C
I left Ora's, my mind floating through our conversation like a tube drifting at Schlitterbahn. I knew I felt something strong towards Orabella, but now more than ever it felt harder to open myself up to other people when I've lost before and I've been damaged.
I walked the rest of the way back to my house, my head down. All of this started my first year at the high school. I was fourteen, promising myself that middle school was gonna be in the past. That I wouldn't be bullied no more. That I could be somebody that didn't need to be protected by all the people who pitied me. I let go of the shelter of my quiet girl facade- that was never me anyways. It was the "me" that I used to protect myself from harm. If I'm quiet, nobody will make fun of what I say. If I blend in then I won't stand out. If I'm good, then at least the adults will like me. But then I couldn't branch out and discover my own personality that way. Really, that was all a cover. That wasn't me being shown to the world. It was basic people pleasing and disguising.
So, then I was known as weird and quiet and awkward, when I just wanted to smile and be goofy and not be as serious as everyone else. Why did everybody else want to be so mature? Like we don't have the rest of our lives to pretend we have everything figured out and to be grown?
I showed up to school in my first attempt at a "stud outfit", but I didn't really fuck with it. Later on in the year, I was growing into who I wanted to be and I had came to the conclusion that I was a stem.
I had made friends, Moni and Marcel and El.
They didn't care that I was just starting to learn all the social rules that I seemed to be inept to. That you don't scratch yourself in weird places in public, that you don't tongue girls down in the back of class, and that you don't come to school looking like whatever.
Then I met this girl, and she changed me. Suddenly I wanted to look nice for her, and I realized that me burping in her face didn't...exactly make her smile. And if I did my hair then she would twirl it around her finger in the same way people did in the movies me and Elodie liked to watch.
Then I fell for her, hard as hell. We started dating, and a few months in, I looked back at my old self. I mean, I couldn't even believe the way being with Kailin changed me. The way I was before.
I remember one night, I was drunk and she was scolding me. I took out my contacts and showed her my eyes. One of my biggest insecurities. She wiped my eyelashes with the side of her hand and gently kissed me. I was so crazy about this girl, man.
Suddenly, I went everywhere with her as freshman year blended into another year together. I didn't know the boundaries of a relationship, didn't know that there was such a thing as...too much love. Yeah, both of my parents were in my life, but we were distant, man. Real distant. They were never the affectionate type, both my moms. I think somewhere along, they just regretted having a daughter. And that was the cost.
Then, another year, and she started pushing away.
Why can't I go to this soccer game alone, Cee?
I don't feel like having sleepovers every weekend.
I love you, but...sometimes I wanna hang out with my friends alone.
My heart ached every time I was away from her, so I would agree with her to have her alone time, and make a secret compromise with myself. I'd follow her wherever she went and watch her every time she smiled, cry every time she hit her knee, smirk every time she told a funny joke, even if I couldn't hear it.
She only caught me once and that's where shit blew up at. She came over to the little table I had situated myself at the trampoline park and went off on me.
Why are you following me around?
Why can't I have any space?
You're suffocating me, Cecia!
That day, now my last day with her- didn't know that at the time. She left the park and I told her I'd come by her place later on when she cooled down. She flipped me off and her friends gave me weird looks. I called up my crew, crying, and they came and picked me up. Never felt so close to my friends before...but still, I never told anyone about me following Kailin.
Little did I know, that day I had suffocated and followed and controlled every aspect of Kailin so bad that she decided to drive off a bridge. She left me a voice message...telling me that she wanted me to be okay after this and that everything was just too much.
A lot of me died that day.
Kailin died that day.
My love had killed her.
My friends stuck by my side as the details poured in every day about her death on the news. Everybody at school was sympathetic until something juicy, and gossip worthy happened, then boom, nobody cared that my girlfriend had drove off a bridge. I started falling back into the person I was before Kailin, or really a mixture of that girl.
I stopped caring about doing what was right. I fell into myself, into sadness, and pain. Moni was the only one out of my two best friends who could pull me out of that. Who could continue to set me straight like Kailin did.
And now this year, I get Ora back from our middle school and with her own set of problems. I know that she might feel something for me, but I don't know if I can feel something back for Orabella.
Not when it seems like my love is so deadly.
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