They Say Love Hides Behind Every Corner. I Must Be Walking In Circles!

Chapter 25

But I was Serena, and if I couldn’t find a way to fix things, I always would be. I had these stupid teenage problems.

Finn caught up with me, a little breathless from the sprint. I internally cursed at Maddie and Jasmine. How could they have left me alone with him? They knew very well that I didn’t have a way to let him down easy yet. I couldn’t just be like, “Oh, yeah, I can’t go out with you anymore because I’m actually not Serena Magnus, but Shay Barron, and I feel bad about leading you on when you’re not technically in love with me. Oh, and the only reason I said yes in the first place was out of spite,” now could I? Grrr. This was so infuriating.

“Hey,” he greeted, beaming widely. Man. Why couldn’t he be a jerk or ugly or something?

“Hey,” I replied half-heartedly, trying to seem upbeat, not indifferent.

This was going to be way harder than I thought. I racked my brain for some way to let him down easy, but I came up with nothing. My brain was just not functioning right. It was still high off of the endorphins from my moment with Forrest. Forrest. I sighed internally. Forrest. This just made things so much harder. The trial was over, Forrest was free. Why couldn’t we just be happy?

But Finn counted, too, right? I couldn’t just ditch him. He deserved his happily ever after, too. He deserved it more than me.

“You okay?” he asked with a worried expression on his face.

Again! Why couldn’t he be a jerk? His overall niceness was making this way harder than it might be.

“Yeah, I’m okay,” I managed, shaking my head, blond strands waving about softly. I still wasn’t used to that. “I’m just a little distracted.”

“You seem a little out of it,” he agreed, taking me by the arm. “Do you need me to walk you home?”

“No, its okay, I have to meet up with Jasmine at her house in a little,” I told him, giving him a small smile.

“I’ll walk you there,” he insisted stubbornly, and we were off.

At first, it was quiet as I contemplated the best ways to break things off with him. I went over a million different break-up lines in my head. (“I think we have three choices: 1) stay together, 2) take a break, or 3) break up entirely, and I want 2 or 3.” “This just isn't for me. Nothing personal. I want to be able to tell people I'm single.” “I'm not putting the brakes on this; I'm just orienting it towards another direction.”“I can't see myself with you when I am eighty.” “How will I know I want to spend the next 50 years with you unless I date other people?” “So you hear about the single's club downtown? Well you'll be able to visit it now!” “It's not you, it's me. Oh wait, it's you.” I even thought of a poem to give him: “Roses are red, violets are blue. Trash is dumped, and so are you.”)

See? I’m just not a nice person, at least not when it comes to breakups. My mind just can’t think of any nice ones, which was why I needed Maddie or Jasmine’s help! But no, they just had to leave me here to fend for myself.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked me again, turning his head to look at me.

At that moment, I will admit, I wished that Serena herself was here. I didn’t even care at the moment that she had gone off and killed my body. I felt bad about all of this. This was her life I was living. True, she destroyed mine, but still. Did I really have a right to meddle in all of this? I mean, what if, somehow, she was still alive? What if she hadn’t been in my body? What if she wants all of this back? I couldn’t ruin it for her, could I? Living her life, stepping in her shoes, a new admiration for her grew. Her life wasn’t so easy, either. I could relate to her now.