Girlfriend's Best Friend

Chapter 23

          “Bye, Brooke!” everyone yelled to her as she got out of the car when I dropped her off.

            “Cody, say goodbye,” Kelli nudged me. “She’s leaving.”

            “Good,” I said at the fact she as leaving, even though Brooke and I both knew I’d be picking her back up after I dropped everyone else off. I watched Brooke blow a kiss to the car as she walked through her front door and got hit with a hard dose of reality.

            I’d do anything for Brooke, and that was the problem. She was the type of person who went around making sure others were okay, but never herself. She’d text me at four in the morning because she was still awake, helping someone with their problems, but I don’t think anyone ever did that for her. She cared so much for other people, but no one ever cared for her. She really needed someone to love her, and as much as I wanted to, that someone couldn’t be me.

            I thought of everything Kelli and I had been through. She was close to suicide before she met me. Brooke helped to get her through it, but she told me I was the one who saved her. And in a way, she saved me too. Saved me from the person I used to be. I was getting high every day and drunk every night, skipped school, got into fights, had sex with God knows how many girls—I was the kid your parents would be disappointed to have raised, all because I was just trying to have fun with my friends. My parents let me know how worthless I was, and that’s what I started believing I was.

            They stopped texting me to see what time I would come home, because they didn’t care if they saw me or not. They stopped waking me up for school because they knew I wasn’t going to go anyway. They stopped giving me money to go out with my friends because they knew I’d blow it on pot and alcohol. They stopped talking to me because they were embarrassed to call me their son.

            But I knew I wasn’t worthless. I knew I had some purpose. And that purpose was to never let anyone feel as worthless as I felt when I heard it from my own parents.

            Kelli knew almost my full past and accepted me. She kept me away from drugs, alcohol, and other girls. She set me straight for a few months, and showed me what love actually was. She put me back together as I put her back together. Now that I know how to do it, I want to help someone else who thinks they’re broken beyond repair.

            Brooke.

            But I knew that was wrong. I was way too conflicted. I couldn’t think about this right now.

            “Are you going to drop me off too?” Kelli asked me, breaking me from my thoughts.

            “Oh, yeah, sorry babe,” I said, wondering how long I’d been aimlessly driving around for.

            “Are you alright?” she asked.

            “Fine,” I said.

            “What’s bothering you?”

            “Nothing.”

            “Cody, tell me,” she wouldn’t give up.

            “It bothers me how everyone’s obsessed with Brooke,” I said honestly. I just left out the part that I was jealous of anyone who could openly show Brooke affection.

            “Welcome to my life,” she joked.

            “How’s Brooke’s boyfriend?” I asked, just to see what she’d say.

            “They broke up,” she said casually.

            “Oh, really?” I couldn’t help but laugh that she was keeping this going.

            “Why are you so excited about that?”

            “Excited? That girl’s a slut, I knew she wouldn’t be able to hold on to him.”

         “That’s bullshit, you’re excited that she’s single again so that you can make a move.”

            “Kelli, what? Do you even hear yourself?”

            “You don’t care about me anymore.”

          “Don’t care about you?” I got really angry. “Do you even realize everything I’ve done for you and everything I’ve given up for you? Don’t tell me I don’t care about you, because if I didn’t care I would have broken up with you by now and been with any girl I wanted.”

            “So then what are you still doing with me if you could have anyone?” she started crying.

          “Obviously I really like you Kelli, or else I wouldn’t be dating you,” I said truthfully.

            “Do you love me?”

            “I love you.”

            “Because you’re not interested in me as much as you used to be,” she said.

            “The last time we had sex was yesterday, what are you talking about?”

            “I’m not even talking about the sex, I’m talking about just in general. You don’t care about anything anymore and it’s scaring me,” she said. “I don’t want you to turn to your old ways—”

            “I won’t, Kel!” I said too defensively as I pulled up to her house.

         “See, this is what I’m talking about, Cody! You don’t let me help you with anything! One day you love me, then the next you hate me! Make up your fucking mind!”

            “Because you’re too obsessed with me! Maybe if you’d just hop off occasionally and let me do my own thing, I wouldn’t be so fucking annoyed with you all the time!” I yelled at her. My phone vibrated with a text from Brooke. I should have been at her house already.

            She saw it was Brooke and started typing in my passcode to see what she said. I quickly snatched my phone back and she yelled at me, demanding to know why she texted me.

            “Something is definitely going on!” she cried.

            “Why don’t you trust me, Kelli? You have absolutely no trust in me and think I’m this awful guy when all I’ve ever done is take care of you! Just get out of my car!” I yelled at her. A thick layer of tears glossed her eyes right before she got out of my car and slammed the door.

            “I hate you, Cody!” she yelled at me one last time before she went inside.

            I wish I could’ve said the same to her.