Hands | DNF

30.

"What's wrong with me?"
That question has echoed in my mind for as long as I can remember. It circles endlessly, never quiet, never far. A constant whisper in the background of every moment.

Being alone and feeling lonely are two completely different things. You can be surrounded by people and still feel completely invisible. I know that feeling all too well. That deep, gnawing loneliness convinced me of one thing:
I'm not enough.
Not for anyone. Never the first choice, never the one someone picks without hesitation. If people remember me at all, it's only when everyone else is busy. I've spent my life in second place — close enough to see what being chosen looks like, but never close enough to feel it myself.

That night, I was sitting with my friends. We were playing cards and listening to music. Being around them helped distract me — at least for a little while — from the voice in my head. The day before, I hadn't managed to keep up my usual facade. They noticed. They asked questions. They wanted to know what was wrong. But experience has taught me what happens when I open up: people leave. They always leave. I become "too much." A burden.

Then it happened.

Clay passed me his phone to pick a song. As I held it, a message popped up. A part of me knew I shouldn't look. But curiosity — or maybe instinct — took over. And I looked.

"Don't worry about me, talk to him."

The message was from Lisa. She was asking if Clay had managed to get me to open up. What followed made my stomach drop.

Clay had replied,
"Yeah, I've dealt with people like that before. Nothing to worry about."
And then, right after brushing me off like I was just some case study, he added,
"How are you doing though? You okay?"

Just like that, I was reduced to a problem to be managed — not a person. And Lisa, of course, was his priority. His concern.

Lisa has always had that kind of effect on people. She knows exactly how to draw attention, how to spin stories until she's the star of every room. I used to believe her when she said she was struggling. I really did. But after a while, the cracks started to show.

If I said I hadn't slept all night, she would suddenly have a story about how she hasn't slept in days. Everything became a contest, a performance. At a sleepover, I watched her fall asleep with my own eyes while I stayed up until 7 a.m. Yet the next morning, she told everyone she didn't sleep a wink and finally gave up at 5.
A lie — plain and simple.
But a believable one. She always made sure of that.

And still, she was the one Clay worried about.

"You are more important. I'll deal with him."
That was his next message.

That one sentence knocked the air out of my lungs.
The one person I thought cared — the one I trusted — had thrown me aside without hesitation. I was a problem to be handled. And she? She was the one who mattered.
Why wouldn't she be?
Lisa was everything I wasn't — beautiful, stylish, magnetic. She didn't have to try to be interesting; people just gravitated toward her. She wasn't "too much" like me. She wasn't annoying.

She was the one people chose.
And I?
I was just the one they dealt with.

The message that originally caught my attention was her reply.

"You know me. The same old but thanks for always being there."

I returned the phone like nothing happened and realized that I had always been alone and it was simply all hope.