Guilty Pleasure

12. What Went Wrong

I apologize for any mistakes - I will edit this tomorrow. I'm falling asleep, but I was too excited to post this to wait until I'd finished proofreading.

*

I was so close to doing it.

I threw my phone at my bed in frustration, hating how self-conscious I was. Mark was completely right – I was a coward. I had picked up my phone over ten times already with the intention of calling Ben; every time, I’d chickened out at the last second, pressing the end button on my phone to prevent the call from going through and tossing it out of sight.

He probably hates you.

He won’t want to talk to you.

You messed it up already.

You’re only going to get hurt.

I fervently wished there was a way to turn my thoughts off for a second, at least until I managed to dial Ben’s number and allow the call to go through. Though my heart was aching and yelling at me to call him as soon as possible to try and talk everything through, my mind begged me not to allow myself to get hurt.

As expected, my stupid mind was winning.

I gave up for the moment, realizing I wasn’t getting anywhere. I didn’t even know what I’d send to him. I knew that speaking to him face-to-face was ultimately the better idea, but the mere thought of approaching him terrified me.

Mark’s right – you are a coward.

***

By Friday, nothing had changed.

The entire week, I’d been trying to work up the courage to talk to Ben. Every time I was close to doing it, I’d tell myself that it wasn’t the right time, or that there was something I had to do first, or that it wasn’t even worth it to try anymore.

Even my friends had seemed to give up on telling me to talk to him – and instead of the relief I’d expected to feel when their urging ceased, I could feel a nagging sense of disappointment. It was as though they’d given up all hope on the matter; at this point, I had all but given up on fixing the situation as well.

I had fallen into a strange, monotonous routine at school – go to class, avoid Ben, pretend I didn’t care about the fact that I hadn’t talked to Ben, and avoid the subject at all costs. The first couple of days, every time Ben walked near us, Annie, Iris, or Meredith had been there to push me toward him or give me a little pep talk. Now they’d just shake their heads and look at each other knowingly, making me feel worse than I already did.

Physics had become torture, as well – more than it usually was. Mark had completely dropped the subject, but I could tell that he didn’t approve of my choice to keep quiet. We were still talking, but there was tension we couldn’t seem to eliminate from our conversations. Our disagreement seemed to hover over us all the time, even if we were talking about something completely different.

Right before lunch started, I received a text from Annie, reading, Are you okay? You seem especially distracted today.

I sighed, knowing I’d been spacing out all day. I texted her back quickly, I know, sorry. I’m fine, though.

In reality, I was exhausted. I was not in the mood to go sit with my friends and spout out meaningless comments to try to distract myself from the problem and stop imagining that my friends were judging me for avoiding the situation every time they turned to look at me. On impulse, I ducked out of one of the side doors and made my way to the deserted picnic tables behind the gym, opting for a more relaxed lunch.