Cold In LA // Why Don't We

Fourteen

Empty.

Everything felt empty. It was all my fault. I had destroyed the foundation around me and I had no one to fall back on.

I sat alone at lunch. Christina said she would've sat with me but Corbyn wanted to sit with everyone else. No one seemed to care that Jonah cheated on me, it looked they were joking around like normal. I missed joking around with them, not having a care in the world.

I missed Daniel. All the inside jokes we had, the way we could communicate without having to say a word, hanging out after school and having him pester me the whole time to let him teach me a new instrument. I didn't see it until then. He was the one I needed, the one I should've wanted the whole time. I had ruined it. He didn't want to talk to me, he didn't want anything to do with me. How could I have fucked up so bad.

I kept replaying everything in my head. How if I had listened to Christina, how I should've ended things with Jonah at the dance, how I should've treated the people around me, how I should've looked at the bigger picture. The world didn't revolve around me and I made it seem like that to the people I cared about the most. I only every brought up my problems to Daniel and Christina and never bothered to talk to them about theirs, I was always so rude to Zach because I liked the attention he gave me and nothing else, I made my world one sided. I didn't know how to make things right.

—

I stood on Daniel's door step in the pouring rain, hoping he would eventually open the door.

"Please go away Sophie, I told you I didn't want to talk to you."

"Just let me talk to you this one last time, and then I'll leave you alone forever." I rested my head on the door, beginning to accept defeat.

"Okay, I guess so." I heard the door click unlocked and open slowly, almost making me lose my balance. "Do you want to come in?"

"Yes please." I walked into his warm house, dripping all over the floor. Daniel ran upstairs to grab me a towel and some dry clothes to change into. He always truly cared about me.

—

"I' sorry, I was so caught up in my own world and my own drama to be there for you, to ask you how you were doing. I were being the best friend to me you could be and I should've been doing the same. I feel like a part of me is missing without you. Could you ever forgive me?"

Daniel stared into my eyes dolefully. I could tell he had no words.

"It's okay if you don't forgive me, I get it." I lied. I would understand, but it wouldn't be okay for me. But in the end that wasn't what was important.

"I forgive you." He pulled me into a hug. His embrace made everything feel okay. "I wouldn't want to live life without you."