Broken

| 17 | Exposed

It's been a long time since I have been over at Lindsey's house for a girl's night. Haley will be there too, so it will be all of us together. I have to be honest though. The whole thing makes me a little nervous. Sometimes I get homesick. Especially after all of the crap from seventh grade. Home is my safe haven, and sometimes it's a little difficult to leave your safe place. Even if it is only for one night.

I knock on the white door of Lindsey's huge house. She lives in one of those neighborhoods and I used to love that when I was little. Now it's just another house I go to to get away.

She flings open the door and squeals like a psychopath. I can't even react, I'm so stunned from the ringing in my ears. She's always been overly energetic.

"You're here!!" she exclaims and hugs me briefly before ripping my bags from my hands and running upstairs. I roll my eyes at her perkiness, but there's no denying that I love every bit of it.

I follow her upstairs to her bright pink room and smile at Haley who is sitting on the bed reading a book.

"Ok. Now that the both of you are here. I am desperate to talk to you guys." says Lindsey and she takes a seat on her bed as I chill back in her office chair.

"It's been forever since we've all talked about something as serious as this.... BOYS!!"

"Oh come on." I groan at her. I swear she takes nothing seriously. Besides, I know what this is about. She wants to push the topic of Tyler onto me, but I don't want to talk about him right now.

"Some of us don't have a love life, Linds." says Haley as she flips the page of her book. A nerd who's clueless to her beauty.

"Yeah, but one of us surely does." she says as her attention is turned to me. Her expression isn't excited anymore. It's more concerned and thoughtful now. That alone completely takes me back because normally when the topic of Tyler comes to play, she's all smiles and annoying laughter.

"I don't really want to talk about him right now." I say, and Haley shuts her book and sits up straight on the bed.

"What happened between you two? There's been a lot of drama going on, but Grace, me and Lindsey are clueless to it all. You can tell us."

They both wear concerned looks on their faces now. I'm fine. I'm completely fine. At least I should be. I shouldn't be hurting this bad. I made up with him yesterday. Everything should be ok now. Everything is back to normal. The way it should be.

"I'm not fine." I say quietly, but I shut my mouth because those words were never meant to be said.

"Please, Grace."

I keep a close eye on my interlocked hands in my lap. I've never really said all of my thoughts out loud. I've told Lindsey that I love him, but not everything. I'm never going to tell them about my cutting. Never. But what would it hurt if I just said how I felt for once?

"Ok, fine. I'm not ok. I love Tyler Smith, and I can't do anything about it. I can't tell him, I can't be with him, I can't do anything because I am his best friend. Every time I look at him it gets harder and harder because all I want is him. It's not enough. It hurts me every single time he has an arm around me or if he's giving me those flirty compliments, but just when I think everything's going great, he goes off and kisses Emma. I want to be the one kissing him. Not her. It kills me every time he just walks over to me like he didn't just rip my heart out by shoving his tongue down her throat. I don't care if she's a distraction for him. I would be that distraction. I would be there for him, but I can't because if I did, I might lose him forever, and I just can't do that."

I laugh to myself, and try to fight back the tears. I am so beyond sick of crying. I'm so sick of being weak. That's all I ever am when it comes to him. He's been screwing up my brain since day one, and it never stopped. I haven't gotten a single emotional break since I met him.