It Happened Again a Ugly Girl Fell in Love With a Popular Boy
I never questioned that I liked boys. Growing up I had crushes on guys in my classes and the requisite beautiful male celebrities. It wasn't until I met Jenna* that things began to alter.
I walked into yearbook course sophomore year of high schoolhouse and took a seat at an empty table. Fifty-fifty though I'd been at my school for a twelvemonth, I still wasn't fitting in. I came from a small-scale middle school of merely 30 students, so my 1,400-student public high school was overwhelming. Jenna waltzed into the room, and to my surprise, took the seat adjacent to me. Nosotros worked well together, and information technology soon became a given that we would exist partners, and information technology stayed that way for the rest of the semester.
When I walked into English class the next semester and saw Jenna sitting in that location, my stomach knotted up. She was everything I wanted to be: popular, smart, athletic. I was the quiet, shy girl who didn't have a lot friends. So even though we had been inseparable in yearbook, I was still surprised when she was friendly to me. If there was a group project, she would ever slide downwardly to my table and offer to pair up with me. I establish myself trying to impress her. If she smiled when I came up with a proficient idea, or laughed when I told a funny joke, information technology would brand my day.
So Jenna tore a tendon in her ankle and had to quit the soccer team for the remainder of the year. Fifty-fifty though I felt bad, I was secretly thrilled because information technology meant she had more than time to hang out with me. We quickly became inseparable. When she had a homework emergency, she'd call me for help. If she was because a new outfit, she'd text me for my opinion. When she was fighting with her mom, she'd bulldoze to my firm, and I'd patiently listen to her vent.
We fifty-fifty dressed up every bit each other for Halloween the adjacent year. Jenna put on heels and a brim and I wore running shoes and her soccer compatible. We switched seats in all of our classes, and we genuinely confused a few classmates and teachers. Our niggling stunt started a rumor around schoolhouse that nosotros were dating. Strangely, it didn't bother me at all. I liked that people linked the two of us — I was almost proud. Jenna didn't seem to intendance either. It became our little within joke that nosotros were "dating."
As the rumors spread around schoolhouse that we were "more than just friends," one of the guys on the soccer team joked that people were going to start asking usa if nosotros'd have threesomes with them. Even though I knew he was just making a dumb, immature joke and I had never fifty-fifty kissed anyone, the idea of hooking up with Jenna didn't gross me out, and I institute myself really thinking about it, which was weird. "We have so many inside jokes that it wouldn't exist any fun for the guy — nosotros'd be laughing too hard," I fired dorsum. Jenna giggled and agreed. "All my attention would be on you anyway," she said. My stomach dropped. I felt weirdly excited, just quickly brushed the thought out of my mind.
That wasn't the merely time I was dislocated by the things Jenna made me feel. I'd had other close daughter friends before, just my feelings toward Jenna felt dissimilar, more intense. Her friendship was more of import to me than whatever other friendship I'd ever had before. My diary, which was mostly me lament most boys, increasingly started to become nearly Jenna. I would write about how upset I was when we got into a fight, or how much I hated when she would talk to other guys.
I never even considered that I was physically attracted to Jenna, but whenever she'd hug me, it felt different, in a good style, and I started to require the rare times when she'd show any type of physical affection toward me. When we'd have a sleepovers, sometimes she would accidentally cuddle with me in her sleep. Simply instead of squirming out from under her when she threw her arm over me, I actually liked it and would simply pretend to be asleep so she wouldn't wake up and move.
After Jenna's ankle healed senior year, she was away a lot for soccer tournaments. I hated when she wasn't at school. I was bored and couldn't pay attention in course. The more than I felt her growing away from me as she reentered her soccer earth, the more than desperate I felt, and we started to fight.
"I don't understand why yous're always so decorated," I whined to her 1 day in photography grade.
"I simply am!" she snapped. "I take to study."
"Only you ever say that. You never brand fourth dimension for me anymore. Fifty-fifty when you're not studying, you're at soccer, or at your blood brother'southward soccer game, or at the boys' games. Why can't yous make time for me?"
It was rare for me to blow up at her, but I couldn't take it anymore. Nosotros were graduating soon and would be leaving for college, and I felt like she was wasting our final few months together.
Jenna pursed her lips and said nothing in respond. I turned back to what I was working on and allow the chat drib. Subsequently that twenty-four hours I defenseless upwardly with her afterwards class.
"I'm distressing," I said. "I didn't hateful information technology."
"It's OK," she shrugged. "Desire a ride abode?"
I nodded. I wasn't actually sorry, and I knew it wasn't really okay. But I couldn't carry not speaking to her, and then I decided to let it go.
As the last few months of senior year progressed, Jenna started getting closer to another girl from yearbook named Ashley. And she had a crush on a male child. Both things devastated me.
Upwardly until that point, I had been her only non-soccer friend, and I was injure and jealous of her friendship with Ashley. I worried I was being replaced. But strangely, I was even more than jealous of the male child that she liked, Tyler, than I was of Ashley. Like me, Jenna hadn't really dated in high school. She seemed uninterested in the guys who liked her, which I was happy about. That meant she had more time for me. But now Tyler was starting to take up all her after-schoolhouse free time when she wasn't at soccer, and I couldn't stand up that she was making him a priority over me.
"Volition you be my date to prom?" I asked Jenna 1 day when information technology became apparent no one else was going to invite me.
"That'southward how you're going to enquire me?" she answered, unimpressed. "Other girls get flowers and jewelry and artistic proposals."
I laughed. That was Jenna. Always blunt and sarcastic. I jokingly got down on one genu in the yearbook room and offered her the ring I ever wore: golden with a majestic heart stone inset. "Jenna, will yous go to prom with me?"
"Duh," she answered, smiling and taking the ring. I'd worn it for years, but it didn't carp me at all to see her slip it on instead. I felt proud, similar she was declaring our friendship to anybody.
"We should change our Facebook statuses to 'married' now that you accept a band and all," I joked. She laughed and did it right that 2d. I couldn't terminate grin for the rest of the day. I didn't intendance that no boy had asked me. I was happier going with Jenna. I knew it would be more fun anyhow.
"Practise you lot know if Tyler is going to prom with anyone?" Jenna whispered to me during class a couple of weeks later. I felt a pit in my tum. Why did she want to know? She was going with me. I realized that maybe she just saw me as a placeholder engagement — there if she couldn't get a real date — and hadn't been really serious virtually going together.
I doubted Tyler had a date. He was totally dorky, just he and Jenna shared a passion for music and they had been hanging out a lot.
"I don't know. I can find out?" I offered. I was hurt, but I as well wanted to make her happy. If I could get her Tyler, maybe she would see how good of a friend I was, and nosotros'd get back to being inseparable. I didn't think it would be difficult to convince him to accept Jenna. She was gorgeous and they were already friends.
"How should I do it?" Tyler asked when I suggested he invite her.
"Well, you know Jenna. She wouldn't want some big show. You lot could just bring her a slice of her favorite pie or something."
"What kind is that?" he asked.
"Cherry cheesecake," I said automatically.
The next day in yearbook, a cheesecake was sitting at her desk. I suddenly felt similar crying. And not just because I didn't have a date to prom, just because Jenna did, and information technology wasn't me.
The solar day of prom, nosotros helped each other get set up, simply one time we got there, she ditched me for Tyler. She spent the whole time sitting at a table with him talking about video games. I begged her to come dance with me at least one time and she refused, and so got aroused. "You're ruining this for me," she said. Subsequently the dance, we'd planned to get together to a mutual friend'southward house for a political party, but I brought a soccer boy with me instead to make her jealous, and he and I spent the whole political party making out.
I didn't talk to Jenna much afterwards that. It was like some invisible line had finally been crossed. We notwithstanding had 2 classes together, only beyond what nosotros needed to say, we barely spoke the last couple weeks of school. I could tell our teachers were relieved that things were finally quiet: no giggling and no fighting. But I was miserable.
Nosotros were barely speaking still on the day of our graduation. After the anniversary ended, my friend Maggie rushed upwardly to me and invited me over that night to celebrate. We'd grown closer as my friendship with Jenna faded. I noticed Jenna was trailing a few feet behind united states. I ignored her.
I spent the night with Maggie, giggling nearly the day and talking excitedly about the summertime ahead and our college plans. When Jenna called me, I automatically answered. "This is Ashley," the voice on the other stop said. My face burned hot at the idea of them hanging out together without me. "Why did you ignore Jenna after graduation?" she demanded. I was confused and hurt. Why was Ashley calling instead of Jenna? Did she really care then little well-nigh me that she didn't even feel the need to exercise her own fighting?
"I will terminate you," Ashley threatened. I heard Jenna express joy in the background. My breast ached and I felt like I was going to cry and scream at the aforementioned time."If Jenna wants to talk to me, she knows my number," I said before hanging up. Just she never called.
That summer I tried to put Jenna out of my mind. I'd lost best friends in the by, merely I'd never felt like this, and we'd always remained friendly enough that if we saw each other, we'd at to the lowest degree say "hi." With Jenna, everything was unlike. I found myself avoiding her if I saw her in public. If I saw annihilation that reminded me of her, my stomach would instantly knot up, and I'd attempt desperately not to cry. I never felt this devastated over a friendship ending.
To get over it, I started spending all my fourth dimension with Maggie, who joked that information technology seemed like catastrophe my friendship with Jenna was more than like breaking up with someone I had been dating. I laughed at the thought. It seemed absurd at the time. I hadn't withal gone through a real breakup, merely I wouldn't have wished what I was feeling on anyone.
Maggie distracted me past introducing me to a group of guys she was friends with. We started hanging out with them all the fourth dimension, and I started making out with 1 of the boys. Ironically he played soccer. Information technology was like I couldn't totally go away from Jenna, no matter how hard I tried.
Beingness in higher helped a fiddling. I was 2000 miles away from Jenna, and I was distracted by a new urban center and new people. There was less to remind me of her. Slowly I started thinking virtually her less and less, equally I made new friends.
Going to an arts school, I was all of a sudden surrounded past a number of gay students, which was a lifestyle I'd been pretty unaware of back in high school. I started to question things most myself and my sexuality. And and so, that fall, I watched a video that changed my life.
I was deep in the trenches of Tumblr when a video from a relatively unknown YouTuber called "What does it mean to be a lesbian?" popped upwardly. For some reason, I clicked on it, and then everything clicked for me. The video fabricated it seem so normal to take the kinds of feelings I'd had since I was a child and had always tried to push button to the dorsum of my heed. I realized that I'd always thought women were beautiful and I admired actresses for more than merely being talented on screen, or because I wanted to expect like them. At altogether parties in center school, I didn't mind when nosotros played spin the bottle and it landed on one of my female friends. But I never thought about what information technology meant at the time. I had never really questioned my sexuality, and it wasn't something people talked about where I grew up. Simply as I watched this video about what it meant to like your same gender, suddenly, everything began to fit into place, and for the showtime time, my feelings toward Jenna started to make sense.
I still didn't know much about bisexuality at the time. I idea you had to pick a side: lesbian or straight. The fact that I had feelings for both sides was very frustrating and confusing for me. I didn't know who to talk to, and then I reached out to the one person I trusted more than anyone else —Jenna. I didn't tell her how I felt — but that I missed her and wanted to hear her vocalisation. She picked up on the 2nd band, and to my joy, seemed happy to hear from me.
"I hate fighting with you," I said. "Can we go dorsum to the way things were?"
"Definitely," she agreed, without missing a beat. And I knew then she had missed me as much equally I'd missed her.
Once I realized I liked Jenna as more than just a friend, I spent nearly every moment trying to effigy out if she might accept felt the same way about me. It always seemed like there was more between us than merely regular BFFs. I had feelings for her on a level that didn't marshal with what I felt for Maggie, or any of my college friends, and I wondered if she felt the same. After all, we were so close. And she never seemed to listen when people thought we were dating. But possibly it was merely a large joke to her.
I worried that not only did she probably non like me in that way, only she would too think I was disgusting if I told her how I actually felt. I swore that I would proceed my feelings to myself, and so I wouldn't lose her again. But I couldn't hold my feelings in the first time I saw her when I went home for winter intermission.
We met at a party my friends were throwing and when she walked in, nothing else in the room mattered. She was wearing faded grayness jeans and a sweatshirt, her night pilus in a messy bun. To me she was flawless. I couldn't stop thinking nigh how beautiful she was.
Suddenly I knew I had to tell her. She was my best friend. Best friends don't keep secrets from each other.
I grabbed her manus and lead her into the next room. I heard the words spill out of my oral cavity in a rush. "I love yous, Jenna. And not just like friends. And I know you probably hate me now, but I had to tell you lot considering you mean more to me than anything."
She grabbed her hand out of mine. "Martha, honestly you lot really have no thought what the flight f--- you are saying," she said and walked abroad.
I was devastated. Losing her the second fourth dimension was even harder. I spent the rest of that break partying manner too much to try to forget what I'd done. One night, I poured my heart out to a high school acquaintance named Karen, who told me the aforementioned matter had happened to her. I felt flooded with relief knowing I wasn't the just girl who had fallen in love with her all-time friend. Karen helped me immensely, and past March, we were dating long-distance. I had never felt happier to finally be myself and be with someone who liked me back. I thought I was finally over Jenna.
Months later, while watching Brittany and Santana's all-time friends-turned-girlfriends storyline unfold on Glee, I began to miss Jenna again. It didn't help that both Santana and Jenna looked alike. I wished and so badly that Jenna and I could have what they had.
I was shocked when Jenna texted me a month after to tell me that she'd been watching the show and it reminded her of us. It was a bittersweet moment. I had e'er hoped that Jenna and I would exist more simply friends, and I was and so glad that I wasn't wrong well-nigh our friendship being different. I was finally in a healthy human relationship, merely the moment Jenna told me she had feelings for me, I couldn't cease thinking about her. Even though I was scared that Jenna would injure me again, hearing that she liked me changed everything. I broke up with Karen, but my relationship with Jenna never actually got started.
Even though we were both dwelling house for the summer, Jenna was busy all the fourth dimension. I wanted nothing more than to be her girlfriend, fifty-fifty though that meant keeping information technology a hush-hush so her religious parents wouldn't kicking her out. I played by all her rules, but it wasn't enough to make things work. We spent two days together the entire three months I was abode.
"I'thousand lamentable," she texted me after canceling yet another date. "You know I love you though," she said, trying to gratify me. I didn't know if she meant it in the friend style or the relationship way.
"Why can't you love me similar I love you lot?" I texted dorsum. I knew it wasn't a off-white question; her life was complicated. Existence gay was a much bigger deal in her family than mine. But I had to ask the question that had e'er been in the back of my listen since we became friends.
She didn't answer.
At the end of the summertime I left for school and nosotros didn't talk over again. Nosotros never officially broke up, but I knew it was over. It hurt to accept no closure on that friendship, or relationship. A yr later on, I sent her a text request if we could get java and catch upwardly. She never answered.
The about painful part of not existence her friend anymore is all the memories I have with her. For so many years, she and I were inseparable, and going from being and then close to cipher has been the hardest role for me.
Simply I exercise know that no thing how much pain she's caused me, I'll never regret coming together Jenna, or telling her how I actually felt about her. She helped me become more than confident and notice who I am, and I'll always love her for that.
*All names in the story accept been inverse
Source: https://www.seventeen.com/life/real-girl-stories/a30332/i-fell-in-love-with-my-girl-best-friend/
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