Amy Belle said 10 years, 7 months ago:
WARNING; I CHANGE TENSES A LOT AND I DON’T FEEL LIKE GOING BACK AND CHANGING THEM. ALSO, THIS WASN’T RE-READ SO BEWARE PUNCTUATIONAL/GRAMMATICAL/SPELLING ERRORS.
His name is JJ. Or at least, that’s what only a few people left call him. Now he goes by his full name, George. He’s in my grade and lives less than a mile from my house. I pass his house whenever I go to the gas station, aka the only source of entertainment where I live.
I’ve known him since fifth grade because until then, he was home-schooled. He was also on my bus and for the majority of seventh and eighth grade, I would sit with JJ on the bus. We’d text a lot, and I even knew his family. His mom was the head of this religious club that I joined in school in fifth grade. And in eighth grade I joined this theater group that his sister was in, too. His mom naturally loved me, and she is still very nice to me.
JJ has always been like most people where I live: a country-lovin’, football-playin’, redneck. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, but it gets really difficult when there’s only eight Asian kids in a grade of 250.
As me and JJ got to know each other, I had formed a tiny crush on him here and there, and I’m not going to lie… He probably liked me a little here and there too. It feels like so long ago, either the summer before eighth grade, or maybe even the summer before ninth grade, when he even offered to hang out with me. We lived so close to each other, and so one day, we just met up at a nearby park. Everything went so well. He had always been so sweet and even though our conversations started to become rare, they were fun and felt so comfortable. Even in eighth grade, he gave me his most prized possession; his camo hat that he wore every single day, no matter what. He told me it was because he was getting a new one soon for his birthday, anyway.
It was near the end of freshman year/nine grade when things went completely wrong. Me and JJ RARELY talked the whole year. And this one weekend, I just decided to text him. Everything was completely fine. In fact, we texted for a good 8 hours on that Saturday. But wait, here comes the bad part.
On Wednesday, a friend, Cori, (who lives three houses down from me) and I were walking home from the gas station (yes the one that I have to pass JJ’s house to get to) after school. She was telling me that she had been talking to JJ in class and he told her that I was annoying him all weekend. Of course I didn’t act fazed, but inside I was slightly hurt. But then I just shrugged it off and stopped thinking about it. Two days later, Cori and I were walking home from the gas station again. It was Friday and we were glad to have some breathing room after a long week of school. But then she brought up how JJ had called me stalker in school that day. This time, though, I texted him myself.
“Cori told me that you think I’m a stalker?” I asked.
“I’m not going to deny it,” JJ replied.
We were walking into our neighborhood when he told me that I was “stalking him just ten minutes ago,”
“That was me AND Cori, WALKING PAST YOUR HOUSE, after going to the gas station,” I tried defending myself. But no. He didn’t shrug it off, and frankly, I didn’t either.
He proceeded to say that his friends at school told him that I stalk him, and I replied to him by saying that I didn’t even know his friends. He was in my lunch and I didn’t know more than half the people he sat with. I didn’t even know their names! But he didn’t take it and eventually I couldn’t either, so I stopped. I was done with him. If he could seriously “cherish” his seven month friendship more than our four YEAR friendship, then I didn’t care anymore. He wasn’t worth my time or my breathe or my thoughts.
His glares in school for the rest of the year killed me, though. I could barely look him in the eye. But then school came around again and I was like, alright, let’s start fresh. He sat with some of my guy friends in lunch and he was in my math class right after. On the second day, he walked into our math class and I gave him the biggest grin and said hi. His facial expression was mixed between shock, confusion, anger, and something else that I couldn’t figure out. The week following, I was sitting with these smart girls at the table text to JJ. And my friend sitting across from JJ, called my name. I looked over at him and he said, “So JJ said that you stalk him.”
And I knew right then JJ and I would ALWAYS hate each other. It’s funny that right after he told them that I stalk him, he switched tables and now he sits with the jocks… At the table right next to mine..
Of course, every single day in lunch, we make eye contact. We glare or roll our eyes. One time I even laughed when we made eye contact and I watched his jaw clench and his hands turn into fists and his knuckles turn white. It was the most priceless sense of comfort I could have ever gotten. He was so much bigger and scarier and a hell lot more intimidating than me, but knowing that I could make him react with one small laugh made the whole rivalry worth it. Sometimes in math my friends will tease me a little and I can see JJ in the corner of my eye laughing at my expense. And sometimes we’d do those awkward back and forth head turns. Like I would look at him quickly, and as I turn away, I see him turning towards me, and so I would look at him again, and over and over again because we’d pretty much be trying to catch each other staring.
He looks down on me like I’m some sort of prey that he was hunting for dinner. And I knew what that looked like because I knew him THAT well. I know the differences between his facial expressions, especially. He was one of the most easy people to read. By the time eighth grade came around, I could decipher between the weekends when he wanted it to rain during his family camping trips and the weekends when didn’t want it to rain during them. I knew when hunting season was starting before he could let me know. I knew when his dad got a new car or when he finally finished fixing up a car with his dad. But all of that was useless now.
On countless occasions, I have thought of burning his hat in my backyard. But he trusted me with it a lot. He used to ask me about it whenever we texted because it had meant so much to him. His dad gave it him the first time he could remember them camping and hunting together. He said he saw a lot of blood, had a lot of sweat, and shed a lot of tears with the hat. The hat that he gave me. And I wasn’t just going to throw it away. I have obviously thought about giving the hat back, but that would give him the satisfaction that our friendship was over. And deep down, I didn’t want that. I didn’t want our friendship to be over even though I knew it already was COMPLETELY over already and that it had been for awhile.
I feel like a big part of the reason he turned on me was the fact that he had finally become so popular. He was at the top of the food chain at my high school, wearing his jersey on game days and carrying around a hat so he could wear it when a teacher wasn’t looking. He hung out with the worst kind of popular kid: the arrogant, fake bitches. I feel bad that he has an ego so high that it can ruin a friendship.
It just sucks that my best friend thinks I’m subconsciously in love with him when obviously I hate his guts and we’re worst enemies. But whatever.
Thanks for letting me rant hahaha and sorry for the length of the story!
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