Life Of Bayla

|46|

The loud buzz of my alarm woke me up.

"Shit", I groan as I reach my hand out for my phone and dismiss the stupid alarm.

Trudging out of bed, I throw on a hoodie and a pair of yoga pants then lace up my high tops. Pulling my hair into a rough bun, I head to the bathroom, wash my face and brush my teeth.

Once I step out of the house, the cold air knocks every ounce of sleep out of my system. I plug in my ear phones, crank up some Beatles music and start to jog.

With each step I take, my heart thumps loudly against my chest, my breathing goes ragged and my legs ache. The cold nipped at my skin and the snow that fell made the whole exercise thing hard. All part of the exercise. The music helps to get my mind off the pain of my body but only a teensy bit. I decide to get in my head a little.

I think back to the good old days; days when thought I found a friend in Ingrid, days when Cullen and I were happy together, days when Gaspard gave me butterflies in my stomach and made me feel all sorts of happy feelings and days when my family was relatively stable and happy. I was naïve then but I was happy. And now, I really dont know if I'm happy with the way things are, now that my eyes have opened up to see how much of a bitch reality can be.

I pause in my steps, take a breather, change the music and begin jogging again. This time I go faster.

Since the day Ingrid had fessed up about spiking my drink at that party, I lost it. Part of me wished that Rania or Za'Niyah did it but then I guess I'll have to deal with this betrayal. There's no point in crying over spilt milk. What kind of stings is the fact that during that period, I had blamed Rania when she was innocent all along. Hell, I had even fought with Cullen over it.

I grimace as my thoughts dart to that same party. It was the beginning of my downfall, the revenge plan that Rania had plotted for so long. Gaspard had wooed my pants off and I fell for him, fell for him so hard that I completely blew off all rational thoughts, turned a deaf ear to both Aaron and Cullen's advice and ended up broken and shoved in a ditch. Funny how there were times - though, I never shared it with anyone and never thought about it for long - when I noticed the red flags Gaspard had showed me while we were dating (Should I even still call it dating?). Of course as at then I didn't read much into it because it seemed like normal reactions. Though when I think about it now, I see things from a completely different angle and it makes me feel so humiliated. Sometimes I wonder whether they all gathered together and laughed at me and my naivety.

"Of course they did", I think aloud.

I take a slight pause and my bones scream at me, pleading with me to end the torture of exercising.

I bend over, splay my palms on my knees and heave out a long heavy breath. Then I think of Cullen. He had always been by my side, from the very beginning. He liked me for who I was, never used me for my money or smarts or just for the heck of it. He had been real with me and on many occasions had proved to me how much he cares. I've always liked him too and I mean always. From the very first day I laid my eyes on him - when we had bumped into each other in the hallway on the first day of school - I liked him. I liked him because he's everything and more. His hotness is honestly just a bonus for me. Things were going great then I had to fuck it all up by dating Gaspard. Later, he told me how he really felt about me and I momentarily forgot about Gaspard and just basked in the moment when it was just me and Cullen in our own little love bubble. But of course when I realized I was still with Gaspard, I totally turned Cullen down. Shit went down from that point: me finding out about everything Gaspard and company had done to me, my fight with Cullen after he kissed Ingrid (which I recently realized was not consensual on Cullen's part) and then Cullen letting out all his feelings for me on that Christmas night.