Independent Writing #5 (part three of three)

The final part of my long, twisted story.

It wasn’t as hard for him. I could tell, at least I thought I could tell. He always seemed so happy afterwards. We never talked about it again, never even hinted at it. I think that’s what really killed us. That’s why we stopped talking. It hurt me to be so distant from him that I had to stop it. I had to pull away completely.

He didn’t understand. He was so hurt. Why did I pull away? Why was I ignoring him? I was too scared, too weak to explain. So I ran. I ran away and avoided him. March 13th. That was the last time I saw him, heard him, and touched him.

I thought about him all the time. Jon was getting sick of me crying and talking about him. Whenever I saw him he’d continue his futile pursuit of me and my heart. Soon he wanted nothing to do with me. I was a “tease” to him. Obviously telling him about my feelings for his best friend was teasing him.

I was left completely alone. My grades declined and I eventually got kicked out of school for being a frickin’ idiot.

I finally got Jon to talk to me. He knew I needed him. After we started to get comfortable with each other I asked him about Chuck. How was he? What was he doing? Did he ever talk about me?

Apparently I had missed a lot. Jon hadn’t talked to him in almost a month (compared to my three). Last he heard Chuck had been kicked out of his house and was living under a tree on Main Street in Danbury. I looked for him for weeks. I couldn’t find him.

Finally Jon called me saying he had found him. July 1st. He was gone. And I had never told him the truth. And although I’m sure he knows now it still kills me that I couldn’t do it myself.

After his death Jon confessed something to me. The night that Chuck had kissed me, he hadn’t really said those awful things. On the contrary Chuck had told him that he was starting to have strong feelings for me but was too scared of rejection and made Jon promise not to tell me.

Keeping a promise to my friends is the most important thing to me. I will never betray that trust, with few exceptions. If keeping a promise to my friend means keeping them unhappy I will break that promise in a second. If a promise is keeping to of my best friends apart and all they want is to be together, f*** that promise.

I learned a lot about myself thanks to Chuck.

I miss him.