Chapter1-Laura

Your kisses made me smile. Your smile made my heart race. Now? I can't look at you. You won't look at me. It's a never-ending cycle. All because you, Justin Long, kissed me last summer.

"I'll love you forever, Jessica." You said, "Nothing will change that."

Do you know how that made me feel? Worthless, like no one could love me. Because a week after you said that, Laura Johnson was attached to you everywhere possible.

I gave up hope on finding another person to love me. I started thinking that not I couldn't even love myself. My parents said it to me everyday but I knew they said it because they had to. It was a rule of being a parent.

You would hardly know this, but I passed you in the hallway today. You were leaving math class with Laura. She laughed at something you said, or nothing at all, really. Her arm was wrapped around yours like a vice.

I was tempted to say hi. Or even just simply wave. But I knew you wouldn't even smile to me. And I was right.

You saw me for a second. Just one tiny second. You stared at me with a blank expression before turning back to Laura.

Like I hadn't meant anything to you. Apparently, I hadn't. Just. Like. That.

I didn't stand there and cry, exposing my feelings through the school. Oh, no. I was stronger than that. I headed to my locker, dropped my books off, and left school. I had never ditched class and History wasn't something I'd ditch. But I did it that day.

I snuck out a back exit and walked to the coffee house just blocks away. A few seniors were there along with other strangers. I sat at the bar and ordered a simple muffin. The kind you loved. Blueberry.

On the napkin, I wrote out my feelings for you. My hatred for you leaving me. My love that would never change. The small, insignificant, piece of hope that Laura would lose your interest. But all that faded away in the wind. Just like the napkin. Just. Like. That.

Laura walked up to me, followed by her pack of mutts, in the bathroom. She threatened me, pushed me into the towel dispenser, then ripped my shirt. One of your favorite shirts. She laughed it off and left, probably to meet up with you.

I cried in the stall for ten minutes before leaving school. It was over anyway. Why stay and be even more humiliated?

When I got home, I ripped the shirt up into little pieces. I kept a small piece of it, hiding it deep under a stack of papers, then burned the rest. As I watched the smoke rise, I cried silent tears.

You meant everything to me at one point. But now? You were just... a kid at school. With a girlfriend, a life, an ex that was nothing more than another person on the planet. Just. Like. That.

I tried moving on. But it wasn't the same. It could never be. You loved her, she loved you. And I was simply... nothing.

I met a guy a few weeks later, Xavier. He was nice to me but I knew he wasn't interested in me. He liked Laura.

"She's a nice girl. Maybe you two should get to know each other." He had said one day in the hallway.

Friends? Get to know each other? Uh, no. No, thanks. Hell, no. She hated me, I hated, yet envied her. She stole my boyfriend, my newest crush, and any chance I had at love. Just like that.

And just like that I stopped talking to him. I only smiled in the hallways but it was a heartbroken smile. I liked him. But he liked the girl who ruined everything for me.

Just. Like. That.