Alternative

April 5, 2009 at 2:21PM

I've been pretty good about not thinking about Beth recently, but it feels almost too easy. Like this flimsy facade I've put up that could crumble to pieces at any moment.

Studying in my room (trying to study). Mom knocks gently on the door and comes in.

"So, I'd like to plan something for your birthday. Are Beth and Alex going to be around next Friday night?"

I couldn't keep the Beth thing from her any longer. There was no getting around it.

"Beth and I broke up," I say.

She sits down on my bed.

"That's awful. What happened?"

I need a good explanation: something clean, and without anything she could use to admonish me.

"She just needed space and time with everything that was going on with her mom," I said.

Taking that in slowly, she seems to accept it.

"Well, you did a good thing being there for her through all that."

"Thanks," I say.

"It's a really hard thing, the end of a first love."

"Yeah."

"It'll take some time, but you'll get over it."

"Yeah..."

"And who knows, maybe you two will work things out at some point, once you've had some time apart. Once she's worked through the loss."

"I don't think that's going to happen, but yeah."

"Well, you never know. Let me know if there's anything you need."

"Okay," I say.

She gives me a sympathetic look and leaves the room.

I dreamt about her again last night, which annoyed me because I'd managed to have dreamless sleep for a while. Or at least dreams I couldn't remember in the morning. But I guess lying to Mom about what happened with her made me remember that I still didn't fully understand what had happened with us. It all felt kind of unresolved.

Talking about her also made me remember how much I missed her, how weird it was not having her around, not being able to text her, not being able to invite her to hang out on my birthday. I hadn't even told her that I'd be going away to university in the fall. I wonder what she'd think of that.