The Boy With the Bruise - benjey

update :)

Hello everyone!

As most of you can tell, I've been completely inactive on this account for a very long time. Starting school was definitely a rush and there's been SO MUCH that's happened, so I'm really sorry :( You could imagine my surprise (and happiness) when I came back to this story getting an overwhelming amount of support. I started at 40 reads per chapter, and I've come back to 40 K.

Aside from the VERY much appreciated support, I have also been asked to give an update on the irl situations that I included in my authors notes that I used to put at the end of each chapter. I've gotten a lot of beautiful feedback on the book itself, but also a lot of questions about how things have turned out. SO, here it is!

As you can tell, I mentioned a boy early on. He was a good friend for most of primary school. Once we got to high school, though, I finally saw perspective of how other men could treat me (in a friendship kind of way) and I realized how toxic my situation with him was. I won't go into details for privacy reasons, but I will say that he frequently led me on as a kind of game, and valued his relationship with a few of my middle school bullies more than the one he had with me. Which, obviously, led him into becoming one of them. Well, I FINALLY got the courage to open my mind up to different people.  I developed friendships  outside of the toxic one I was in with him. I found my best friend, and I love him more than anything.

I dated a boy for about 5 months. It was fun, and definitely an experience I will always remember - after all, he was my first kiss - but I broke up with him in December. I reverted back to some old habits: stuff I did when I was in a really bad place. For a while, my emotions weren't present. I'm sure that there are a few people out there who have dealt with the same kind of feeling. If that's you, you know what I mean. 

After a few weeks of dealing with it, I moved on. A month or two later, I met a girl. I caught one glimpse of her and had to do a double take, which sounds out of a movie - but I did. I asked my friend (who was mutual friends with us both) to get me her snap. What was an act of sheer confidence turned into her actually snapping me, starting to talk to me more and more, until I realized that we had been genuinely flirting for the longest time. 

Eventually, I found out that she was also apart of the LGBT community, which blew my mind. What were the chances that the one girl I caught genuine feelings for (so far, don't get me wrong..) also liked girls? 

Anyways. Long story short, we had planned on going out on a date for a while, but then corona quarantine hit. It's been hard, as I'm sure some of you can relate, but I've taken her on a few FaceTime movie dates. It sounds cheesy, but I really can't wait to take her out on a real one. 

That's it for today. I'm planning on going through and fixing the errors in this book, because, well... it's not like I'm pressed for time. Plus, looking back at my writing and the feedback I've gotten, there's a few things I'm eager to change. 

Goodnight :)