1The brown haired girl sat up in her bed solemnly, trying to calm herself down. She rubbed at her blue-gray eyes roughly and took a deep breath. Her throat hiccupped a few times as she choked on the sobs threatening to escape.
Suddenly, her stomach and chest lurched and she instantly wrapped her arms around her frail, thin torso. The fact that she felt so weak and pathetic just led her to begin crying once more.
God, who does this? Who cries this pathetically over a guy?
Justine pressed her palms against her forehead, trying to ease her upcoming migraine. It suddenly all made sense to her.
He had finally rejected her because she was so goddamn weak. Pathetic. She knew how much he hated weak people...
She sobbed harder as her recurring thoughts; the boy she had been incredibly in love with since they were freshmen in high school had finally told her 'no'.
He finally told her he was not, nor would he probably ever be, interested in pursuing a relationship with her.
Because his heart was completely dead-set on his childhood friend.
The girl threatened herself to kick the wall next to her bed, but decided against upsetting her fellow floor mates.
The ridiculousness of it all was overpowering to her feeble, fragile mind. This boy, Jason Kipman, has not left her mind since high school...nearly six years ago. They were now sophomores in college, and also, regrettably, attend the same college, Southern Connecticut State University.
Justine wallowed in her self-pity, while also trying to count her blessings. How selfish was she? She should be incredibly thankful that she was ever given the privilege to be close friends with Jason Kipman.
Perhaps this is the curse of falling in love with one of your best friends...
The curse of losing to somebody better than you...
The curse of being friend-zoned...
Suddenly, Justine jumped slightly at the feeling of her phone vibrating in her pocket. As she still choked on her sobs, she checked the text message and then narrowed her eyes. It was Seth Callahan, one of her other best friends. She didn't even need to read the message to know where this was going. Regardless, she read it anyway.
Lunch at 1?
Justine sighed deeply; great, their daily lunch... Every day, her, Seth, Jason, and her other best friend, Nina Spezzano, went for lunch at 1 PM before they all had class.
The girl glanced at her clock and sighed; 20 minutes to suck up her emotions and face Jason as if he hadn't just unintentionally ripped out her heart and threw it on the ground the night before...
Shaking her head, she mumbled to herself out loud, "No...it's my fault...I brought this upon myself..."
Justine would always blame it on herself... Her three friends and she were just hanging out, as per usual. Nothing was out of its norm...but then Seth pointed out Justine's moodiness. He always did that...
Unfortunately, he caught her at her prime in her "moodiness", and her venting and complaining about her feelings just poured out...which was unusual for her.
And even more unusually, she actually finally admitted to her strong infatuation with Jason, to Jason.
Even though her feelings were always quite obvious to everybody, Jason seemed to have no clue.
How incredibly fucking clichéd...the mindless boy who had no clue his best friend was in love with him for six years because his mind was always on his own childhood crush...who had no clue that he liked her.
The memories of the night before made Justine just cry harder.
She hated crying, and she especially hated crying in front of people, let alone Jason... She had managed to keep her emotions in check around him...until last night.
As she had buried her face in her knees as her tears fell, she could feel Jason's stare on her. Even if he was taking the entire situation rather well, she could sense his disapproval. She just knew that he thought lowly of her now.
And best of all, she knew that he thought that the entire situation was now blown over.
Justine pressed her fists to her chest and inhaled deeply. This was the second-best part of the whole story: Justine was no psychic. She smirked ironically at herself as she recalled the final part of the conversation.
Just...tell me 'no', Jason. Tell me that you don't feel the same way. Maybe...maybe I can move on if you do that...
She wasn't really sure what she intended to happen from her request. Maybe she really could move on, finally.
Or maybe...her life would reach its prime cliché level and he would deny her of her request and actually requite her feelings.
Her heart beat abnormally at the possibilities...but then...
I don't like leading people on, so...I don't like you that way. I like where we are right now, as friends.
And that was it...the deal breaker. He couldn't be much more straight-forward than that.
All the hope that she had built up for six years crumbled before her feet.
"Hey, since when do you lock your door?"
Justine gasped at the sudden shaking at her doorknob and instantly hopped out of bed. The voice belonged to Seth, and she knew very well that Nina and Jason were accompanying him.
She was suddenly very thankful that her roommate decided to finally lock the door as she left.
The girl gulped and rushed over to her roommate's full-length mirror and straightened herself out, "H-Hold up a second!"
Had 20 minutes really already gone by? Time flew when you were depressed, apparently...
Quickly, she smoothed out her jeans and adjusted her white spaghetti strap shirt. She then fumbled through her dresser and picked out a plain black long-sleeved camp shirt and didn't bother buttoning it.
Justine then went to grab her backpack, but then mentally cursed to herself, forgetting what day it was and what class she had.
"What day is it?"
Her three friends laughed from the other side of the door and Nina was the one to respond, "You have Accounting today, Justine."
The girl growled softly and packed up her accounting class materials. Finally, she was set and ready to go...but not before checking herself in the mirror again. Her eyes widened; her eyes were a prominent red and were rather puffy.
She frowned to herself; what was wrong with her? Was it that she wasn't pretty enough for Jason? What did this other girl have that she didn't...?
Her thoughts were cut off by several poundings on her door. She scoffed slightly at their impatience and impulsively opened her door forcefully.
She should have thought that out more...
Because all of a sudden, her blue-gray eyes instantly met with bright blue ones. Justine felt her heart sink into her stomach and took a deep breath as nonchalantly as she could.
Jason Kipman briefly analyzed his friend as she quickly looked off to the side and made an agitated comment, "Could you guys not pound on my door like that? It got annoying after the first time..."
The second-best thing about this story is this: Justine Alexandros is not a psychic. She anticipated getting over Jason after the conversation from the night before. She was almost certain that she would be okay. But here she was, bottling up her emotions the best she could so she wouldn't start crying. As she walked out of her room, she felt her entire body nearly give out.
It literally hurt to walk. The girl stared at the ground and squeezed her eyes shut as her vision had gone blurry for a moment. She felt as if she was about to pass out.
She was definitely not okay. In fact, she felt worse than she ever had been.
Justine smirked weakly to herself as she and her three friends made their way to the cafeteria across campus. She even went as far as to tap herself on her skull with her knuckles a couple times.
Nope, this was all real.
This was the best part of the story: it wasn't a dream. It was all real. Justine's personal, hellish nightmare had officially become a reality.