Love Again ✔

10. Not Good Enough

Maddox:

"Something came up and I can't do tonight. I'm sorry."

I stare at the message Rose has sent me with a deep frown on my face. Something doesn't feel right. We were fine last night and she was fine this morning too before the whole captain of the football team thing came up. Is it some kind of a pet peeve for her or something?

Fuck, I'll gladly quit football if I have to. I only do it for fun anyway. I never planned on pursuing it as a career. I already know what I want to do with my life, and football goes under the pile named Hobby. But Rose's name is under Partner for Life. Fuck, Ty was right. I'm a hopeless fool in love and she's fucking oblivious.

"Is everything alright?" I can't help but ask, only she never responds.

After practice, I grumpily make my way to my dormroom to call it a night. Ty tried to convince me to join him to a party but I wasn't in the mood, so I told him I'd do some studying on my own.

As much as I try to study, my mind keeps going back to my angel, and I can't shake the feeling that something is off. Why did she cancel on me all of a sudden? What if she's not okay for some reason?

Fuck this. I won't be able to get any sleep tonight if I don't figure this out. She might think I'm clingy as fuck, but I promised her to be myself and this is me. I just hope I don't terrify her as I make my way to her room.

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Rose:

I don't know what's wrong with me. I feel awful, and I hate myself for it. Maddox is my friend and I swear I wish him nothing but happiness. So why can't I be happy for him? Why am I such an awful person?

Everytime I think I'm done crying, the tears rush out of my eyes again and I'm miserable because I don't even understand why I'm crying.

I feel bad for cancelling our plans tonight, but I didn't lie. I truly can't deal with a study session tonight. Not before I get my head to think straight and my heart to calm down.

But as I lie on my bed in the darkness of my room staring at the ceiling, I find myself wishing that he was here. That I wasn't so lonely, having nothing but the darkness in my head that Jaxon left in me to keep me company.

I used to love myself. I used to think I was a good, kind, smart and sweet girl. But then Jaxon left. And I realized that I'm not good enough. Not beautiful or sexy enough for him to give me a chance. Not kind or lovely enough for him to want to stay. And definitely not smart enough to have seen his rejection coming.

And now that I have found a good, healthy friendship that seems to have helped me get on the road of recovery, I realize that I'm not good enough to keep it. I'm not good enough for Maddox at all. Not if it hurts me this much to see him kiss such a gorgeous girl.

The demons lurking inside my head stopped me from being a good friend to Maddox today. I didn't go with my plan, didn't give him his cupcake that's still on my desk, didn't help him study and made him worry over my pathetic reason for cancelling on him. He doesn't need or deserve that.

Before I came back here, my therapists told me to make friends. They told me that I needed to learn to trust myself again to make good friends, good choices. But they were wrong. They were so focused on what I needed that they never thought of what the people around me needed as well. I don't need friends, I need to be alone. Because people don't need me, not when I'm this damaged. I was so worried that if I let someone like Maddox in I might get hurt, that I never took a moment to think that I could hurt him too. And I think I have. And I hate myself for it, probably more than ever.