La Douleur Exquise

Chapter 6

Two and a half weeks is how long I've went without talking to Normani. For the last twelve years, especially the last three while she was blowing up, we've talked or texted at least once a day, everyday. It was the middle of the week and by Sunday it would be a full three weeks since I heard her voice or seen her messages pop up on my phone.

Ally noticed that I was down and slowly getting worse but I don't think she knew how to address anything that I've told her. I'm usually just as happy as she is and now that I'm not it's more noticeable to everyone around me. She would just come and meet me at the times we would always meet in the halls. Her talking about stuff that was happening with her, or even the random stuff we would usually gossip about, made me feel better; even if I didn't show it physically. Having her still be here next to me was enough.

For the first few days I was content on blaming everything on Normani. It was her fault I was mad at her. It was her fault that Jillyan broke up with me. It was her fault that the first job I got in order to get me more involved in the business was now on hold until school was over. It was her fault that even once school was over I didn't know if I would even have a job. It was her fault I was blaming myself for making her so sad about finally admitting her feelings for me when it was probably the hardest thing she had to do. Especially since she didn't do it herself.

Now though after blaming her for everything, it reversed and I was blaming myself. Maybe if I would have noticed that she had feelings for me in grade school we wouldn't be here now. If I wasn't so focused on making sure we weren't going to be like everyone thought we were because it was a 'thing' for the gay best friend to fall in love with the straight one, I could've seen her true feelings for me in middle school. If I wasn't so focused on how attractive I thought Jillyan was the first time I met her I would've been able to see my best friend fighting back tears at how I basically forgot she existed.

What turned into being sad and confused turned into a depression that everyone could see but no one knew how to address it. Even when some of my teachers tried to talk to me and see what was happening it didn't help. It looked as if everyone around me was down because they couldn't figure out why I was so sad, but all I could see was my own sadness.

Although it was my senior year and we only had seven more school days left, my English teacher still had us doing makeshift assignments. Today's was to watch the movie playing in the class and answer the corresponding questions; which the answers were given in order of the movie. It was the simplest of assignments but I wasn't looking at the screen ahead of me.

Instead I had my hood on, slouching in my chair and staring absentmindedly at the paper in front of me. The class picked up their pencils to write yet another answer but I didn't even hesitate. Everything around me going by as white noise in the background. The only thing I could think of was how much I felt like I let my best friend down by purposely ignoring her feelings. And how confused I was because I didn't know if the fact that I felt like I was dying on the inside meant that I loved her like she loved me or if I just missed talking to her.

Well, it was definitely that I missed talking to her. These last two weeks felt like an eternity without seeing her goofy texts throughout the day and hearing in my head how she would sound saying it. Or the few times out of the week I would get a phone call and on a good day a FaceTime from her. Or how every time she saw anything that reminded her of me or our friendship she would send a picture and make me guess to see if I knew what the reference was to a previous moment.

Every time my mind went to those little things I missed it made me think that maybe I did love her more than I thought. There were plenty of times I would be okay if I hadn't actually talked to Jillyan other than the good morning and good night texts I would send her. I always told myself that since I knew she was busy that I was okay as long as she would respond to those two texts. Then thinking about how a lot of the times we would be talking I would somehow bring up Normani's name. Whether if it was a story of something we once did or to inform her about what she was doing, it was still a constant thing when we talked. Thinking of that only made me feel worse because I felt like for a year and a half Jillyan thought she was runner up to Normani even though I genuinely felt like I was putting her first.