Once Upon A Nightmare

- ELEVEN -

- Ulesi -

"Save it, Wonder-bread. I've had enough of this. When I say 'no', I mean 'No'! I don't want to study with you, I don't want to catch a movie with you, and I don't want to go on a date with you. All I want from you is to just leave me alone!"

The anger in her voice, it scared me. How tired and annoyed she was with me. I remember the fire in her eyes. How much she had it with me. I guess she had reached her breaking point with me and I pushed my limits. Just like I always did.

There was nothing more I could do than to apologize. After I did so, I walked away, leaving her alone. Letting her have the one thing I never let her have for the past few months.

It hurt, I will admit that. It hurt to know that she didn't feel the same way for me. That I was beginning to become a pest to her. But all was understandable. Why would she like the guy who was constantly nagging her to go on a date with him? To always give him a chance that he may not have deserved? A chance he did not deserve? Why would she want to date a guy who always bothered her so much? I never gave her a break. So, now I needed to. I owed her that much after all these months of trying to get her attention and get her to go on a date with me. I hounded her till she was nothing but a ball of anger and hate. I didn't deserve her time; no man who acted like that deserved any woman's time. Could I even call myself a man after all I did to her? No. I was no man, I was acting like a child when it came to Megan. I cried for her attention when she never gave it to me. I was pathetic, no wonder she didn't want me.

"Just give up, kid. You're never going to make it. You'll never be the one for her," the annoying voice in my head went on. "Girls like her aren't meant for guys like you. They are meant to be on their own, free to roam. Do their own thing. They're independent and don't want someone to tie them down and hold them back."

The voice in my head was right. Megan was an independent person. She could hold her own and fight off anyone who posed a threat to her. She could take care of herself and didn't need help from anyone. That's what kept me coming back. I wanted to be in her life. I wanted to be the one who she could relax with. Be the one to push her to her best. She was my motivation to keep going when the tough stuff kept coming. When the world was handing her a bad hand of cards, she would make good with them. Fight till the end just like she always did.

But this fight had ended when she first said 'no.' I just never noticed it, I never saw it. I shouldn't have kept pushing her. I shouldn't have kept pressuring her into maybe giving me a shot when I never deserved it. In the end, she deserved better than that kind of treatment; she deserved better than me. My desire was lost.

I kept going on about my life since then. It's just that, I don't know what's wrong with me. In the sea of people, I just felt so alone. With her, even when I was bothering her, I felt not so alone. It was comforting. I don't mean that in a selfish way, "Oh, Ulesi wants Megan in his life cause he's lonely and she is just the only person who is there." No. I wanted to be part of her life. Something told me she kept getting a bad deck of cards when it came to life's games. I wanted to be that one card that was worth something. That one card that won the game. But that doesn't matter because I wasn't that one card. I wasn't the one for her. Not because she said it, but because I didn't want to be anymore. Because I looked back on my behavior and I didn't like how I was acting towards her.

I gave her the space she wanted even when our Oceanic Studies teacher, Ms. Sula, paired us together. I looked over at Megan who was already looking at me. She gave me a sheepish smile. I didn't smile back. I simply walked over to the teacher and asked for another partner. She easily partnered me up with another girl, Orchid.