One Summer

Chapter 31: New realizations

When did I actually knew for certain I had feelings for Hailey Witters? The day I took her to the cascades and I remember as if it was yesterday when I almost kissed her. I remember how I had let my guard down and just let my feelings guide me to what I wanted to do with her. Everything had felt so right for me as our foreheads touched and it was just a matter of inches until I kissed her but the unexpected happened next. She turned very pale and ran away from me as if she had seen a ghost. I felt so sad and hurt when she did that and that's when I had realized that I had almost kissed her and the reason for me feeling all of these emotions was because I had feelings for Hailey Witters. 

Why didn't I fight for her in the beginning? Because I was being a coward for knowing that she couldn't have ever liked me when she met Bryce. I knew that he would've been above me just like on everything else. From school, to sports, to even developing feelings, he's most definitely above me. He's the prodigy for everything while I'm just the twin brother of the prodigy. Bryce is Bryce Anderson while I'm Zachary Anderson, Bryce Anderson's twin brother. It's always been that way, but it's not as if I have told Bryce how I feel rejected all of the time. No one really knows I feel this way because I've already become an expert of building up walls to hide these feelings. Don't get me wrong, I feel happy for his achievements and I don't want to see him fail, but I just wish that for once, I could be known for just being Zachary Anderson and not known for being his twin brother. It's not as if I'm an actual failure because I have many achievements like Bryce, but people tend to put Bryce's above everything and it would seem as if they would push away mine. My parents feel proud about our achievements, but they also tend to feel more proud of Bryce than me. 

I guess it would be easy to say that I feel jealous of my own brother because he just gets everything including Hailey herself. So now to the main question, why did I pretend to be my brother today? I just wanted to know what it would be like if I was Hailey and what could have happened if I hadn't held myself back from my feelings in the beginning. I was 100% sure that she thought I was Bryce when she had called out his name. I could have told her right then that I wasn't Bryce, but I guess my feelings got the best of me because I continued to go along with it. That was my biggest mistake at that moment because I knew that it was wrong and if she knew, it could hurt her, but I didn't care of the consequences at that moment. All I cared about was the fact that this was my chance of knowing how it would feel like if I was with Hailey even if I was lying to her completely by pretending to be my brother. Maybe today could work out because she still thought I was Bryce (this was all thanks to the Ray Bans really) but then everything had to end up sooner. These moments that had felt as if it was all a bliss had to end quickly because once I saw my sunglasses hitting the water, I knew that everything was over and she would know what I did today. She's going to hate me so much for what I did today because she considered me as her good friend and the thought of this made me feel pain and guilt. 

What hurt the most wasn't the things she told me, but it was the way she told me how she couldn't believe I had pretended to be Bryce today. All I felt was pain and sadness when I saw her tears falling in her cheeks and even I felt the hurt she was having, but she seemed so angry that I didn't find the will to tell her the reason for what I did today. Maybe I could confess my feelings for her and just as I was about to explain, she ran away from me as fast as she could. Instead of just letting her be, I decided against it and went after her. I dried myself quickly and put on a shirt before walking inside the house once again. I didn't know where she had gone to exactly, but I knew that she wouldn't leave the house so I went straight to the room she was staying at. The door was locked, which meant that she was inside the room, and I knocked on it a few times before I heard a reply from the other side of the door.