Just Friends. (A falling in love with my best friend story)

Chapter 23: Parker finds out

   Genna's POV:

A week. A week was all I had to get stuff planned out before I finally had to tell Parker. Things were getting out of hand for me, and Mary knew about it. She saw how the guilt seemed to be eating me alive as I went on pretending around him like things were getting better. Wes still avoided me, not talking to me. But yet he seemed to be watching, as if....seeing how I was dealing with things.

The week went by too fast, but I knew I had to do it, now that it was a friday afternoon and Parker had the weekend to take it all in. Ugh, there was just so much drama. Everything seemed to all go off at once. I hated it.

        "Parker....I need to tell you something." I said. We were sitting in a secluded area behind our highschool, where I had told him to meet me so I knew that no one would bother us. He sat across from me in the grass, and the smile on his face that was there wouldn't be there for long.

        "Like what?" He asked. I didn't look away this time. "Remember how you said we weren't telling you something, and that you were left out of something big?" I asked. He nodded.

I took a deep breath, and I slowly took my jacket off and started rubbing the inside of my forearms with one of the sleeves, trying to remove all of the cover up. He watched, curious. I finally removed the coverup from both arms and I stretched them out, and I heard his breath sharply intake. His hand made to grab them, as if to see if they were real. They were ugly. The skin was terribly damaged, with unhealed marks all over. Practically destroyed and never to be the same, smooth clear skin I once had ever again.

        "After mom died, I just did it for relief. It seemed the only way to lash out. I destroyed myself without even knowing it. I suppose I was just desperate for something that would bring relief and for a while, it did. But then the nightmares came and I started dreading sleep. Everything started happening too fast and it was all too much for me. And...one night I thought I'd end it for final, after two attempts by overdose and starvation. Dad found out. He caught me. And so... I went into rehab." I said, speaking slowly and in undertone to make sure I got everything out. I had glossed over it lightly for Mary, but Parker needed to hear it all.

His eyes went wide.

        "Rehab?" He asked. I nodded.

        "The place was horrible Parker, I can't even begin to describe it. I was treated like an animal. Confined to a small room where they tried different drugs on me multiple times, anything to try to bring me back to health. But they didn't know what the fuck they were doing. In and out every day they'd tell me they were trying something new to see if it would work. They never worked, I always ended up getting sicker and sicker from the side effects. I was talked at by so many adults who blindly believed they were helping me. After a few times of losing it and just yelling at them, telling them they didn't know what they were doing, I was locked up and put under special care. I don't think they knew how to handle me, since apparently I was their first non-mental illness suicide attempt." I said.

Parker's eyes had widened in horror almost after the first two sentences. I sat on my hands because I realized they were shaking. He knew that even before all this happened I had a fear of hospitals.

        "Then you guys came back, and everything seemed to go wrong from there. Dad was trying to make it look like he was taking care of me, and I knew he was trying, but he didn't know what to do. Then all of a sudden I'm here and I started to like you and it's all different and new and weird and you like me back. Then when you were at the sleepover, your parents found out and that just..caused all this shit. So...here we are now." I finished.

This was probably the longest I've ever talked, and you'd think it would feel good to get all of it out, but it didn't. Voicing what was troubling me only made me realize how real and scary it was.

        "I can't believe you didn't tell me right from the beginning." he said. I looked up, biting my lip. I was afraid of him reacting this way.

        "You don't know how hard it is for me to be telling you this." I said. He looked up, scared and surprised and so so furious.

        "You don't know how hard this is for me! I just found out that I left only to come back and find out that my best friend for life had been destroying herself, and everyone knew except me!" He said, standing up.

He now towered over me, and I couldn't help but let my temper get the better of me, and I stood up too.

        "You chose to let yourself get involved in all this! You guys brought this on yourselves! I didn't ask for any of this to happen!" I said, raising my voice.

        "It's like...you don't trust me Genna, I thought I would be the first person you'd tell all of this too! Fuck, I should've been there in the first place! I should've taken you with me or stayed here.

        "You can't control what does and doesn't happen to me Parker, only I can!" I said.

        "And look how that turned out!" he said, gesturing to me. Tears came to my eyes but I didn't cry. I was too angry.

        "This is how you react? Angry at me? Parker you need to realize that only because we're so close you're the hardest person to tell. Because you react like this!!" I said. He scoffed.

        "Yeah, sure. So close. I bet you made up the feelings for me too because you'd think that playing with my emotions would make everything fine. 'Oh yeah, I'll just tell him I love him so he'll take it easier on me!' NOT!" He yelled.

        "I only told you because I thought you would be the only person that would see my side of things!" I yelled.

        "What?!? Pity you!?!? You did this for pity! You think you're so small and helpless because you practically destroyed yourself! And all for what?!" He got quiet at the last part.

I screamed into my hands in fury.

        "MY MOTHER FUCKING DIED! HOW ON EARTH AM I SUPPOSED TO REACT! THERE'S NO GUIDE BOOK FOR THIS!" I yelled.

He scoffed and shook his head.

        "You know what? I'm done. With you, with everything. Have a nice life Genna, because I exclude myself from it." He said, walking away. I wanted to turn and run after him I wanted to....I don't even know what I wanted, just not this.

        "You said you'd be there for me! You lied! I need you now more than ever and you walk away! Well fuck you Parker Tomlinson! FUCK! YOU!" I yelled as he walked away. He just kept walking.

I hauled off and punched the drywall next to me, using all my anger and all my strength. Unfortunately I absolutely had no strength, so this made no impact on the wall whatsoever. This made me angrier so I kept punching and kicking and slamming into the wall, trying to break something.

I finally got so tired I just leaned against the wall, finally losing it and crying, sliding down to the ground and putting my face in my hands.

I ruined everything.