Chapter 2
January 2019
~TRAVIS~
"Who's he?" Jenny asks me as we simultaneously look at the same picture of me and another guy posing for the camera.
"Nobody," I quickly reply, wanting to move away from that subject as soon as possible, but as I turn to the next page over, I find a whole other collection of pictures of just me and the same guy. Surely he wasn't "nobody" if he and I were in nearly every single picture together and Jenny knew that, obviously.
"Are you sure about that? He's in almost all of your pictures?" Jenny asks, scanning through the loads of pictures I had of me and him from 2005.
"He was just uh... an old friend," I say, using the term "friend" loosely.
"You guys look like you were best friends," she says, flipping through more of the pages that featured me and him all the way up until the summer of 2007.
"We were..." I reply coldly.
"So what happened?" No one is more fucking nosy than Jenny is, I swear.
"We just... stopped being friends by senior year."
"Do you know what happened to him?"
"No. I never saw him after graduation so I have no idea where he is now, or what he's doing."
The very last picture of us together was taken at summer camp. Joining us in the picture was a girl with brown hair and pale skin. "She's pretty," Jenny comments as she notices the girl in the picture... if only she knew how much this girl affected my overall high school experience. "Who was she?"
"Just a girl we met from summer camp. She was... weird."
"Oh was she?" Jenny chuckles, flipping to the next page and finding nothing but blank sheets. "You have no pictures from senior year? No prom? No graduation? Why not?"
"I didn't go to prom or graduation... both seemed like such a waste of time. They just mailed me my diploma and that was the end of it. Fuck the ceremony, I had better things to do." Yeah, like crying my eyes out in my room and spending all day and night in my bed wallowing in depression.
"Wow, okay," she says, shutting the book and placing it on the coffee table. "So what happened with your friend? You guys looked really close."
"We were... for about three years. Then after that it all went to shit. We grew apart and... ya know how that goes," I explain to her, without really explaining to her what actually went down, simply because I don't want to talk about it. I know it was twelve years ago, but for some reason it still makes me uncomfortable to really talk about.
"Yeah... I'm sorry about that... have you tried looking him up on Instagram? Just to see what he looks like now?" she asks me, and of course my immediate answer to that question is a straight-up no.
"No, never. He hates me so why would I..."
"Let me see your phone," she says, quickly snatching my phone out of my hand after I've unlocked it. I peer over the side of her shoulder and see her opening up the Instagram application on my phone. "What's his name?"
"You're gonna look him up?" I roll my eyes in annoyance. Is this really necessary?
"Yes, tell me his name."
"Elijah..." I say as if the name burns my tongue to say out loud. "Elijah Radford."
After typing his name into the search engine, she selects the first profile she sees with the name I told her and shows me the profile pic, being the only picture I can even see since his account is private. Fucking hate those private accounts. "Is this him?"
I take a glance and I see the profile pic of a young man at the beach with his arms wrapped around a girl... his girlfriend, I assume? He's wearing sunglasses so I can't see his face directly, but I know it's him. Those dirty-blonde curls instantly give him away and it was like he hadn't changed at all in the past twelve years. He still looked like the same douchebag I used to be friends with back in high school. "Yep... that's him, alright..." I answer her question with a hint of discomfort.
"It is?! Yay! Now I'm gonna request to follow him," she says, hitting the follow button so that a request notification would be sent to his phone within seconds.
"What?! No!" I exclaim, quickly grabbing the phone from her hands and pressing the unfollow button in an attempt to avoid from him getting the notification... but it was too late... surely, the notification had already been sent. Fuck! Now he fucking knew that I had found his profile and was probably still not over what happened all those years ago. "What the fuck did you just do?!"
"You're just requesting to follow him, it's not that big of a deal!" I love her but what she just did here seriously just pissed me the fuck off.
"It is a big deal! Now he's gonna think that I'm still not over what happened and that I want to get in touch with him again, or some stupid shit like that!" I continue to exclaim, almost screaming at her from all my anger.
"You said you guys 'grew apart,' maybe this is your chance to reconcile or something. You should talk to him." She has no idea how stupid she sounds, does she? It's not that fucking simple given how long it's been. Not to mention, how bad the fallout was.
"No, I can't. What happened between us happened a long time ago. I've moved on and I don't want to be roped back into it," I explain to her, hoping she fucking understands how stupid her idea of reconciliation really is. The past is gone for good and I really don't want to go back.
"Okay, then. I'm sorry for upsetting you. I didn't think it would bother you this much," she says, feeling bad about it now that I've made her feel bad about it.
"Well, it does. My friendship with him just brings back bad memories... and I don't want to remember it."
"I'm sorry," she says, rubbing my shoulder. Now I'm starting to think that I may have overreacted. Even if he does see my follow request notification, what's he gonna do? Remember me for like a slight second, clear the notification, and then move on with his life like it never even happened. That's what I'm hoping happens, at least. I mean, that's what should happen right? I'm honestly overthinking it, aren't I? So what if he thinks I'm still not over what happened? What's he gonna do?
By around one in the morning, my little birthday celebration has concluded and everyone starts to clear out of my apartment. Normally, I'd be used to seeing Jenny stick around for a little while longer than everyone else but she instead leaves at the same time as the rest of my colleagues. Hope she doesn't think I'm still mad at her... even though it still seems like I kind of am. Which I'm not, by the way. But I don't know how she feels.
I decide to shoot her a text to let her know that I'm not still pissed, and while I'm at it, I head over to Instagram and search for Elijah's profile again... just to get a better look at him again... to see if it was actually him. I mean, I knew it had to be him with those dark blonde curls and charming smile, but I figured I might as well double-check.
I stare into the profile pic and let his face sink in again after so many years of not seeing him. The last time I saw him was on prom night. I didn't go to prom but I saw him that night... with his date. We never even said goodbye to each other. Back in the day when I was still not over what happened, I would usually tear up at just the thought of him... but now that I've moved on and accepted what happened I don't get so emotional anymore. It still however discomforts me to think about him, and not just that, but to think about my life at the time when I was 17, 18, and 19. Three of the most depressing years of my life. I felt alone and unwanted... I didn't have any friends and I lost interest in doing most fun things.
Thankfully though, when I turned 20, my sophomore year in college, everything started to change for the better. I found a group of friends to party and hangout with. I was finally able to let go of the past and move on with my life. I had gotten over my fallout with Elijah. It unfortunately still affected the way I made friends though; I became very cautious about letting people in, and I knew that I would never ever call someone my "best friend" again, at least not a guy. Around the time I was 24, I started working at the law firm where I'm currently at and I met Jenny. It took a while but we finally felt comfortable enough to eventually call each other "best friends." I never expected to have a "best friend" again, but I'm glad that Jenny came along, and I'm glad that she isn't a dude, because guys can be such assholes to each other.
As I continue to stare into the profile pic, I look to the girl in the picture, making sure it's not that girl that we knew from summer camp. She has sunglasses as well, but I can see very clearly just from her face and jaw line, that it isn't her at all. But she sure does look like her.
Thinking about her again leaves such a bad taste in my mouth as I start to remember the things that went down between the three of us. She was a wild kind of girl that liked both me and Elijah and I'll admit that I used to like her too. Hell, we both did. But obviously only one could get her in the end.
I look back to Elijah in the picture and remember all of the good times we had before that dreaded summer of '07. I smile as I recall the beginning of our friendship and how I was so intimidated by Elijah at first. He was one of the popular kids and I wasn't, so of course there's a story behind how we even became friends in the first place when we were both from two different social groups.
Looking back, I feel so much nostalgia for the days that came before our falling out. I have so many good memories of our friendship and I'll never forget them. Even though he hates me now, I wonder if he still remembers any of the good times we shared together before shit went down. Probably not. It's been twelve years. Come to think of it, I wonder if he actually still hates me after all this time. Twelve years is a long time to stay hateful towards someone, so I would hope not. But who knows with him?
I look at the follow button and think about how he's probably already received the notification of my request from earlier. I'm sure that he has by now. Too bad I won't know. Not unless I actually make a request and don't withdraw it like I did earlier. He can either accept or decline my request and then I'll know how he feels about what happened after all these years. If he accepts it, then I'll know that he's not still resentful of me, and if he declines then I'll know that he is.
So I do it... despite my reluctance earlier. I mean, he's already received the notification, might as well see if he acts upon it. I already know I'm gonna regret this in the morning.