(Note: This was written for my creative writing class. It is entirely true and not exaggerated. I ask that you don't judge me or my friend for what happened, but feel free to judge the only boy mentioned in this piece.)
It was late in an early sort of way. Late because I was fully conscious of the time I had to be awake for work in the morning, early because I didn't really want the night to end.
I can't really remember if the TV was on--not that we exactly needed it; we were each others sources of entertainment for the night. And what a night it was. It was almost like a regular, every day sleepover, the kinds we had the last time when we were all splitting up. I guess it was a sad imitation of those times. We weren't just saying temporary goodbyes. Teresa wouldn't be back on this coast anytime soon.
Still, it was nice to pretend there was nothing to worry about and no one to say goodbye to. I think, maybe, the worst part was knowing I wanted to go in Teresa's place. I wanted to go back there and live the rest of my college years in that tiny little cow town that every so often filled with the scent of freshly made chocolate and M&Ms. She was going back and I...I was stuck here for God only knows how long.
It wasn't all bad. She was just one friend out of many. I still had Coco, Jenelle, Angela, Matt...
Matt.
Glancing at Coco I realized I wasn't the only one trying to hide away some deeper part of myself for the sake of making this party a happy last memory of San Diego for Teresa. She had just been dumped by her first true love. And me? Well, things weren't going so well on that battlefield for me either.
Coco was diligently writing in my physics notebook, responding to a letter I had composed to her weeks before while bored at work. Her face was strangely blank but I didn't really think about it at the moment because Teresa had disappeared with Angela to talk about the stuff they always wanted to talk about: boys and sex. Used to this, Jenelle and I made the most of their absence and talked about some mundane topic that I can't quite recall. Coco was between us, fully focused on the task at hand. Finally, she handed it to me.
I read through the first two paragraphs and looked up at her laughing. I was cut short by the haunted glaze of her eyes, so I kept on reading.
'As your best friend I have to tell you something. You might be mad at me for it but you deserve to know anyway... Matt and I screwed around.'
She went on from there to explain that it had made her feel terrible and that it shouldn't have happened. The entire time I was reading, she had this expression of abject fear--the kind of fear that makes you want to cry.
It's hard to explain why I did what I did. All I knew was that some guy that I had wasted three years of my life on had stabbed me in the back, twisted the knife, and walked away without a guilty conscience. In his wake, he left two girls--best friends--who didn't even know the basics of how to deal with the stupidity of young men.
Not a single tear escaped me as I reached over to her and pulled her into the tightest hug I could manage.
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