, "Hi Kaitlyn!"
   I stood shocked for a moment and walked to Lance, "How does your mom know my name?"
His face turned red for a moment. His face read 'Think of something and quick!' and he said,  "Uhh I don't know. Maybe I mentioned your dog Oreo because my mom always wanted a dog named Oreo."

   I turned to Matthew. "How does your mom know my name?"
   He replied with his regular, cold stare. "I don't know."
   "Want my slice of pizza?" I asked him with a smile.
    "No thanks, you should eat."
   "I'm actually getting food with my family later." I turned to Joe who was also sitting with us. "Want my slice of pizza, Joe?"
Joe smiled and was about to grab it before Matthew stuttered, "A-actually I'll take it." And snatched it right up. He was a bit goofy and stern, yet he seemed caring too.