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twenty • tea

☂ twenty: tea

I believe that the word "maybe", though seemingly harmless, can be one of the most painful words in our language.

When it's in your head, "maybe" throws you into a state of never really knowing. You find yourself constantly weighing out different possibilities, trying to imagine what could be or what could've been. But you can't. Because no one knows what could be or what could've been, so you're just stuck in a never ending state of wishing but not knowing.

After the night of the grad party, I couldn't stop thinking about it. It was probably stupid of me, because it hurt so much, but my subconscious wouldn't set me free from it. Moments from that night relentlessly played back in my mind. And all I could ever think was: Maybe if it had been different.

Maybe if we had become friends differently.

Maybe if we had never made the bet in the first place.

Maybe if Nate had never come into the picture. Maybe if Hayley had never come into the picture.

Maybe if he realized he liked me later. Maybe if I realized I liked him sooner.

Maybe if I had never met him.

Maybe, maybe, maybe.

And I knew I brought this upon myself, but that only made things worse. To think that maybe I could've prevented this mess. I could've prevented both of our pain. But it was too late now; things were already said and done, so I had to live with the consequences. Now came the worst part about "maybe" - waiting, instead of wishing, to see what could be.

For the two weeks following the grad party, I couldn't help but be thankful that school was over. I didn't have to see Carter, unless I went out of my way to look towards his house, or worry about running into him. If I had to see him everyday at school, it would only serve as a constant physical reminder of how much I royally screwed things up.

Every time I left my house to go somewhere, I tried to keep my eyes trained on the floor or the car. Sometimes, though, my feelings would get the best of me and I would find my eyes glancing over at his driveway, hoping that maybe he would be there to get in or out of his car. But every time I looked, he was never there.

After enough times of never seeing him or running into him, my overdramatic subconscious decided that it wasn't very probable that I would never see him by chance. As a result, it concluded that he was, in fact, avoiding me on purpose.

Although I didn't know if he was truly avoiding me on purpose or not, I couldn't blame him if he was. I had played with his feelings, even if it wasn't intentional, and that wasn't fair to him. But I couldn't help but feel a deep sadness within me as I realized that we only had a few months left in this town together and with the way we were behaving, we could very well be on our way to becoming strangers again.

If I had been told I would never have to talk to Carter again after our initial meeting, I would've been thrilled to have such an annoyance out of my life for good. But the thing was, I no longer felt that way. I didn't want to lose the boy from the coffee shop.

As much as I hated what happened between me and Carter, however, life went on.

Emily was absolutely determined to do everything in her power to help me get my mind off of Carter. She was pretty upset at me at first for leaving her at the grad party and not telling her, but once she found out what happened, she gave me nothing but support.