Life is unfair.
It favours some people and laughs in the face of others. But I guess life never promised to be fair, just kind of offhandedly mentioned that it was a possibility. Still, if life decides to laugh in your face while giving out natural...
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After rejecting Ivy's invitation to sit with her at lunch, our friendship seems to plateau. We talk in class, we're friendly with each other, but neither of us makes a move to go beyond that. I know it's definitely my fault, and I still don't know why I didn't take the opportunity to get closer to her when I had it, but I get the distinct feeling that it's too late to do anything about it now.
So. That kind of sucks. But I'm not actually that broken up over it, which is weird. I put so much time and energy into trying to get a girl to like me, and then I had it happen, and then I messed it up. You'd think I'd be beating myself up over it constantly, regretting all of my life choices and replaying everything I did wrong in my head over and over. But I don't. It's just kind of... something that happened.
I have definitely thought about the possibility that my relative indifference to the whole situation might be somehow connected to why I said no to Ivy. I mean, it makes sense. If I don't care that much about it now, then it's logical that my automatic response when she asked me to spend lunch with her would be to say no. Kind of? I don't really know. It seems to make more sense the less I think about it. If I try and actually come up with reasons, then it gets confusing. So I don't really think about it much. It's surprisingly easy.
Anyways. I start hanging out with Axel a little bit more. I mean, I don't abandon Keira and Cody. We never used to do much outside of school to begin with. But I do start to feel pretty guilty about it anyways, partially because my friendship with Axel feels a lot closer and deeper and more meaningful than my friendships with Keira and Cody. I feel like I'm kind of doing exactly what I was terrified that Keira would do to me. Which. Yes, definitely something to feel like a terrible person about, especially after the way I acted towards her because of it.
Ironically, I start to hang out more with Keira as a result of my increasingly close friendship with Axel. Because I feel guilty. Which might not be the best reason, but at least it's forcing me to build up my friendship with Keira.
I'm at her house, playing video games in her basement, when she brings up the topic of Axel. It seems completely innocuous, but it kind of puts me on edge. "So, how's it going with Axel?"
"Pretty good," I say, trying to be casual, then get scared that that's not enough information, so I add, "We're still hanging out."
"Nice. How's he doing?"
"Pretty good," I repeat, and immediately follow the exact same train of thought as last time but then can't think of anything to add.
"You've been hanging out with him a lot lately."
"Yeah." If I was on edge before, I'm halfway to terrified now.
"And... you enjoy hanging out with him?"
I start to sweat. "Yes."
She pauses the game and turns to face me, looking kind of expressionless. "Nash, is there something you want to tell me?"
