What You Caused

61.

Chapter 61 | FaceTiming

Lucas:

With all that Isabella had told me earlier today, I was struggling to sleep. My mind refused to shut down. All it kept doing was replaying everything that she had said and every time I even tried to close my eyes, the absolute pained expression that had been drawn across her features as she spoke proceeded to flicker in my brain. The pain that I had caused. Fuck, I was so consumed and overridden with guilt I couldn't even think. I hated myself for what I did to her, what my words and actions caused and what it led to and I hated myself even more for being completely and utterly oblivious to it all, even with all the signs that had been right in front of my eyes.

And there were many, many signs. Whether it had been Isabella getting hurt from Ivy making remarks about her appearance or her collapsing in the middle of the park and yet I still hadn't even noticed a single one.

Reading Isabella's diaries and seeing what I had said to her as I kid only heightened my feeling of guilt. She had left the box of journals with me after I had dropped her off home, so I had spent the better part of the evening running my finger across the scrawly handwriting and thumbing the tear stained pages as I read each entry, being filled with shame as I read about all the insults I had thrown her way as a kid; every time I called her fat, or ugly or something else appalling along those lines.

It was the fact that I hadn't even even given any of those jabs I made at her appearance any second thought or even remembered saying them for that matter which mortified me because on her end...little Isabella had commemorated all of those remarks that I and the several others in her life made to memory and thought about them so much that it led to crippling self esteem and a whole full fledged eating disorder.

The absolute worst part or all was that I couldn't for the life of me even remember why I used to call her names in the first place. In my memory, Bella had been the little girl next door who I had secretly been in love with. Who I adored because of her kind heart and sweet persona. Whose rosy apple cheeks and goofy smile I loved and ultimately who I believed was the cutest human in the entire planet. Most importantly however, I actually, genuinely liked that she was chubby because it meant she gave the best hugs. She was my best friend and my first love rolled into one. So why did I torment and tease her like that?

The most, I guess, understandable reason that I had come up with for why I basically bullied Isabella was because I had no clue on how to go about verbalising my like for her. It didn't justify or excuse what I did...but it made the most sense. I remember freezing up and getting a little nervous every time Bella would be around, if I thought she looked pretty one day I would freeze on trying to compliment her and instead blurt out something fucking dumb. Yeah if you thought sixteen year old me is stupid - I don't know what you would think of eight year old me. I could've easily just told her that she looked nice in her dress or something because that is what I really thought or get her a flower or some shit but no I had to get skittish every time I was around her and make fun of the way she looked instead.

By the sound of it, even despite all the times I called her names, Isabella thought the same way about me too. There were countless times she had written about my hair and my smile and my dimples. Entries where she had talked about the stupid things I did to make her laugh or her being dramatic if our hands touched one time. It was adorable but it also caused my heart to constrict on seeing how much she liked me but thought that I didn't return the feelings because of the things I had said. I couldn't even blame her, I had always thought I was obvious with my like for her but...I guess I really wasn't. Jeez why was I like this? Why am I still like this? I seriously have some self evaluation to do.