Everything We Always Were

Sixteen: Suffocate

1 Year Later: August 2024

Today is supposed to be our anniversary.

Today, CJ and I are supposed to be celebrating 10 months together as well as the last day before our senior year starts.

But instead, we are fighting. I shouldn't be surprised, considering that after the first month of our relationship, we were almost constantly fighting. The first fight was a week after our one-month anniversary and the day that Kyler had his court hearing. I didn't go, and CJ was upset about it. He said that if I was going to ruin his life, I should at least be there to witness it. It was completely different from our first time talking about Kyler.

I started the fight. It was the second time we talked about what happened between me and Kyler, and I'm pretty sure he thinks I was lying about it.

I wasn't, and the court agreed with me apparently. Considering Kyler is a minor, it was just 5 months in juvie, and it went on his record. After his juvie time, Kyler moved. I don't know where, and I don't care. It was another fight with CJ.

One week after Kyler's court date, James showed up at my front door. CJ and I were making out on the couch, it was a rainy Saturday night.

James was crying and needed someone, needed me. And I told CJ to go home and that I would call him tomorrow. He didn't yell at me then, but the next day, he called me, saying we needed to talk.

He told me he was uncomfortable with James showing up the previous night.

That it was wrong for me to be alone in my house with another guy.

And of course, I got mad. Although we had spent the past month and a half barely talking, James was my friend and he needed my help. He was grieving. His mother had gotten much worse than before, declining after the doctors initially said she was getting better.

CJ didn't talk to me for a whole week before "forgiving me".

Not even 2 days later, he saw me and James talking in the courtyard after school and freaked out again, this time in front of James.

The bottom line, CJ is possessive of me. He says it's because he's insecure and he's scared that I'm going to leave him. So, I shut out James again. Which made CJ happy at first until he got tired of me being sad.

I told him, "Of course I'm sad, you made me shut out my best friend when he was suffering." And it led to another fight.

Every fight we had about James ended in CJ saying something like "Well, if he's that important to you, why don't you date him?" or "Why are you with me if he's so much better?" which I never said James was better than him. He always tried to put words in my mouth.

Every month one of the fights would end in him "allowing" me to hang out with James again. I would hang out with him, and then the next day, CJ was insecure again and another fight would happen.

I was hurting James over and over again and he just kept letting it happen.

Yesterday, James woke me up at 5 am with a phone call. It had happened. His mother had died. We knew it was soon, and James was prepared. His mother had signed an updated will before the sickness took over again, another tumor appearing somewhere in her body. James had turned 18 this past summer and his mother signed everything over to him.

CJ and I were supposed to celebrate our anniversary early because it fell on a Monday, the day before school started this year. When I told him that we had to reschedule, he went ballistic and sort of broke up with me.

"Are you kidding me? You're really trying to reschedule our anniversary dinner?" His tone was immediately hostile.

"CJ, his mom just died."