Ruining The Friendship(s)

Hi, my name’s Lana, and I have been a cliché. Feel free to take pictures. You may ask which cliché was that, and me, being the pushover that I am, will tell you, even though I’d much rather tell you to mind your own fricking business.

It all started way back in my sophomore year when I fancied my self in love with my best friend. Now my best friend, Lucas, was probably honest to goodness in enamored with little old me but even now with all my nineteen years of wisdom, I don’t really think he was actually in love, just obsessed. Okay, that sounded a bit self- centered so let me rephrase it. I think that Lucas was more in love with the idea of best friends turned lovers than me.

Not that I was ever the doting little wife in training my self. Through most of our five-month relationship, I found him clingy and irritating. He said I flirted too much with other guys. It wasn’t love, or even like. It was just a case of wanting what you didn’t have. Looking back, I guess I really was a sophomore: a wise fool. So caught up in that notion and a vicious attempt to make an ex jealous, that I ignored the signs. Even worse than my using him for revenge, I continued to pursue him even though I knew that other best friend, Sarah, liked him. She probably even loved him. I feel so guilty even now when I know she’s forgiven me.

Through those torturously long five months, she remained my friend, even though I was a bitch and I didn’t deserve it. My guilt didn’t help my relationship with Lucas. It was just added to the list of problems we had that also included his clinginess, my easy irritation and my flirting. I wanted to break up with him so badly but my afore-mentioned pushover tendencies prevented that. When he finally did the deed, it was blessed release. After Lucas and I broke up, we remained friends though we were never returned to being best friends. Now I look back and I wonder if it was really worth loosing a best friend and crushing another, if revenge was really that sweet.

Hey, I’m Lucas. In my sophomore year, my best friend and I started going out. At the time we both thought we where in love but in those five months, it was obvious to all that we weren’t. To our peers it was ridiculous to see us trying to hold on to the relationship we never really had. She was dissatisfied and constantly irritated with me. I doubted her fidelity. We argued all the time and we were more or less the Break Up, Make Up, Make Out, kind of couple.

We had this other best friend, Sarah. Near the end of our freshman year, she started getting really quiet around me. She and Lana would be talking and then when I arrived she would just stop talking. It crushed me because at the time I had really liked her. Not the silly infatuation I had for Lana. It was the kind of feeling where I could just sit in the same spot imagining waking up next to Sarah and brush her beautiful auburn hair out of her face and kiss her lovely coral lips as gently as I could. It broke my heart when she started giving me the cold shoulder.

The next term when I started dating Lana, she avoided me all together. I finally called it off with Lana when I realized I didn’t really like her that way, that she was just a replacement for Sarah and we were both unhappy. Now when I see Sarah in the hallways, she smiles at me sweetly and I can't suppress the feeling that had a chance but I missed it.

My name is Sarah. I’ve been love with my best friend, Lucas, for about three or four years. I can see you cringing now. If you were in my shoes, you would have, too. His beautiful laugh, the way he would always blow his chocolate brown hair out of his eyes, the way he looked when he would just drift off into space, his smile, that habit of just staring at me like he was scrutinizing my very soul, the smell of his cologne, his presence. Now I officially sound like a stalker. But to me, it was so obvious I couldn’t help but notice. I’m not saying he was perfect, in fact he was far from it. He was messy and sort of oblivious. He never remembered birthdays and couldn’t grasp French. But he was sweet and kind, and when he missed your birthday he would try really hard to make it up to you. I'm not saying he was perfect, I'm saying he was perfect for me.

In our sophomore year, Lucas started going out with Lana, my other best friend. When that happened, I went into mild shock. Lana had known and she still said yes. The first thought that went through my mind was bitch. How could she do that to me? How could she betray our friendship for a boy? I don’t know exactly why I remained friends with her but I did anyway and I only rarely felt spiteful. I guess Lucas didn’t get as much mental, you know, badmouthing, because he didn’t actually know, you know? Since you probably don’t know, I never actually told him. There you go cringing again. But before you judge, put your self in my position. I couldn’t have just walked up to him and said “Hey Lucas, you probably didn’t know this but I seem to have fallen in love with you. Do you mind?” Plus there was the whole friendship front. What if it didn’t work out? Would we go back to being friends? Or would we be awkward and uncomfortable until we had enough sense to give it up?

Now in the “wisdom” of my senior year, I ask myself: why didn’t I? It wasn’t as if I didn’t start avoiding him almost immediately after, so why did deny myself my chance at happiness? Was it self-preservation? Was it self-deprivation? Maybe when I'm older I’ll know, but right now, I wonder and weep.

A/N: My first A/N!!! Go me! coughs CONSTRUCTIVE criticism and compliments are accepted and appreciated. I’m considering making this a series of short stories that basically circulate around the theme of clichéd relationships and whatnot but that cannot happen without feedback from my “readers”. I also have a proper chaptered story that I can probably actually finish but it has no title so if people would so kind as to message me about it, it would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for taking the time to read this ridiculously long A/N!