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Grade
11

Sitting alone solemnly waiting for his girlfriend to come over, he held back thoughts of how they used to sit alone together when they first met in complete silence as if they already shared the world together. She was unlike any girl he’d ever met, but he had to break up with her. There seemed no other way in his mind for things to end differently.

As he heard her chime her goodbyes to her friends, he looked up at her with a forced, but tiny smile. He was angry at himself for what he was about to do to her. The precious jewel before him, uncovered during a time when all went dark in his life, was about to be swept away and thrown into a trash with everything else he vowed to get rid of in his life.

She could never be trash to him, but he knew he had to dispose of anything that would ruin his attempt to fix himself. If she loved him, she would understand.

“I have something important to tell you,” he said looking her in the eyes, mentally capturing the image of their beauty so he could have something to fall back onto someday if his plans were not in vain.

He could see the worry in her face as they were in two different mindsets. He had gone into a realm where his problems were the main focus and destroying the problems, bringing himself back up to his highest potential, was his goal. He had no idea where her soul wandered to, but he felt a pain in his heart knowing it wasn’t a sunny vacation.

“I’ve dealt with a lot,” he said looking at the lines of her palm, wishing he knew how to read them. Maybe they would tell her everything was going to be alright; she didn’t need to cry tonight over the loser he thought he was. “It’s so insignificant—my life that is. I’m not good in school, I don’t excel in any areas, I haven’t got any friends except you, my own family pushes me to the side. I bet no one would remember me if I died. There’d be an obituary in the school newspaper, sure, but that would be it. I’d be legendary for, like, a week, and then it would be ‘Jude who?’ all over again.”

“I’d remember you for the rest of my life, Jude. You’re not insignificant, you just focus too much on arbitrary things that you’ll eventually disregard. Don’t feel so down.” She comforted him so much that he wondered if breaking her heart, no matter how delicately he made the blow, was worth it. He wished he could run away with her or have a miniature version of her to keep in his pocket and hold in his hand whenever he needed words of kindness, comfort, and praise. She was the only one who cared about him, understood him…surely, she’d process the situation and comprehend its meaning to him. If she couldn’t do it, he’d be distraught and confused about what to do.

“Jessica, you know I love you, right?” he asked her holding back the urge to punch himself in the face for causing the inevitable pain he was soon to inflict onto her.

“Jude, of course. Come on, what’s gotten into you?” I heard the genuine concern in her voice as she squeezed my hand.

“Jess, I want to be with you for the rest of my life, but I can’t do it anymore. I can’t! I have to let you go before I let myself go.” I stopped holding her hand. The constant reminder of her warmth made it even worse to tell her how I felt.

“Jude, don’t break up with me. We can work on this together.” She was so sickeningly optimistic; that was why I held onto her so tightly both physically and emotionally. When I wanted to hide from my problems, I went to her. Her optimism was the type to work itself out. It was not wishful thinking by any means, it was optimism with a goal. I hoped that when we stopped talking and I started working on myself so we could talk together for the rest of our lives that the reminder of her can-do ambition and her self-confidence would rub onto me.

“I’m holding you back, Jessica, and I don’t want to be that person. I’m a burden. That’s all I am and ever will be. You have so much ahead of you, you’re going to make films for goodness’ sake! I bet you’ll be a hot shot in Hollywood, living in a mansion, eating at fancy restaurants, having couture clothing! You’ll have it all Jessica unless you stick around with me. I’ll be the exact opposite if I keep lingering around here. I’ve got nothing to fall back onto except you, but if I do that, I’ll hold you back. I need to regain the capability to do something with myself. I can’t lie around all day at home depressed about myself. Every night I ask myself if I want to die and I’m sick of it. Death shouldn’t be my plan B. That’s so morbid, Jess. Oh, Jess, you’re the only thing stopping me from offing myself!” He shielded his face as tears welled up in his eyes. He didn’t want her to try and comfort him anymore, because it would only result in making himself feel like a horrible excuse of a boyfriend. He didn’t want to hurt their relationship even more by milking emotion out of her or himself.

He had never thought of this as one of those “It’s not you, it’s me” breakups, but he was positive it felt that way to her. He didn’t want to end their relationship, he only wanted the two to be Jude and Jessica forever. The thought of getting a tattoo saying exactly that had even crossed his mind a few times, but he was afraid that would jinx them. He wanted what was in their best interest, and her hanging with a low life like him was not in her best interest in the slightest. She was a sweet girl; he never wanted to take advantage of that. He never felt he deserved her.

He could hear her holding back sobs as she said, “Jude, no, don’t break up with me if I’m what’s helping you. I don’t want you to die.”

He placed his hands on his knees, clenching them tightly and looking down at his lap to avoid eye contact with her, “No, Jessica. I have to. You’re this girl with wild dreams that I know you’ll make a reality. For you the sky isn’t even the limit, it’s the starting point. I’m at the bottom of a totem pole where everyone is expecting me to sit around and waste my life away. I’m…I’m expendable, Jess. I don’t want to be the person who walks around unsure of what they’re even doing. I want to change that. I want to be free from the chrysalis formed around me. Tomorrow, I’m not going to exist. You won’t see me anywhere. Not much of a change for everyone else, but this will be new for you. I know you’re going to search the whole school during lunch to find me, but you won’t. I won’t be there.”

“You sound insane!” she said, letting out yells through her sobs. “Why do you have to break up with me like this? Couldn’t you have done this in a better way? This doesn’t make any sense.” He felt that she had every right to lash out at him. Leaving the perfect girl was insanity, it was unwarranted, but he knew that it was the only way to relieve him of his insanity, to find a balance in life that he would then come back to her with.

“I’m sorry, Jessica. I know you’re…you’re mad at me; that’s alright. I have to go now and it might be a long time before you ever see me again, but I want you to know that I love you and if you love me back you’ll wait for me. I understand if you won’t wait, but I think you’re a fantastic girl, Jess, and the time we had together was limited, but I want to change that. I want our time together to be eternal. I want to be with you for the rest of my life, but I have to shape up. You understand?” It was hard for him to tell her all of this, he didn’t want her to think he was dumping her. He wanted to make it clear his intention was to be with her for as long as he could, but if he continued on the destructive path he was on, he was well aware that it would lead to an early demise and that would hurt more than just a hiatus on their relationship.

He saw her body trembling as she covered her face with the palms he still wish he was able to read. Her sobs were muffled and he walked over to hug her, comforting her the way she had comforted him for the past three years. “Jess, I love you. I love you so much that I want to be a better person for you, so that we can be successful together. I need some time to do that on my own. The odds are working against me and I want to be like…like an anomaly. I want to prove that I am capable of doing something with myself, but it will be an uphill battle, and I need a clear mind for it. You will never be out of my mind when I am achieving what I once found impossible. Then when I’m ready, I’ll come back for you…and if you don’t want me, that’s fine, too.”

 

They stood there in silence; eventually, she hugged him hard. She looked up at him and he looked down at her. With a melancholy smile, she stood on her tiptoes and gave him a kiss on his forehead. She let go of him, walking away from him. As he watched her go into the distance, suddenly, she turned around and looked back at him with never-ending hope in her eyes. “Good luck, Jude. I’ll see you soon.”