Evacuated

'Cause No One Else Will

Things weren't looking up. I was constantly blamed for the breakup of Jess and myself at the end of every night. Everyone told me it was all my fault and the line was drawn as to where people stood, who they liked better and who's side they were on. The truth is, I really was to blame. But not in the way everyone seemed to think.

I had always been scared to see where things would go if Jess and I really did make up. I was scared that it wouldn't be the same.

The last time we spent real time together was April 18th. Yeah, not the 17th. It was the 18th, I've finally sorted out what day that certain event I was wondering about occurred on. Thanks to my diary, that is.

Anyway, I had every memory and image of Jess and my friendship from the past. We spent actual time together.

People often forced me to just "get over" Jess. Like I was somehow expected to forget everything that was important to me and just drop my every feeling and thought of forbidden memories.

As more time passed, we made friends with more people and the room got ever so crowded every night. More people joined us and it didn't seem to matter very much.

The system we had before we met our friend, Bridgette and her friends was, unquestionably unfair. With JJ and the way we did things, taking turns rather than sharing came to an unbalanced feeling in everyone and mixed emotions at the end of the night.

When your turn to have Jess's bed and do whatever you wanted to with whoever you wanted to came to an end, you felt defeated. I did, anyway.

It was over, yet of course I had to give JJ time as well, which meant I had to sit and dreadfully wait for it to be over so I could go to bed, as I always wanted to when Jess and I parted, but couldn't of course.

Not to say I was the only one feeling uneasy about it. I'm sure everyone dreaded when it wasn't their turn, as much as or maybe more so (y'never know) than I did.

JJ had always gotten a longer turn as well as a deeper turn than I did. Not to say I wanted to go as far as she did, cause I didn't. I just felt that I was giving a lot more than I was getting. I didn't want to get more, I just wanted to give a little less. Which wasn't possible. The system was all sorts of messed up.

After meeting Bridgette, her and her showmance, Frank (who isn't as bad as he may seem) joined us and we created a whole new system that satisfied everyone up until 4AM sometimes.

And I'm not going to exactly tell you what exactly that system was, or the previous one because I don't feel like flagging this story for an older audience, so I'm just gonna skip over that.

For the past while since Bridgette joined us, my feelings towards Jess changed. Not to say I didn't love him any more or less cause I didn't. But my feelings on his actions and intentions changed drastically.

Over the past month or two, Jess (probably me too) has been going through whatever it is that causes boys to think of girls less like "bleh" and more like...not bleh?¿

I have a hard time understanding it..

Anyway, he's been developing emotional (hopefully) feelings for other girls, such as our old classmate,(who wasn't actually in our class but another in our grade level) Kim. Before I came to Lark Creek he and her had a thing at some band camp not long before I transferred here. Once Jess met me, he kinda forgot all about her until he and I went separate ways.

Before school ended, he was kinda getting back into her and I'd seen a little bit of her here and there but it was nonetheless jealously that had taken over me.

Then once school ended and the two wouldn't see each other until September again, he slowly lost interest again.

He did end up for whatever reason, developing feelings for JJ, as well as Nicole, a friend of Bridgette. Even during the day, he was all over them and fought for their attention.

I began to ask myself why I wasn't good enough, what was so much better about them and what they had that I did not, or perhaps the other way round.

But then it came over me that nothing quite made sense. One night, the night of July 14th...

Jess and I lye next to Frank and Bridgette in Jess's broken down bed. "Jess?" I asked in a dreamy voice (as I usually spoke in in situations like this). I asked him why he liked JJ and Nicole and Kim so much. After he'd explained whatever about them, I spoke again. "What about me?" I asked, Jess's hand pressed gently up against my chest. "We're just too different" he unexpectedly decided instead of his usual "I don't wanna talk about it."

For the first five minutes of our "love fest" Frank and Bridgette engaging in theirs next to us, I had to fake it. I faked the act of being intrigued by what Jess and I were doing. After a while, I really was enjoying myself. But at first, I was too upset to really engage myself.

My mind came to the conclusion that Jess didn't really like me. He claimed while we laid in his bed every night together in a stupidly gentle voice that he loved me, but hated me come daylight. I never understood it until then.

Jess and I were experiencing emotions and desires far earlier than most kids. Typically kids start having sexual feelings and physical intimacy desires at around 13-15 years old. Neither Jess or myself had turned eleven yet and that's why it was so hard for me to understand everything that happened.

I concluded that Jess didn't like me like he liked Nicole, Kim and JJ. He fought for their attention, wanted to be with them everyday and spend real time with them and build and actual relationship. The problem was, none of them returned the feeling. JJ and Nicole are much too old for him and he and Kim are apart way too often.

He had nobody else but me who would even think about going near him. I was starting to believe that he was only using me to touch me and participate in physical intimacy with him while Frank and Bridgette did the same. Because nobody he really liked would touch him, so he used me for it. I thought he maybe even pretended I was one of them in the dark while we held each other and couldn't see a thing. And it hurt. It was the only conclusion that made sense.

He only ever pretended to love me, that's why he spent time with me 'cause no one else will.

It burned like wildfire and felt like someone had poured acid all over the already-hurting cuts Jess had carved in my heart before. But I tried to keep in mind, May Belle's quote from April 17th, "no matter how bad things get, they can always get better."