Hate You, Love You. | Jenlisa

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"What?"

"She likes you. She has always liked you and I could never complete."

My mouth gapes open and she continues. "Why do you think I antagonized you? I knew all along that she liked you and it hurt me because I loved her." She whispers.

"I loved her and it hurt me to see that the feeling wasn't mutual. I thought that if I'd stick around, things would change and she'd start loving me back but she never did. I don't know when she started falling for you, but she did."

"That is–" I start, but words fail me. "Wow."

"It's not all that surprising. You've never noticed how she looks at you? How she steals quick glances at you in the hallway? How she'd watch you and your friends during lunch?" She observes. "Are you that oblivious?"

"Uhm... maybe?" I did notice all the things she is saying but up until recently, I chose to ignore it. "I thought she was glaring at me because she hated me or something."

"I wish she hated you but she doesn't. She has never hated you. She said she did at some point but she was lying." She knots her hands together.

"She was using me just as much as I was using her. She used me to get over you and I used her to make you jealous. The only problem was we failed miserably at both." She shrugs. "We weren't in a committed relationship and we knew that, but to the rest of the school, we were the happy couple."

Suddenly, the pieces are falling in place.

"I've made a lot of mistakes and I'm not proud of it. We almost had a baby, a baby that we didn't even plan for, but I aborted it." I feign innocence at her confession. "What Suga said was true."

Why is she telling me all this?

She gulps and continues. "I didn't want that baby to not have parents who loved it unconditionally. I wasn't fit to be a mother, I didn't even want to be a mother and Lisa didn't love me. Yes, she said she was going to do all that she could to be there for the baby even id it meant staying with me, but she didn't love me the way I did her. She begged me to keep it, but I didn't listen because I was selfish." She admits.

"And I was hurt. But more than that, I was scared of what everyone would think, what my parents would think because they aren't necessarily the most understanding people on the planet. How the hell was I supposed to explain to them that I was having a baby at 15?"

She wipes a few stray tears from her eyes with her fingers. "Sometimes I regret my decision. I still have an ultrasound of the baby. I don't know if it was a boy or a girl, but I still keep it at my bedside table and cry because... I don't even know why. Maybe because my decision was a bit rash." She caresses her belly.

"Who knows what could've been if I had that baby." Lisa said the same thing. "After the abortion, Lisa refused to look at me for months. She refused to pick my calls and answer my texts and I deserved that. I know she still resents me for it. She may say she has forgiven me and that she's over it, but ever since that day, she never looked at me the same again."

"Maybe she doesn't resent you," I say in a bid to reassure her. "Have you tried talking to her?"

"We don't speak about the incident or the baby. It happened 2 years ago, but it's still a fresh wound for both of us. Besides, it's just like I said, she still resents me and I don't think it's going away anytime soon."

I make a mental note to get Lisa to talk to Nancy so they can both heal.

Her eyes are full of fresh tears now and I actually feel bad for her. "Nancy, you don't have to continue if you don't want to."