𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐚 ❥ 𝒂 𝒇𝒐𝒍𝒌𝒍𝒐𝒓𝒆 𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆 𝒔𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒚

𝒄𝒓𝒖𝒆𝒍 𝒔𝒖𝒎𝒎𝒆𝒓

june 17th, 2023

james

Eight hours. Eight long, treacherous hours. And for five of those eight hours, there was no cell service. That meant very few apps worked on my phone. My eyes were drawn to my camera roll, but I knew it'd be filled with pictures of her. I must've been fucked in the head. It was my fault we broke up; I just should've texted her back. Why didn't I? What the fuck, I was a complete idiot. Now, I was haunted by her presence; everything reminded me of her: the trees outside (Betty loved the nature), every Wawa we passed (Betty and I walked to the closest one every other day), the "Welcome to Virginia" sign as we passed through Virginia (Betty Virginia Harper, that was her name).

I put in my AirPods and pressed shuffle on my main playlist—the only one I had downloaded and therefore the only one I could listen to—and skipped until I found a song I wanted to listen to. My finger tapped away, flipping through Frank Ocean and Dominic Fike songs. I paused suddenly as a purple album cover flashed by. I went back to the song: Back to December. Of course. It was none other than Betty's favorite song. I took a deep breath and quickly put my AirPods away as the familiar guitar chords echoed through my ears. The song was only on my playlist for Betty, but—and do not repeat this to anyone—I had secretly grown a liking to the song. I'd probably never listen to it again now.

So I couldn't look out the window, I couldn't listen to music, reading in the car gave me a headache; I had nothing to do. Therefore, I resorted to getting an extra four hours of sleep.

༻ 𓆉 ༺

I woke up to the smell of salt air and barbecue. I loved our annual family barbecue, but I wasn't in the mood. Nothing felt right that day; no matter how hard I tried to be happy, I couldn't stop thinking about Betty. I slowly opened the car door and stepped out. I stretched my arms up to the sky and shook out my sleepy legs. I picked up my phone and turned the screen up. I almost smiled when I saw a green notification at the bottom of my lock screen (which happened to be a picture of Betty when we went on a picnic... I needed to change it desperately), but it quickly turned to a frown when I realized the message wasn't from Betty. The message was from Emma. Emma was Betty's best friend and a childhood friend of mine.We all knew each other since preschool but I moved to a different school after second grade and moved back during freshman year. So, we never got close until high school.

I didn't want to read the text; it would be about Betty and it would blame me for everything that happened. Which it was, sure, but when I thought about it, Betty just overreacted. No, I told myself, You know that's not true. I wanted it to be true, though, I wanted it to be all her fault. I wanted my mind cleared, I wanted this invisible weight on my chest to disappear. I wanted to not care, but I couldn't, it was too hard to not care. I could have any girl I wanted, but the only girl I wanted was the one I had. If she just knew why I didn't text her back, I'm sure she'd understand.

May 27, 2023 - Junior Prom

betty

I glanced back towards the entrance of the ballroom waiting for James' tall figure to reappear, but it never did. I heard the familiar guitar chords of Back to December echo through the room; my song, our song, the song we'd scream during the car rides to school. James was no where to be found. I know he hated crowds, but this was getting out of hand; it was Junior prom for fucks sake! I took a sip of my punch as tears filled my eyes. I looked around the crowd on the dance floor. Emma was dancing with her sweet boyfriend Drew. They were the most perfect and cheesy couple you can imagine, but they were cute together and I was happy for her. Suddenly when I looked up, a boy from my science class was standing with his hand held out. His name was Eli and we were kinda friends. We were on debate together and were partnered in debates pretty frequently. James was always jealous of him even though he was gay and everyone who knew him knew he was in love with the captain of the football team. He must've noticed me sitting alone.

"Wanna dance?" He asked. The song was almost halfway done already and I had nothing better to do, so I accepted his invitation. 

He wasn't a bad dancer--I mean I wasn't great, either--and it got my mind off James. I enjoyed dancing and having fun even if it wasn't with James. The song slowly turned to another and Eli and I didn't stop dancing. I smiled and laughed and we twirled each other around and danced like no one was watching. I barely thought of James for the rest of the night. That is until I spotted him in the corner of my eye staring at me and Eli. 

I ran after him as the left the ballroom again. I made it to the front doors before I realized he had left. I don't even know if he knows I saw him. The walk of shame back to the ballroom felt like the most embarrassing thing in the world. Eli greeted me with a warm bear hug when he saw my disappointed face. I forced myself to go back to go back to dancing instead of going to find Emma. I didn't want to ruin her perfect night with Drew because James was being a sucky boyfriend. I took a breath, faked a smile and stepped onto the dance floor as a new song started.

June 17, 2023

James

I thought back to Prom; how she looked so happy with that guy. Inez always told everyone that he was gay, but I always had trouble believing Inez. For all I know, Eli just wanted to steal my girl. I never thought Betty would do that to me, but she looked so happy, there was basically a 100% chance that she was cheating on me. I couldn't bare to look her in the eyes much less respond to her texts. But I missed her and I couldn't figure out why. I just hoped the barbecue would get her off my mind. 

dear reader,

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with love,

em