The Inside me Mirror

Am I Done Yet?

            Its been two months since school has started, field hockey has ended and swim team just began. Kieryan tries to be my friend, but its useless in my opinion. All he does is hurt me more and more, either with old feelings or ignoring me. It’s hurting too much, the emotional attachment wont fade away. I’ve been distancing myself from my friends, except for Charlotte, I don’t see them in the mornings anymore.

            Protected from Kieryan and his insults on how I’ve changed from the girl he fell in love with, personally I think he is just making excuses. Excuses to avoid dating me, or getting close to me again. Swim team fills the hole in me, the closeness of the group feels like a second family. They are open and wonderful people that I  shouldn’t have given up last year for Kieryan. He wanted to spend time with me, swim would take away too much time and I wanted to spend time with him as well, so the hardest choice I made was quitting the team after I made varsity. I never told Kieryan he was the reason I quit it would just cause more trouble and even now I still wont tell him.

            Distancing myself from my other friends, weakens my emotional attachment to them. I’m able to go to swim and not feel bad for not spending time with someone. It’s good to see my old friends from swim again, especially those from other schools because I never get to see them at any other time. There are times when I’ll think of Kieryan or talk to him, but after our last conversation I’m finally done. If he wants to be my friend he can try, but I’m not going to do it anymore. He’ll say or do something that makes me jealous or cry. It’s not worth that pain, he can say he wants to be friends but I’ll wait for the proof before believing anything Kieryan says.

            “Nikki!” I turned around to see Kieryan running to me.

            “Hi Kieryan.”

            “What’s wrong?” He questions.

            “Nothing.”

            “Come on, Nikki, I know you better than that.”

            “Why are you talking to me? You always avoid talking to me in public.” I retorted.

            “I don’t avoid it. I’m just weary because I don’t want rumors.”

            “Then just don’t talk to me.” I said harshly.

            “I want to talk to you, but you’re so defensive all the time!” He yells.

            “I’m defensive because you broke my heart, and no amount of ‘I’m sorry’ is going to fix this!”

            “Then what will? I don’t want to forget you, I want to be your friend.” He says.

            “You want to be my friend?”

            “Yes.”

            “Then leave me alone, because I’m done with this until I feel better. I don’t care how you feel and obviously you feel the same way about me, so just leave me alone.” I walked away leaving him with a astonished look on his face.

            David found me later on in the library waiting for the bus to take swim team to practice. I was busy folding paper cranes as he talked to me about my conversation with Kieryan.

            “Nikki, he wants to be your friend. You used to want that-” I interrupted him.

            “Yes I did, four months ago when he wanted to be left alone. Now that I want to be left alone, he wants to be friends and he sends you after me.”

            “He was upset that you were being so bitchy!”

            “I’m being bitchy!? He broke up with me, he wanted to be left alone so I left him alone and now he wont leave me alone to heal! I don’t see how I’m being bitchy.”

            “Maybe it’s the attitude you give off.” David retorted.

            “Whatever.” I got up to leave, only to have David grab my arm.

            “I’m here to lay the foundation for your friendship, then I’m out of this and it’s between you two.”

            “It’s between us two right now, he shouldn’t have brought you into this. If we need a third person to make this work then obviously the second that person leaves he and I are going to fight and break that foundation. That’s a guarantee.” I walked away, it’s time for practice.

            I’ve reconnected with swim team; they are a welcoming group of people. Even the guys who I just met a few days ago have started joking around with me. Swim team makes fast friends and a close family. We have each other’s backs and we get along better than most teams. We swim every day except Friday, this Friday just happens to be touching bases at our school. Where teachers and parents have mini conferences and get caught up on how their child is doing in school. So all the students go into school three hours later than normal.

            With all that time, I decide I should straighten my hair, I haven’t done it all year and compared to last year, when I did it every day, there’s a difference. As I straighten the right side of my hair I notice there’s a huge chunk missing out of it. The layer is four inches higher than the rest of my hair, it looks uneven since the left side has grown out finally. It reminds me that I cut my hair because I was angry at Kieryan for dumping me, now all I can do is hope it grows out as well.

            “Nikki, what’s up with your hair?” Sarah asked, when I entered school.

            “Bad haircut.”

            “Oh ok it will grow out at least.”

            “Yeah, all in good time.” I walked to class, thinking. If my hair grows back even, I’ll forgive Kieryan.

            My favorite class this year is Creative writing. I’ve made two friends, Ali and Taylor. Both have helped greatly in forgetting Kieryan and moving on. Neither knows how important they are to me, they are the closest thing I have to an emotional attachment to. They make the ninety minutes of class go by quickly and help me forget that Kieryan is right down the hall.

            Forgetting for that amount of time, can make my day because I’m not about to breakdown, but they’ll never know. They, like everyone else, think I’m healing and getting better. At times I agree, but sometimes it fills my mind and I want to get away from everyone. Ali joined swim team, so she’s seeing how I am at swim. A social, happy, upbeat person, but its different then how I am at school. I’m open with my teammates, but with people at school I have to watch what I say and do because I’m constantly being judged.

            To say I’m weary at school is an understatement; I’m constantly trying to avoid people, even some that are my friends. Friends that do talk to me watch what they say. It’s easy to see because they’ll either slow their speech or change the topic pretty quickly. I wish they didn’t have to but it’s for the best, because I know once I start thinking about Kieryan it’s all downhill from there. I’ve become a master at avoiding, from people to thoughts.

            I’m never with anyone so topics can’t get brought up, I’m doing crafts such as paper cranes, or I’m writing. All it takes an amount of focus that’s needed so I don’t focus on what’s happened or what’s wrong. Sometimes, I even use it as an escape, to get my thoughts out of my head and away from me. It helps, and I can only hope it helps long enough so I can finish what I started. I’m not happy with how things are now, but I know what I need to do and I hope and pray it will work.

            First step is to distance myself, check, to heal I need to feel that emotional attachment to someone else. Charlotte and David both agree that I need to have a crush on someone else, the new guy helps forget the old guy. I can’t do that, it doesn’t feel right, so I suffice by making new friend and feeling the family bond from swim. It’s the best I have and that’s how I’m going to forget Kieryan. Do you have any better suggestions?