Maddie's Girls

Chapter 30

I still didn't but now I just stop trying to understand simply because I've found myself relaxing at her closeness. At times, I even found myself wanting her to hug me. Growing up, my parents weren't much of huggers, therefore, I wasn't either.

I think I wasn't until I began to be hugged more often. I think that was about the time I realised that I liked being hugged, I liked hugging.

Especially Asha and Nina.

I followed after Nina as she made her way down the corridor towards the TV room. She had been inside my house so many times that she just seemed like lived here, she was comfortable as she threw herself on the sofa, crossing her legs at her ankles, she was wearing the boots I had to lend her when we went out to a club but decided not to invite the other girls because we wanted a drama-free night.

It was around the time she was fed up of having these comings and goings with Cassie. Maggie and Lottie were keeping secrets about their activities behind closed doors with Daniel. And Asha and I... well, we were stuck in something confusing and there was too much tension whenever we were around because right about then, we almost kissed for the first time and I couldn't be around her simply because I knew she would've been able to see it all over me... see how desperately I wanted to kiss her and couldn't and it was killing me not being able to.

I swore myself the moment I sat next to Nina that I wouldn't tell her a thing. That I would keep it to myself as I have been doing for most of my life whenever I was having a bad time. I was going to look in her the eye and I'd show her what I wanted her to see. I'd hide behind the mask I had come to perfect over the years, the Rebecca Mancini mask, the mask I've been forced to wear so I don't let the comments get to me.

I tried. I tried but nonetheless, it took Nina exactly five seconds to make me come undone before her.

Damn these stupid friendships.

So, I told her everything. I told her about Asha kissing me, about what she said, how when we finally kissed it felt like I was floating about hundreds of feet above the clouds, inches away from touching heaven. I told her how it felt like it had never before and although I didn't say it, I knew she could see it all over my face... the certainty that I would never feel the same with any other person that wasn't Asha.

I never said it out loud, not even to myself but I think it was painfully clear to everybody that had eyes that I was madly and utterly in love with Asha. And I wish I could deny it because nothing ever happened between us, we only kissed twice and here I was, unable to keep her out of my mind ever since she held my hand because I was too scared of ghosts to fall asleep.

I can see the shock and confusion in Nina's face when I tell her what happened at the bathroom. She shook her head, looking as if she was missing a piece of a puzzle. She wanted to talk to them, she wanted to get to the bottom of it all but I didn't want to. I didn't want to beg for friendships, I didn't want to beg anyone to like me. I had done that once and once was enough.

At first, Nina's reluctant to let it go but I knew she could tell that if she kept poking me, she'd get a bad reaction out of me, so she dropped it.

And I would like to say that maybe what happened that day, that night, it was because I was angry at the girls, because I had felt rejected and unwanted, or perhaps because, later on, at a party, I didn't even want to go to, I had drunk a little too much. I could make up so many excuses for why I did what I did that night.

I would love to say that it had nothing to do with the fact that I wanted to hurt someone as bad as I was hurting. I'd like to say that I wasn't that person, the same person I wanted to stop being.