Coming back from break, I was totally ready to spite my ex.
I had cut my hair the day before (despite the long wait), so I looked like a cute cross between Jacob Sartorius and Ruby Rose again. Instead of, I don't know, Daniel Howell circa 2009. I was wearing my Catra shirt that I'd gotten over break, and I would've worn my leather jacket if it wasn't colder than my ex's heart. I was armed with a bunch of truths I had tried to make myself believe.
Things like, they're the toxic one, not me. It was pure evil for them to cut me out of their life, even if it's over break. Especially when their reason is that I got mad at them for completely standing me up during the school's holiday event. Because it's completely unreasonable for me to get mad when they do something nasty like that.
Anyway, so I was totally ready to forget all of their bullshit. Up until I walk into school.
They replaced me in two weeks. The victim is some boy who's literally the same person as me. Same fuckboy hair (it's called a crew cut). Same attractive face setup. Same build. We're both the Smart Kid™ who answers the teacher's questions. We both tutored them at no cost because they're cute. We're both taller. We both look at them in the same way, following them around like a puppy, while they ignore us.
The only difference is that my replacement is Catholic and has a dick.
(It's not even that he's a boy! I'm genderfluid, I think, and occasionally my gender identity drifts into demiboy regions).
In addition to having replaced me, my ex also comes with some friends. There's the girl who I carpool home with (who originally got me out of that toxic relationship, bless her heart), and her boyfriend who looks like Goob from Meet The Robinsons. There's my ex's sexual harasser who copies everything I do in conversation.
And then there are my friends. Lovely.
Although, I'm hard-pressed to call them my friends. There's a ginger boy who seems swell but he's so guarded that I hardly even know him. There's the depressed bi boy who has spent the entire year chasing after a boy who's taken. There's a white boy who has anger issues and likes to threaten me or steal my stuff or hurt me if I question him. There's a girl I used to be close to, but now she hangs out with the Christians and our conversations fizzle out like bubbles dripping over the edge of a pot.
I sit on the table that's far away from my fake friends and occupy myself with my phone. My sister sits next to me, showing support. I love her so much for that.
As I sit there, I wonder what would happen if I told them what I was thinking. It's pretty obvious what I'm thinking, if you take a look at the situation. My friends chose my ex over me. They're sitting there ignoring me, watching me awkwardly stand on the sidelines. They can see what I'm going through.
Maybe I should come clean, though. Send a text to the group chat. Something, simple, a quick "you know *******? We were in a sort-of romantic relationship and they ghosted me suddenly. So could you all not talk to them?"
I have this image in my head. It's like the music video for "Bad Blood," at the end where Team Swift and Team Perry are sauntering toward each other, looking all angry and backed up by all their friends.
I want my friends to do that. Ginger boy, bi boy, white boy, and Christian girl all together, dressed in leather, with an explosion behind us, chatting with me before first hour like we're chums. Then, when my ex tries to talk to me, we'd give them a death glare worthy of the strongest knights. Some of us would draw their swords, some would flip the bird, and my entire friend group would back me up as I stood them up.
It'd be like one of those Disney live actions. Not the bad ones, but one of the originals, like Hannah Montana or Lemonade Mouth. I'd have my squad, my band, behind me. Realistically, it'd be great if they served some witty comebacks. They're always great at giving those to me. It'd be even better if they could redirect that at my ex.
I know those people, though. They'd never do that. First of all, it's mean. Second, it's unnecessary and over-the-top. Any form of support is over the top. It's stupid and rude to ghost someone, just because they ghosted your friend.
That's the kind of stuff that makes the feeling heavier.
See, I don't care that my ex ghosted me. Sure, it hurts like hell for them to leave me, and there's still this gap in my chest, this wounded void that becomes heavy and empty whenever I see them, and occasionally malfunctions and gives me butterflies when I look at them.
But I think I miss them more than I love them.
The hard part is that there's no one to fill the void. That I'm sitting on this table alone (save for my sister), nursing this broken heart, and there's no one to turn to.
I want to tell someone about how far I've fallen into stanning Ariana Grande (so much so that I wrote fanfiction about her). I want to tell someone about how NF is way better than Eminem. I want to complain to someone about Cats, which I'll be seeing tomorrow. I want to tell someone how much "Determinate" still slaps. I want someone to read my books. I want that promise my ex made, when they said they'd be my biggest fan. I want to send memes to someone. I want to rave about the new artists I've found (Ava Max, Kim Petras, Sabrina Carpenter, Dove Cameron, and Why Don't We) and how they use the same producers I've always listened to. There are so many times I reach over to my phone, on a reflex, about to tell my ex something, and remember that they're not there anymore.
Instead, my friends are listening to my ex as they (my ex) fill the void I left in them.
What about my real friends? My sister, a multifandom aro/ace writer, and an eternally optimistic/uplifting girl at my old school?
My sister's already helping me. She's been longing to treat my ex badly since we first started talking. As for the other two? One of them has never met my ex. My ex is from my school, and uplifting girl is the one I abandoned at my old school (like how my ex abandoned me). The other one...we got in a grand total of one (1) conversation this week.
I lost my ex. But this week, it felt like I lost everything except my sister.
