Suffering in Silence

It was the beginning of senior year... a year of endings and beginnings. It was time to leave childhood behind and embrace adulthood.

It was the worst summer of my life.

I should be excited and looking forward to the freedom of being an adult, but instead, I feel like I am lost. I am confused and feel abandoned. I learned too late that my best friend was never really my friend at all.

She never had any interest in me, except as a friend.

I had been crushing on her since the day we first met in kindergarten. Every year of school, I longed for her, and she just didn't notice. Her back always turned away, her head always busy with someone else's life.

That summer, I saw her at the lake. She was there with her boyfriend, the first true boyfriend she'd ever had. I stood across the dock as they held hands and laughed. They were lying on a blanket she had spread out on the sandy shore. They were tan and happy.

I felt so childish. I stood there smiling as they played and teased. I smiled as I watched her engage in that beautiful relationship, oblivious to my existence. The whole time, I was lost in my memories of the times we spent together.

Memories of the day we met. The first day of school. The first time she walked home with me after school. The first time we studied in my room after a test. The times, when she came over to my house and if my parents weren't home, we would throw stuffed animals against the wall, giggling as we did so.

The times we had never kissed were playfully spent together, and then it all ended. Her boyfriend started to insist on her time. He wanted all of her time, and I was left alone, watching her, aching.

I never had the idea to put up a fight for her. She would never have been interested in me, even if I had. I am not the one who made the first move. His intentions were always obvious.

For months, I just kept being completely ignored, but my love for her kept growing. I would always try to conceal it and make believe that I was fine. I would just be quiet and pretend to be okay with being left alone.

The day I finally couldn't carry it any longer, and decided to tell her how I felt, it broke over me like a tsunami.

She looked up from her phone and asked me what my problem was. She never looked my way. She just kept talking with her new boyfriend.

I walked over and sat beside her, and told her how he had been pressuring her into things. He had basically been taking advantage of her and ignoring me. I told her that she had no idea that he was that way, and that she could always tell him off. I said that she could do anything she wanted, that I wasn't scared of her. I told her that I was the one who had been lonely. I put my head on her lap.

She sighed, and said she would go talk to him, but I couldn't let her. I said that I loved her, and needed her, and that I didn't want him. I didn't want anything changed between us. I wanted to be here with her forever, and I wanted her to be my one and only.

She looked me in the eye and told me she always knew. She told me that she had always hoped to find me, and she had been waiting. She told me that she had always missed me when I was gone, but that he kept taking me from her and that she didn't want to lose me. I said that she was making it stupid and didn't need to change because of him.

"No, I don't," she said, "but I need to make things right with you."

I listened as she told me that she had seen me so nervous in class at lunch, and that she had hoped that in the next class she'd see me again. She had hoped that I'd let her know that I was okay and that I was in no danger. I knew she was probably just trying to be nice, but that bothered me.

My world was about to end as she started to say that he wanted to get married. I heard what she said, but I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe that she was going to just get married. She was always waiting for me, and I couldn't believe it would just end.

"Wait," I said, a little too loudly, "what kind of wedding will that be? Halfway around the world?"

"No, it's going to be here. As soon as my parents can arrange it."

I was so shocked that she was going to move that I didn't notice that she made sure to say that her parents were arranging the wedding. Maybe I was too numb to process what I was hearing.

"You're going to do what?" I asked, completely dazed.

"We're getting married. He wants to be near the people that he cares about."

I didn't know what to say. I still thought that she wasn't really going to get married. I just hoped that I could make her see what a bad decision this was before it was too late. I didn't want to lose her.

Then, I realized that it was already too late. She was going to leave me forever.

I couldn't breathe. I felt like the wind had been knocked from me. I knew that she couldn't feel the poignancy of what she was about to do to me. I was too shocked to be strong enough to break through her blindness.

I stood up and said that I was going to go home for a while, and that I'd be back later. She told me to stay. She told me that she didn't want me to go. She wanted to hear me talk about this. She asked me to stop freaking out and listen to her.

I stood there, frozen in place.

I took one step backwards away from her, letting her see the tears I was trying to hide. I couldn't let her see me like this. She took another step back.

"I'm sorry," she said, "don't go."

I kept walking backwards. I felt like my ragged breaths were stealing the life from me. I felt like the air I inhaled was going to make me pass out. I heard her calling my name, but it didn't register.

I was filled with nothing but sorrow. It felt like all hope had left me, and I should have been screaming, but I wasn't. My body was limp.

Finally, I turned around and stepped out onto the sidewalk. I could just barely see the tears trailing off my cheeks. I could barely breathe.

I heard her calling my name, but I didn't turn around.

"I just want you to be happy."

As soon as I heard her say that, it felt like a bomb had gone off in my chest. I turned around to look her in the face. She was smiling at me.

"I'm sorry," she told me.

I don't know why I did it, but I leaned in toward her and kissed her on the cheek. She leaned in a little more. I held her to me and felt her tears against my face.

I broke down in tears as I held her, while she cried against my shoulder. She tussled my hair and told me that she was sorry and that she loved me. She said that I was her best friend. She told me that I was her backup plan.

I didn't realize that I had gone, until she grabbed me by the shirt and pulled me toward her. She didn't want me to go, but she couldn't do it by herself.

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