𝘴𝘢𝘷𝘦𝘥 𝘣𝘺 𝘺𝘰𝘶. [𝘢 𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘪 𝘢𝘶]

48

I DIDN'T GET much sleep that night after Ej dropped me off at my house. Luckily my mom had already been in bed by the time I got home, so I didn't have to deal with her seeing the hickeys. However, I quickly found out my mom would be the least of my problems as I would spend the whole night tossing and turning, wondering if I had gone too far.

I pretty much told him that I would just let him kill himself and I wouldn't care. I didn't really regret it in the moment, because of how mad I was, but now I'm beginning to take it back. I obviously didn't mean it, of course I'm not just gonna let him die.

That was all last night, though. Now I'm sitting on the floor in front of my full-length mirror, wondering how the hell I'm going to cover up this mess. I mean, at least this offers me a distraction. When I woke up this morning, my first thought was, 'How the hell am I gonna cover up this mess?' and not, 'Ricky's dying tomorrow, which means today is all I have to at least get back onto decent terms'.

The more I thought about what I said, the more guilty I felt. I literally told him he could kill himself and I wouldn't care. Man, that's so messed up. I was just caught up in the heat of the moment, not to make excuses, but I was pretty mad at him.

I had my life on track before I met Ricky.

I was starting in every basketball game, Jack was still around, Momma D wasn't as sick, and I definitely didn't have as many problems as I do now. It's like Ricky came into my life like a tornado and just made a big mess.

I guess that's my fault for pushing him so much to be my friend. I should've just stopped talking to him when he told me the first time he didn't want to be my friend. Somewhere during all this, my goal went from save Ricky, to befriend Ricky, to have Ricky. Nothing hurts more than wanting someone you simply can't have.

I don't understand how it's possible to hate someone so much, yet still have way more feelings of affection and admiration. That's how I feel with Ricky. I hate that I don't hate him.

I've been talking a lot lately. 'Everything I felt for you is gone, we will never be friends again, blah blah blah'. That's a complete lie. Nothing I felt for him is gone, in fact, these past couple days where we've been full on screaming at each other has only intensified my original feelings.

These past 3 days have been absolute chaos. It's been so frustrating and overwhelming that I think all my feelings of anger are gone now. I'm done being childish with that trying to make him jealous stuff. My goal for today is to talk to him, like Ej said. We need to clear the air.

I think I'm just going to tell him the truth about everything. Benjamin, me, the wristband. I'm done with that 'Telling him will put him in danger' crap. He deserves to know, so I'm going to tell him. And besides, it seems me saving him will put him in danger anyways.

I take a deep breath before standing up from my floor, choosing to not even bother with concealer because it will simply take too long and I don't even know if I have enough to cover all these hickeys. I walk over to my closet and rummage through it before eventually pulling out a turtleneck sweater. This is really ugly, but it'll cover me.