s m i l e

22

natalie's pov

"natalie! elise is here!" brendon yelled as he stood next to a very nervous elise.

"he- oh ok." i said as elise barreled into me and squeezed the life out of me.

"sorry. i was just really excited." she stammered as she released me.

"it's fine. let's go to my room so we can talk." i said with a chuckle.

"alone." i added when i saw brendon trying to sneak behind us.

once we made it to my room, i made sure to lock my door and brought elise to the spot farthest from the door so brendon couldn't listen in.

"so." was all i could think of. i hadn't had any experience in this situation so i was completely dumbfounded.

"i don't exactly kn-" i was cut off again, but this time because i was being kissed. again, i had no idea what i was doing but elise seemed to know so i just let her do her thing.

"shit, sorry. i don't know why i did that." she said when she pulled away.

"i didn't mind, but i don't exactly know what to do in this situation. i've never been in a relationship or anything as you already know." i said, embarrassed.

"i've been in plenty relationships and i honestly still have no clue what to do in this moment." she said with a shrug.

"we could just... hang out? i don't know. i just like being around you." she said with a smile.

"okay, i'm cool with that." i said.

so then we just hung out. like we normally would. other than the occasional kissing (which i finally go the hang of) and a lot more touchyness, of course. we became a lot more comfortable with eachother (even though we had already been almost too comfortable with eachother) and weren't scared to make a move.

i knew from that day that i was in love.

---

a few months later we broke up. we had gotten to a point of complete hatred of eachother. we were fine for a couple of weeks but what started out as the rare argument over something serious turned into constant bickering at the smallest things. it came to a point that it was too difficult to be around eachother. and as much as i wish i didn't, i had started doing things i thought would hurt her in the same way that she was hurting me. we were slowly strangling eachother and it was finally time to just let go and walk away. we didn't remain friends out of anger and elise left my house for the last time the night after we broke up when she collected various things she had left there.

the breakup was probably the worst thing i had ever experienced. i was devastated because not only had i lost my first real "love" but i lost my best friend. other than the few kids i had met in my neighborhood, elise was the only friend i had left. i thought that if i had her, i didn't need anyone else, and when we broke up i was left with no one. brendon tried his best to cheer me up but it took days for me to even leave my room for anything other than food.

i blamed myself for the breakup, even when everyone tried to tell me that it was bound to end. doomed from the start. it shouldn't have even been that devastating to me. we were so young and it's wasn't the first time i was going to have my heart broken. but at the time i felt like my world had ended.