10th grade arrived and burned everything down.
Both girls found out about each other. The first one — the one who'd been with me the longest — pulled me aside. What followed was not a conversation. She asked me why, over and over, while I stood there with nothing real to say. Because I didn't know why. I still don't, fully. I think I was chasing something I couldn't even describe.
Somehow, nobody spread the story. I got lucky.
Two months passed. I started seeing someone new. Life moved forward, the way it does whether you want it to or not.
Then one evening at tuition, I overheard her talking to her best friend. She was talking about her boyfriend laughing softly about something he'd said.
Something hit me in the chest.
Not a thought. Not a realization. Just pain. The wordless, stupid kind that shows up before your brain does.
I didn't understand it. I went home confused.