Break The Best Friends

Chapter 4

Hurt is a very mystifying word. How can four English alphabets arranged in a specific order give a person so much mental pain? I was dying to know this. I was dying to know what was hurt's secret – how does it manage to enter into every person's life and causes everyone so much pain. No skin was broken, nor blood spilled. But I was hurt.

I couldn't even blame Luke for this. He was trying. He was trying everything possible to keep a balance between me, our friends and Sierra. I know he wasn't doing anything to hurt me because he wanted to. He either momentarily forgets about me or is forced to do so by his girlfriend and that's fine. I was okay with that. She's afraid that someone else will take her Luke away from her. And she has to be. Knowing that half the school's population is hoping for their breakup or even a chance to hook up with Luke, her fears were well justified. I was just confused why she thinks that I'd be that someone and why she was lying and trying to create this wedge between Luke and me. If I had wanted Luke, I wouldn't have set them up to date.

That night after Luke had left home, these were the only thoughts that had been swirling inside my mind. It's not his fault that he was getting distanced from us. Anyone in his position will do the same thing, right?

That was when I decided that it would better to hurt myself rather than let him hurt me because hurting myself seemed to be less painful and more practical, and letting him hurt me like this meant that there was a chance that I'd start to resent him one day and I didn't want that. I decided that I would distance myself away from Luke before he completely and inevitably distanced himself from me. This way the distance between us will be expected and it wouldn't hurt me that much.

I couldn't sleep that night with these thoughts, like literally; I didn't have to wake up the next morning because I hadn't slept at all. The decision I had taken was hurting me, but I knew it was the right thing to do. I also knew it wasn't going to be easy to let go of whatever we have, but this has to be done for the greater good.

I walked downstairs after getting ready for school. Augusta was inside the kitchen, cleaning God knows what. She was a stress cleaner – no idea what was worrying her today, but she wouldn't tell me if I asked; she wouldn't tell anyone. I walked over to the couch where Zack was sitting and sat beside him. He looked up at me with wide eyes and an expression that shouted 'Oh no! Not you'. If he hadn't dine that I would've left him alone, but since he had, he was so going to be annoyed by me. Grinning evilly, I lunged at him. Zack let out a squeal as he tried to escape my hold. I pulled him to my lap and kissed his cheek again and again.

"Wha - What happened?" Augusta rushed out of the kitchen to the living room.

When she saw that it was just me harassing Zack as usual, a sound that sounded like a mix of a groan and a sigh escaped her mouth. She walked over to me and ruffled my hair lovingly before going back inside the kitchen to continue her work without another word.

"See?" I looked at Zack who was sitting on my lap comfortably, "Even mommy didn't save you from me."

"Momma!" Zack yelled, "Save mee fom thwis monstagh!"

Augusta's laugh echoed from the kitchen as she shouted back. "No way! You didn't eat your cabbage, so I won't save you."

Zack gasped and looked up at me. To add to the effect of his fear, I let out a wicked laugh and looked down at him, grinning creepily. "You're all mine, Zackie!"

"I eat!" he yelled, trying to wiggle out of my grip and this time I let him go.

I heard him complaining to Augusta in the kitchen about how bad the kissing monster is. I couldn't help but chuckle at that. Zack McCann is Augusta's nephew. When his mom Aubrey, got pregnant with Zack, her husband left her and little Zack for another woman. Aubrey had been heartbroken, but she had decided to raise Zack as a single mother, but then things took another bad turn. Disasters seem to strike when we least expect it, isn't it? She died while giving birth to Zack – some medical complications – and Augusta adopted him. She sees Zack as the only way that her sister continued to exist in this world, in some form.