A few things

I'm probably going to either post one post tonight, or two tomorrow (actually, I guess both with technically be posted today, since it's past midnight). I have a lot written, but there's no really good cut off spot, and I'm not sure how busy I'm going to get this weekend. Most weekends are pretty hectic for me, so unless I've written ahead and all I have to do is copy and paste, then you probably won't see an update on most weekends (although, I am an insomniac, and do tend to get to sleep in on weekends, so, who knows?) I figure though, that weekends are probably the best time NOT to update. I mean, most people tend to be out and about on weekends, so. Yeah.

Also, if you can, please comment. I don't want to beg people to comment, because that seems a little pathetic, but I just feel weird writing this with no one commenting. I feel like I'm talking to myself (am I talking to myself?) Even if you have nothing to say about the post directly, but want to talk about how you were in love with you best friend, or how you knew someone you cared about getting married, or whatever, feel free, OK?

I wish you were a stranger I could disengage

Jason and I met when I was twelve, the summer before I went into high school. My boyfriend, Sean and I, had made big plans for going into high school together. We were two years apart, in the same grade (he was held back, I had been promoted forward.) and we were in as much love as a twelve and fourteen year old can be. We had started dating eighth grade year, and it was a BIG DEAL to have a steady boyfriend for a whole year. We had planned on taking the same classes, being in the same clubs. He was going to be a football player, and I was going to be in the band (at my school, cheerleaders were the joke, and the marching band was where it was hip to be.) We had picked out complimentary majors, planned to attend the same colleges, get married, have 2 children and the white picket fence. We were dreamers.
Dreams, however, turned to nightmares when his father announced that he had taken a job in Indiana. There would be no homecoming for us. No his and her side by side lockers. Our parents made it very clear: they already thought we were too young for such a serious relationship (and my parents had never been a fan of the fact that he was two years older than me), and put their foot down. No long distance, as we had planned. We were breaking up.

They did say we could remain friends, and summer trips were planned. Sean was going to go, help his Dad unpack into their real life farmhouse (complete with a barn that they allowed Sean to claim as his clubhouse, a consolation prize, I suppose.) And then as soon as they were settled, I was allowed to join. Those two weeks were the longest two weeks of my life.
When I arrived at his house that summer, Sean was distant, aloof. I knew our parents said no dating, but I had figured we’d at least act like we were still together when we were together. But when I got there, he didn’t even come out to greet me. He was sitting on a dusty old sofa in his clubhouse playing video games with three other boys. A chubby blonde haired green eyed boy named Nick, a black haired and dark eyed boy named Drew, who later became known as Drewbie, and Jason, pasty strawberry blonde with freckles and a wide smile.

The boys immediately accepted me into their group, and started treating me like a little sister. They were protective but at the same time pestering, and they loved to play a good joke on me. At the end of the trip, I later found Sean in the barn making out with Jason’s older sister, Jen. Jen and my “friendship” got off to a rocky start, obviously. I wasn’t too pleased that she was the reason Sean had been so aloof, and she was jealous that I was the Sean’s ex, jealous that I was the center of the boys world. But more than that, she was just one of those mean girls. She was gorgeous, with straight brown hair and deep brown eyes, her nose with a fanning of freckles across the bridge and a slightly upturned end. But her insides? Ugly. Jason told me later that boys tended to fall for her instantly because of her looks, but didn’t stick around long when they saw her personality. Jen and Erin were yin and yang. Jen was smart and generally a horrible bitch, and Erin was kind of on the stupid side, but the sweetest person you’d ever met. The only think they had in common were their girl next door good looks.

When Sean came back to Ohio to visit (I had forgiven him. Call me weak, but Sean technically hadn’t cheated on me, and he was at the time, my best friend.) Drew and Jason tagged along. Originally it had been Jen’s only requirement. She “allowed” Sean to come, as long as he had chaperones. Later, she added in a phone call every hour, and still managed to break up with him at least twenty times during his one week stay. Because Sean was either on the phone with Jen, or emailing Jen, or IMing Jen, or sulking over Jen, we didn’t hang out a lot. In one breath, it’s sad, because that was the death of Sean and my friendship. In the other way, it was a good thing. Jason and I had become closer than ever. We’d spend afternoons in the backyard on a blanket, talking, or at the zoo taking funny pictures with the animals. Drew and I got close too, but it was clear that what Jason and I had was different, special. Even at twelve years old, I knew it.
Looking back, it’s strange to see how fate forms your life, like a pretzel. Zooming in and out, intertwining things together, twisting them. Cause and effect, because this loop is formed this way, this loop has to be here. Had I never dated Sean, or had I broke up with him sooner, I probably never would have gone to Indiana to visit him. Had I not gone to Indiana, I never would have met Jason. Even Jen had her role. Had she not demanded that her brother tag along, we never would have bonded in the way that we had. And had we not bonded in the way that we had… Well. Who knows how things would have turned out?

It kind of makes my brain hurt to try to picture my life with such a big piece missing. For every important moment in my life, there’s Jason. Sometimes he was front and center, in the middle of it all, or sometimes he’s just a prop in the background. Maybe if someone took a snap shot of my life, he wouldn’t even be pictured at all, but he’d still be there. The vibrating cell phone a text from him, the ringing phone, a call. The computer screen in the back would have an IM or an email. My life is tinged by Jason. By him, by his face, by his words, by his voice. He was always there. Stop for a second. Picture someone important in your life. A husband, a wife. A boyfriend, girlfriend. Best friend. Child, dog, cat… Whatever. Just picture that. And then erase it. What would your life be like if that person or animal had never come into your life? Think of all the bigger picture, and the smaller one. Every step, every thought, every word… Would it change? Would you choose to go right instead of left, and if so, where would you end up? Where would you be? Who would you be?

I honestly can’t answer that. And that’s why it so hard. Jason’s always been my everything. My sounding board, my punching bag, my cheerleader. He’s been my partner in crime, my clown, my therapist, my best friend, and my mortal enemy. Jason could handle me and the many personalities that live in my, without making me feel like I was simply being handled. And now Jason… He’s someone else’s.
So. Now what?

I had said every memory of my life was tinged with Jason. And they are. I feel like some people may view Jas as the bad guy, because he broke my heart. And it’s a lot easier to view a heartbreaker as a bad guy, then to just realize that… Well, maybe it wasn’t meant to be. Trust me. I’ve been over this in my head so many times, and I’d love to make Jason out to be some horrible scum bag. But he wasn’t. He just, loved someone who wasn’t me. And maybe he wanted to love me. Maybe he tried to love me in the same way that I loved him. But I think we’ve all been in the position before where we knew that while someone was good for us, maybe even perfect, it just wasn’t there. So I think, in order for you to see what kind of man Jason was, we have to look back on the things Jason did for me.

I'm losing you and it's effortless

So. I've started my own fictional blog. Mainly from boredom, mainly from frustrations with some other fictional blogs.

Just a warning, I try to spell check my things, but sometimes it may not be perfect. If this bugs you, I'm sorry. I'm not getting paid to do this, so unless YOU want to pay me, or edit for me, I don't really care. I also plan on updating as frequently as possible. I'll always warn you - if I can - if for some reason there will be a lag in posting. Some things I can't predict, but if I know I have a busy weekend coming up, or a vacation or whatever, I'll give you a heads up. I also suck at the whole html dealio, so I can't promise it'll look pretty either.

I'm ALWAYS open to suggestions, I'm also always open to other things, like book suggestions, other fictional blog suggestions. I have a few suggestions of my own, if you're interested.

So I guess that's all. Here's the first post.


The little icon sat blinking on the screen. It had been there for days, and I just hadn’t had the courage to click it. I don’t know when I became so terrified of a little envelope icon. This one I avoided as if I knew it contained anthrax. Which, I guess, in a way, it did contain a certain type of poison.
Envelopes had become my enemy ever since I received that heavy cream envelope in the mail a few months back:
Mr. and Mrs. Kevin LaCrosse
Wish to invite you to witness
Two hearts join as one
As their daughter
Kayla LaCrosse
Marries
Jason Blanco

I stopped reading at that point, my mouth running dry, my head spinning, blackness creeping into the corners of my vision. I flung down the invite like it had burned my finger. Yeah, that’s when my fear of envelopes had started.
Of course I knew he had proposed. He was my best friend, I knew before he had even asked, before she had even said yes. There had even been talk of me being in the wedding party.

“Well, all these guys are becoming man of honor, or whatever. They even made a whole movie out of it. Why can’t you be my best woman? You’ve always been my best girl.” He had said.
My heart broke. If I’ve always been his best girl, than why wasn’t it me that he was marrying? I had convinced him that some of his other guy friends would be crushed if he picked me over them. I may have known him best, but they, knew him longer. In truth, I didn’t want to see this marriage at all, yet alone have a front row view.

However, even though the news of the proposal had disturbed me, there was always hope. Hope that she’d say no. Hope that he’d chicken out. Hope that one, the other, or both would call off the wedding. But with every step, from him picking out a ring, her the dress, planning floral arrangements, music arrangements, a honeymoon… It just became more and more official. And while I still held out a sick, twisted hope that there was still time for them to call it off, for some reason that invitation was just one final nail in the coffin. The last chance I had was the actual wedding, that one of them wouldn’t show.

In the end it was me who didn’t show. I drove all the way to Indiana, participated in the rehearsal dinner, and the morning of the wedding, I was the one who got cold feet. I called, faking a sore throat, and said as much as I wanted to be there, I didn’t want to risk getting either of them sick before their honeymoon. I packed my bags and headed home, the slinky, sexy, expensive dress I had planned to wear to catch Jason’s eye still encased in plastic, it’s tags still attached. That dress hung in my closet, like a rain cloud. Like a bad omen. Like a reminder of what was and what wasn’t.
The envelope icon on my desktop was from an email his sister had sent me. Professional pictures of the wedding would take weeks to come in, but his helpful little sister, bless her heart, felt so bad about me missing the wedding that she had taken it upon herself to take pictures and email it asap.

“It’ll be like you were there!” She had explained, when I called to cancel.

It wasn’t her fault. Had it been his older sister, Jen, who sent me the pictures, I would have no doubt that her intentions were malicious. Her intentions were ALWAYS malicious. But, his little sister, Erin, was clueless. Sweet, beautiful, simple, dumb Erin. I loved the girl like she was my own sister, but she was like that adorable puppy that kept chasing it’s own tail. The one you could fake throw a stick for over and over, and she’d still take off like it was flying through the air. She’s not observant, she doesn’t catch on to things. Clueless is her middle name. I didn’t want to be there. I didn’t want to see. And now that icon had been sitting on my desk for days. Worse yet, I had gotten a follow up email this morning, asking me what I thought! And wasn’t Kayla’s dress gorgeous! And the ceremony was so lovely! It was just perfect!
I needed to formulate SOME sort of response. I was always so bad at knowing what to say, cookie cutter responses always sounded so foreign in my mouth. I felt the need to explain in too much detailed, and ended up sounding awkward and fake. But, I knew that if I remained silent, someone would guess that something wasn’t quite right. Even sweet, clueless Erin would soon be plowing me with emails like “What’s wrong? Are you mad at me? Did I do something?” I wasn’t friends with Jason for over a decade only to one day up and just vanish from his life, especially right after he married.

People didn’t know though, that Jason and my relationship had been cracking and splitting for the last couple years. That’s what also made this hard. Yes, I love him more than I’ve ever loved anyone else. Yes, I was sure that I was the one who was supposed to be with him. But even more so, I felt like this was the end for us. I wouldn’t be calling him at four AM anymore because I simply couldn’t sleep. We wouldn’t be having anymore of our five hour rambling conversations about nothing. There’d be no spur of the moment road trips. No sleeping in the same bed, cuddling and whispering to each other.

My best friend of the female form, Toni, told me I should just delete the pictures. She said I should just shoot off some generic hallmark card reply.
“It’s not that hard.” She had said. “Everyone always says the same thing about weddings. They bride looked beautiful. The ceremony looked lovely. They looked happy together.”
The last part turned my stomach a little. They looked happy together? Did they really? How could he look truly happy, with anyone but me?

Which is why I felt like I needed to see the pictures. I still didn’t want too, I was still deathly afraid of that envelope, but I felt like if I didn’t look at them, I never would have believed that he was really with someone else. Happy, with someone else. And I’d spend a number of sleepless nights wondering what if, and if onlys. Tricking my mind into thinking that someday, he’d wake up and realize, and if I just held on long enough… I had to see them. I had to be the one who broke my own heart.
I wanted to take a shot of liquid courage before hand, but it seemed so cliché. I took a deep breath. And clicked.
It was worse than I could imagine. The pictures were not that great of quality… A finger in the lens here, a blurred face there. But there was no denying how gorgeous Kayla looked. And the way Jason gazed at her… Well, there was no denying that, either.
I could feel my heart crack. I could literally feel it freezing up and breaking piece by piece. I thought I could hear it breaking, a low, deep moaning. It took me a second to realize that the moaning was coming from my mouth.