Friends Forever, huh?

Chapter 18 | the truth, please?

The quickest way to make someone feel worthless is to ignore them. I know this because most of my life I've been the odd one out. The third wheel. The loner. The one that always gets left behind. Whatever you want to call it, that's been me. While I've not typically been bullied, being ignored and avoided has a way of making you feel worthless--like you don't belong. I've never been the one that belongs. I have never been the one that people clamor to talk to when I enter a room. I'm just me. Average, quirky, awkward me. I'm the one that people talk to for a moment to satisfy their guilt over leaving me left out. Then they go back to their real friends. I've never been one.

I'n exhausted. I'm genuinely exhausted with the performance I have to put on every day. I constantly have to act like I don't mind being the one in the corner. For once, I want someone to notice me. I don't want to have to be invisible.

I laugh at my thoughts. Of course I can't stop attempting invisibility. Especially not now with Shelby and her posse trying their best to make me feel worthless. Maybe they're right. Am I worthless? Maybe I should accept my loner fate. It sure would make my life a lot easier if I stopped caring about people.

"You're a loser," Derek sneers, cornering me in the hallway, "you don't get to mess with the most popular girl in school and get away with it."

"Why would she be friends with you anyway? You're nobody."

"We agreed to give each other another chance," I say in a quiet voice after they prod me to answer their rhetorical question. I don't see their point. What's the point of having me answer when they're just going to twist my words anyway?

"You really are gullible," Asher--the burlier, more brooding one--smirks, leaning casually on the wall across from me. He looks nearly triumphant, as if he knows something I don't.

Useless. Loser. Slut. Nobody. They're words I shouldn't be giving a second thought--they come from people who clearly despise me. Still, I'm not a person that can brush off words without a second though. Aside from that, the constant taunt of 'gullible' confounds me. What's happened to make them deem me a gullible person?

Putting that issue aside for a moment, I check my phone, awaiting a text from Cole. He's ignoring me again. I grit my teeth, eyeing my phone with annoyance as the 'read' notification appears under my text to Cole.

It's been a week since that awful Monday: the day Cole left and Shelby decided to unleash her wrath. To put it mildly, it has not been a pleasant week. Along with this, Cole has been absent from school for a week. There's a rumor going around that he switched schools but no one seems to care much. After all, he was new. There's not too much to talk about.

Why is he ignoring me? I shouldn't be surprised after its happened so many times but he was treating me like a friend again. He was acting as if nothing had ever gone wrong between us. Then, in a moment, he went back to ignoring me. I want answers. No, scratch that. I need answers.

Eureka.

I still have his mother's phone number. If he won't answer my texts, maybe I can get his mother to tell me what's going on with his mysterious behavior.

"Hello?" A weary voice that I identify as Amanda, Cole's mother, answers after a few rings.

"Hi," I say, suddenly somewhat dubious about the ingenuity of my plan, "this is Ashley. Ashley Grayson."

"Ashley?" She sounds surprised, "My, I haven't heard from you in years. How have you been?"

I'm touched by the kindness in her tone, fondly remembering all of the times Amanda was like a second mother to me. I refrain from giving her the real answer about how I'm doing. Instead, I opt for the common lie of, "I'm fine." We make small talk for a few moments before I anxiously redirect the conversation to Cole.

"He's been acting strange," I bite my lip as I make that massive understatement, "He keeps saying he can't be friends with me. It's as if he's trying to make himself miserable."

There's silence on the other side of the phone for so long that I begin to wonder if Amanda has hung up.

"You have to realize that he's still adjusting," she murmurs hesitantly, pain fresh in her voice, "he's probably projecting his feelings onto you."

Feelings of what? I feel a sense of deja vu as if once again, everyone knows something that I don't.

"I'm sorry...what feelings is he projecting on me?"

"Guilt perhaps? Anger?"

"S-she blames you for what I did?" Guilt flashes in his eyes and he takes a step backward as if he's afraid that simply being near me will prove my words to be true. His eyes are begging me to say that I'm kidding--to tell him that he's not responsible for the destruction of this relationship.

His eyes shift away from mine to look down at the ground, "I don't hate you," his voice is quiet, barely audible, "but I can't be your friend." Then the look he gave me was so full of guilt that I could do nothing but soundlessly watch him go, wondering about the reasoning behind the pain and longing in his eyes.

"Guilt..." I whisper back, a hand clasped over my mouth. He's felt guilty this whole time. That's why he's been avoiding me...but why this excessive guilt?

"Why is he so guilty? I need to know the truth, please?"

Amanda sounds nearly bewildered as she answers, "He blames himself for the divorce."

***

Cliffhanger!! I have actually had a very rough draft of this chapter for like forever, I've been waiting to post it for so long. Here's the reasoning behind Cole's strange behavior (well some of it atleast. The rest is just because it's a boy and to be honest, they do strange things.) So how do you feel about Cole in light of this? Sympathetic? Angry still?

Personally, I feel bad for him and his self destructive nature. I feel equally bad for Ashley's increasing trust issues. What the pair! But seriously, trust issues are a huge issue because I struggle with them. It's hard to open up for Ash and it's hard for Cole to trust himself not to screw a friendship/relationship up. That's why he was acting like he did about the Shelby/Ashley thing.

-J