Attention Jade Tate (Rewrite)

Chapter 37

I know she can't help it, but Darleen makes me feel really insecure sometimes. Some days I feel really small next to her. I am not rich like Darleen. I am not as pretty as Aphrodite. I am not funny, or charming, or anything. I am just average. There is nothing about me worth swooning for.

I don't belong by Darleen's side. I look so awkward there. Everyone knows it. Her aunt only made it strikingly clear how much I don't belong in that world. There is no place for me in Darleen's world. Maybe there never was.

When I got into my room I threw my ratty shoes at the wall, scaring the cats and making them run away. Those shoes I think are the perfect comparison. Darleen is like new expensive shoes. Shoes that everyone wants. I am my old ratty shoes, shoes no one wants. Shoes that no matter how much you clean and shine will never live up to the standards of the new awesome shoes. Ratty shoes that should have been thrown away a long time ago.

I broke down and crumbled up on my floor. I felt awful. The situation I just put Darleen in wasn't fair. I made her pick me or her best friend. Something that I made her never do to me, something that not even I could do. I became a jealous monster and I let her know it. I was a hypocrite.

I bet this is how Darleen felt all along. With me liking Jade and all. But she kept that feeling to herself, she wasn't that girl. Yet I was. I made her feel like this all the time and she never called me out on it, and she makes me feel like this once and I blow up on her. That isn't fair, not even a little. I was in the wrong, I am the bad guy, not her. She is perfect, she didn't do anything wrong. I did.

I pulled out my phone and called her, she ignored the call. That just made me feel even worse.

There was a light tap on my door frame that made me look up from where I curled up on the floor. Jade stood there with a plate of brownies in her hand. The plate was wrapped in plastic wrap.

"Hey, uh I just wanted to see if you were okay. But I guess your tears answer that question. Can I come in?" she asks.

I nod.

She walks in sits next to me setting the plate down.

"I'm so stupid. So— ugh! Why did I have to get jealous for? Why did I have to get mad?" I sniffled.

"Hey, you can't control the way you feel. If she was all over that girl then you had every right to be jealous." She assured me.

"No, I didn't! Because I was all over you and I got mad at Darleen for being jealous. I told her not to make me pick between my best friend and her, and now... now I just became the worlds biggest hypocrite! Now I am the one who is jealous now I am the one who is making her pick. She wasn't even doing anything wrong, I just, I just got insecure." I buried my head into my knees.

"You don't have anything to be insecure about."

"Yes I do! I'm not rich, or pretty, or powerful. I'm not charming or romantic, or funny. I'm none of those things! How the hell am I supposed to compete with anyone? I'm just average, maybe even below average."

"Hey! You are beautiful. You don't have to be rich or powerful or whatever the hell else Darleen makes you feel like you need to be. You are perfect just the way you are. And you are funny in your cute little Skylar way. You are romantic, you are sooo charming because if you weren't then I wouldn't be in love with you right now. You are everything anyone could ever want. I was just too dumb to see it, and too afraid to take the chance." She paused and lowered a voice a bit, "And if Darleen can't see it either then you don't need her. Just like you didn't need me."

I looked up at her. She had tears in her eyes now, but she also had a look of determination on her face. The look she gets when she's all fired up. She was serious. She really thinks all those things about me. She was trying to be a good best friend, even though it was hurting her.