Pita, continued

Chap.18, Social Butterfly

During the beginning of freshman year, I could automatically tell I was becoming more social. I discovered the trick was to just speak with confidence. And maybe I was a little too overconfident at times, but I didn't care. It was working. I was making more friends and overall enjoying life. But I was worried. I often saw Haris talking to this other girl with blonde hair. She was extremely pretty. I knew that Haris had a sister, but I knew what she looked like, and it wasn't her. Then I thought, "it's okay, she's just a friend, right?" But he talked to her often. Turns out it was just his sister's friend, and she was a senior. Big relief. Haris and I had the same lunch on A days, and that's when I would see him talking to her. I would spy on them from mine and Adriana's table. Laila was her name.

A lot of things happened at the beginning of the year. I would see Haris looking at me more often, and sometimes, I would swear he was... smiling at me? No. I knew he was smiling at me. I wasn't as delusional as I had been in seventh and eighth grade. I was certain that was what I saw. It seemed like we were still playing our old game of "look away." Yet the energy, whenever I would walk into class with him, felt different than it had the years before. I felt like we held eye contact a lot more, and I often swore that I could see him smiling at me.

At this point, I desperately wanted him to talk to me or do literally anything to let me know he was even the slightest bit interested in me. But he never did.

It was the start of fall again naturally, meaning football season. And so I of course, went with Adriana to most of the games. We would always hang out with our different friend groups, one of which being Allie's. Now, Allie's friend group unfortunately contained RJ. I realized on the first football game night that my feelings for him hadn't completely dwindled, as I thought they had. I wasn't over him and I didn't want him to be over me either. Why? No clue. He was still my friend at this point and he looked a little better than he did in eighth grade. But that same night that I realized I still had feelings for him, I found out he got back with his ex. Later that night, I went back to Adriana's house and cried onto her pillow when she left the room.

Adriana.

A great friend at the time, though possibly the worst thing that happened to me that entire year.

We had been best friends for about two years at this point, though it felt like longer. Now, for adriana's birthday, she and her cousin had a joint quinceanera. I was invited, being her best friend and all. I was invited on the party bus along with a few of our other friends. Her family felt like my family. Throughout the day, we just drove around, got Chick-fil-A, and went to take pictures at the park. It was really fun, but I noticed on the bus that Adriana wasn't talking to me as much as she normally would. This hurt me a bit, but I decided to just brush it off. I thought maybe she was just focused on her big day. We arrived at the party and I went around talking to my other friends while we waited for Adriana to come out. Throughout the night, it seemed like she was more focused on talking to other people that were there than talking to me. Again, this was a little hurtful because I was her best friend, and I wanted to spend time with her. But I understood that she was busy and had important things to like greet the guest since stuff like that. I was trying to be understanding. But even when she wasn't busy the rest of the night, I still felt like I was being ignored. But I kept quiet because I didn't want to ruin her day. After the party, I went back to my own house.

After that hole ordeal, I noticed Adriana was becoming a lot quieter when we were at lunch together. I would try and spark up conversation, and she wouldn't really say anything. I usually chalked it up to her being tired or distracted, but it did seem like I was being ignored. But at that point, I thought I had everything under control.

We'd had a sleepover recently. It was me, her, and Allie at my house. It was going to be fun, or so I thought. I was excited because I didn't ever really get to see Allie anymore. I at least had lunch with Adriana. I guess I accidentally talked to Allie a little bit more than I did Adriana that night. Adriana wasn't engaging in the conversations, though, so I just assumed she didn't want to talk. After Adriana fell asleep, Allie and I called RJ. During the call, he basically confessed his feelings for her, which was hilarious. I was a tadbit jealous, but who cares. It's literally RJ. After that sleepover, things started to go downhill.