Okay, I think I must really stop this nonsense of using the "..." as my subject title, at least for this blog anyway. If you look at the archived posts, all you will see is the "..." and you will never know which post is which. It's not nonsense though! really! It's an allusion, and I don't think anybody gets it, or if they do, they have yet to tell me.
Here's my story, revised, with Winnie's comments! (Yay.) And it really is revised. I'm not just trying to get you to read it again.
Loneliness: More than a Fact of Life
“Do you want to go to the movies?” she would ask.
No, her friends never wanted to go. They were always busy.
And yet, the next day, one friend would say, “Have you seen TurboChargeMaster3000?”
“Didn’t that just come out yesterday?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh, no, I haven’t. Sounds fun. Did you go with a lot of people?”
“Yeah…” and then the shifty-eyed look. “I went with, er, some friends.”
Then the same conversation with another friend. Have you seen so-and-so movie? Didn’t that come out yesterday (when I asked you to go to the movies)? Yes, it did. I went with, er, some friends.
She never once thought they’d be avoiding her. They were her best friends. Best friends don’t do that, she reasoned.
And she went on with her happy, happy life.
“Jamie, I need to talk with you,” Gina said seriously.
“Ooh, sounds serious,” Jamie said jokingly.
“Well, we all think you’ve been talking too much about Brien. We know you like him and all, but jeez, enough’s enough.”
“Oh,” said Jamie in a small voice.
And they were right. She was a fiend. What kind of horrible, crazy, hormone-charged teen freshman girl talks about boys? Only a horrible, crazy, hormone-charged monster, that’s who. She was an abomination.
Her friends were absolutely right to avoid her and take so long to tell her that something was bothering them. Now she knew exactly what it was like to be alone, and now she had twice as much motivation to improve - she never wanted to be alone again. She was glad that they didn’t accept her as she was and wanted to change her for the better. They were wonderful best friends, really, the best anyone could ever have.
So she couldn’t understand why her vision was becoming misty, or why she had to bite her lip to keep from screaming.
She went through the rest of the day in a daze.
Luke Fenton, a boy she didn’t even know, asked what was wrong, and everything became too much. Nothing, she answered, but she didn’t mean it at all.
The next day, she apologized to her friends for being such a jerk and they graciously accepted her apology. Everything was the same again, sort of.
She began to notice Luke more and more. He’d noticed her in her time of need, and that was more than anyone else did. Plus, he helped get her mind off Brien, who everyone obviously disliked. Then the Luke dreams started coming and she knew she was in over her head.
She told everyone because she just couldn’t help it, though she knew as she was that doing so it would (ironically?) lead to her undoing. Everyone knew she liked him, but no one knew how much. She passed her days grinning bemusedly at the back of his head and doodling Jamie Fenton over and over again on her notebook, and suddenly she was a sophomore. Luke had stopped talking to her and she had stopped dreaming about him, but she still daydreamed about him as avidly as ever.
Another few months.
“He knows,” said a random boy nonchalantly at school.
“Who knows?” she asked, trying to pass it off as a joke.
“Luke. He knows you like him.”
She then proceeded to punch his face in – in her mind, of course. In reality, she was nonplussed.
“I talked to him about it, and I forget what he said and I forget what I said, but he knows,” he continued, unaware of what a blow this had been.
“I’m going to run home and cry,” she joked with a shaky smile.
Then, when school was over, Jamie ran home and cried.
Idiot, she screamed in her head. It felt like her insides were splitting apart and that someone had entirely taken out her stomach. It felt like 20 people were screaming in her head, cursing her for her openness. It felt like Luke himself had reached in her chest through a hole he’d punched, ripped out her heart (and a few arteries), and put it on display for the world to see. You told too many people, the voices screeched. In reality, though, she had only told a few people, who told a few people, who told a few people, who assumed that everyone knew and announced it over the P.A. system.
Nobody seemed to understand why this affected Jamie so much, but it was obvious to her. She had made a fool of herself. He knew all those creepy stalker-like things she did were for him, and who knew how long he knew? Months? The whole time? He knew how much she liked him, and that was why he never talked to her, why he ignored her in the halls, why he never made eye contact. He knew what agony she went through every day, and he didn’t even care. He couldn’t even bring himself to like her even as a friend.
He was a horrible boy. She hated him. She had hated him from the start. She couldn’t even remember what she liked about him. What had he done, noticed that she was a little miserable? So what? Hadn’t everyone noticed? He was just an egotistical jerk, and everyone would be better off if he just crawled in a hole and died.
He’s not that bad, her friend Bianca said. He’s smart, and nice, and funny.
You don’t (expletive) know anything about him! she yelled. You just met him this (expletive) year! And why the (expletive) do you need to tell me these things! Aren’t I the one who likes him?! You didn’t even like him when you first (expletive) met him! You told me not to (expletive) like him, even!
Bianca had no reply because Jamie didn’t say it out loud.
