Jenna sighed gently closing her laptop, and checked her phone for the hundredth time, checking to see if Caitlyn replied to her text, she didn't, of course, but Jenna had hoped anyway, stupid. On the other hand Anna had answered, she always did, and she decided to be thankful for that. Sending her back a simple "What's up" text back, Jenna leaned back on her bed. Pulling out her headphones, she tried not to think about Caitlyn, or Madison, or even Laura for that matter, they weren't her friends, she knew that now, it still sucked. Jenna selected a song she had been listening to a lot lately called 'UGH!' by the 1975, it always put her in a good mood. Today it didn't. Jenna could feel tears beginning to dampen her eyes.
"Stop it, stop it, stop it!" She whispered to herself, like that would help. Jenna couldn't stop it even if she tried to. She had been crying a lot lately, and she was sick of it. After about five minutes of furious sobbing, she finally calmed down a bit. Jenna needed to take a walk, clear her mind, so she hopped off her bed, and grabbed an outfit from her closet, and threw it on. She observed her outfit in the mirror, ripped, black skinny jeans, a grey acid wash tee, and a black beanie. Her blond hair her fell just past her shoulders, underneath the hat, her blue bits of hair popped on her outfit. She used to adore the blue, but the past few months she hadn't been so sure about it. Jenna getting a good look at herself, Jenna decided she looked totally unapproachable, exactly what she was going for. She really didn't want anyone to talk to her. On her way out of her room, she grabbed a pair of black sunglasses, the weather might be misty, but there was nothing she hated more than when someone noticed your red, puffy eyes, and stared at you. It wasn't like they were going to figure out why you were crying from staring at you, so why do it.
"Mom, I'm going for a walk!" She yelled as came down the stairs, two at a time.
"Okay, be back for supper though, around six!" Her mom called from the kitchen.
"Kay!" Jenna pulled the door open, and breathed in the fresh air. The calming fresh air. Shutting the door tightly behind her, Jenna began to walk to toward the park, she loved the park, it was so peaceful, and she could just walk around, and forget herself there.
Jenna walked along the twisting pathway in the park. Usually Jenna would take this time to listen to music, or sit with her sketch pad draw something, but today was different. She was going to force her to think about her fri- those people, and try and figure some stuff out. Of course she didn't figure anything out though, she just came up with more questions, the first one being what the hell happened?
Jenna had become friends with Caitlyn, Madison, and Laura at the beginning of grade ten, and everything was great. They all seemed to understand her, they laughed with her, and they had a lot in common, for that entire year they were inseparable, they did everything together . It felt like one of those perfect little friendships you read about in books, but those aren't real, and apparently neither was this one.
After the summer, grade eleven started, and everything seemed fine. They were still together every moment, but then Madison came to the lunch table one with a girl they had all known from the year before, but never really talked to. Her name was Ally, Jenna didn't really know her at all, but that was by choice. Jenna had always found Ally sort of fake, and she gossiped way too much, but Madison seemed to like her for some reason. Everyday, Ally continued to eat with them, then started tagging along on their outings. Ally had become a permanent member of their little group, and Jenna wasn't too thrilled, but she dealt with it. Ally never took it upon herself to talk to Jenna, and Jenna herself was never in the mood to strike up a conversation with her either, so they never spoke.
After a few months it was December, and Jenna was starting to notice changes, Madison was becoming much more distant, and whenever Jenna tried to talk to her, she seemed to always be in a rush to end the conversation, the others followed her lead. Within a few weeks, whenever they all sat at their lunch table together, everyone was talking except Jenna. They were talking about something she didn't know about, or laughing at something she didn't understand. One day she sat there, while they all made plans to hang out, without her. Pretty soon, Jenna was never invited to hang out at all.
Nothing major ever happened to make the friendship fail, they just started talking to her less and less, until one day, they never spoke at all. That day Jenna sat down at their table, and she seemed to be the first one there, in about ten minutes she was still alone until Anna came up and asked if she could sit here, of course Jenna said yes. It was around this time that Jenna had become closer to Anna, because Madison, Caitlyn, and Laura were acting weird. Finally started to dig into her lunch with Anna across from her, Jenna looked around the cafeteria, and saw them. Madison, Caitlyn, Laura, and Ally were sitting just a few tables away from her. They were finished of their lunches, indicating they had been there for a while. Had they missed her, or had they purposely sat somewhere else? Jenna never found out, one thing that was for sure, was that they weren't missing her. That was the day that Jenna knew they were done with her.
The rest of that year went by in a flash, during the summer Jenna only communicated with them via text, and those were very short conversations. She didn't know why she still tried to be friends with them, after the way they acted around her, maybe she was holding onto the past, because reality wasn't something she wanted to face.
Now it was September, a week into senior year, and the only person she talked to was Anna, and Caitlyn, but now Caitlyn hardly ever answered her texts, and they never spoke in person. Jenna had stopped eating lunch with them, it was too depressing. Her best, and only friend was Anna. Jenna liked her a lot, and she had a great sense of humour, but it wasn't the same connection she had with them. They didn't have a whole lot in common, but somehow their friendship worked, and Jenna was grateful for that.
Jenna felt sad, and upset, and hurt, by them, and she was left with all of these questions. What did she do wrong? What made them want to leave? Was she a bad friend? What happened? Jenna wasn't depressed though, she knew what depressed was, she knew what people who had depression had to go through everyday, and her problems seemed minuscule compared to their's. No, she was just hurt, and it really did hurt.
Jenna knew that she was going to start crying again if she kept thinking about this, so she tried to think about something happy. Nothing came to mind, but it turned out she didn't need to think of a distraction, she ran right into one instead. Landing on her butt she saw the person she had run into, lying on his back right in front of her.
"Sorry, I wasn't looking where I was going," Jenna apologized, wringing her hands, a nervous habit she had developed last year.
"Lost in your thoughts? That's okay, me too, so it was partly my fault." He said waving it off. "Um," He bent down picking something up. "Are these yours?" He asked holding out her sunglasses.
"Oh, yeah, thanks," She mumbled, touching her face, she hadn't realized they fell off. She silently hoped her eyes didn't look too red, or puffy.
"No problem! Kind of an odd day for sunglasses," He said noting the gloomy weather. "But you do you, I'll do me," The guy said brightly, he looked to be around her age, eighteen, or nineteen, began to walk away, and so did she, but he turned around and called back to her:
"Oh, and one more thing!" Jenna turned around, looking at him. She was surprised he had more to say. "You have really beautiful eyes, just thought I would let you know," Then he left. Jenna was frozen to the spot. She never really considered her eyes before, sure they were very blue, but she never thought they were beautiful. She was dumbfounded, but very flattered. Compliments were always a confidence booster, especially coming from strangers, that way, you knew they weren't just saying it because they should. Jenna walked home with a small smile on her face, though she was still wringing her hands.
"Mom, I'm home!" Jenna called when she walked through the door. Her mom popped her head, around the corner and came to greet her, giving her a kiss on the cheek.
"Hi honey, dinner is in fifteen, okay?" Mrs. Black said
"Okay," Jenna said. Her mom smiled, then she noticed her hands, and she swatted at them.
"Jenna, you really need to stop wringing your hands like that! You're going to rub the skin right off them!" She nagged in a frustrated voice. Jenna just rolled her eyes, she wasn't going to let her mother ruin the good mood that compliment had given her. She couldn't stop her hand wringing, and her mother was just going to have to get over that.
"Whatever, I'm going to my room," Jenna muttered, and she ran upstairs, shutting her bedroom door behind her. Flopping onto her bed, she let her smile creep back onto her lips. The compliment was really nice, and she couldn't remember the last person to give her one, that wasn't related to her. Jenna grabbed her phone off her bedside table, and checked her texts. Radio-silence from Caitlyn obviously, but Anna responded. Jenna was done trying to talk to Caitlyn.
Jenna- Heyy!
Anna- Heyyyyy
Jenna- What's up?
Anna- Just finished essay for history, did you?
Jenna had totally forgot about that.
Jenna- Oops, I forgot about that, imma do that now!
Anna- Hahahaha, okay, ttyl :)
Jenna pulled her history binder out of her bag, and examined what she already had done of the essay, it turned out she only had a paragraph left to write, so that could be tackled after supper. Jenna grabbed her agenda to check if she had any other outstanding homework, she didn't but she did have and english presentation on Wednesday that she was not looking forward too. It was this really stupid thing where you would going to the front of the classroom, pull a topic from a bowl, and give a two minute speech on it, whatever it turned out to be, there was no way to prepare, Jenna hated that. She used to do great with an audience, in fact she thrived.
Jenna used to have never ending confidence, she did what she wanted, and didn't care what anyone thought of her doing it, other people's opinions never crossed her mind. Then she met Madison, Caitlyn, and Laura, and she cared what they thought. Jenna wouldn't do something if they thought it was a bad idea, and she would run everything by them, except for the blue hair, that was an impulse decision, and honestly she did't regret it until lately, even though Laura expressed her distaste for it. But during grade eleven Jenna somehow developed this crippling fear everyone was judging her, on everything she did. Now Jenna tried to go unnoticed, just get through the day without drawing any attention. She was constantly petrified that she would do something idiotic, and everyone would laugh at her. That's why Jenna loved being alone, she could literally do anything, and no one knew about it, no one could judge her.
"Jenna! Supper!" Her mom called up the stairs.