How It Ends by Catherine Lo (classic novels to read .txt) 📗

shake my head, frustrated. “It wasn’t right. I couldn’t capture you.” This feels important somehow. “It’s like you have a shield up. Like I can’t crack through to the real you.”

“Or maybe you just never looked hard enough.”

I let my head fall back. Here it comes. The guilt trip.

“I just don’t get it, Annie,” she says. “I don’t understand why you don’t miss me the way I miss you. And I really don’t understand why you’d rather hang out with Courtney and Larissa than with me.”

“Jessie, give me a break.”

“What? I’m being serious. I just want to know!”

“I didn’t choose them over you. You’re choosing avoiding them over me!”

“That doesn’t even make any sense.”

“It does! You’re the one who walked away. You’re so stubborn about not forgiving them for something that happened in seventh grade that you would deny yourself all the fun just to make a point.”

“They’re horrible to me, Annie. I don’t know how you can just forgive them for that. If someone had tormented you throughout middle school, I wouldn’t betray you by going out and making friends with them.”

“I’m not betraying you, Jess. You’re so melodramatic! Court and Larissa apologized to you and are trying to make it up to you. You just refuse to listen.”

“Yeah, right. You heard what Courtney said to me. You see how she treats me. And you think I should be okay with it just because she’s Courtney. I’m sorry, Annie, but I don’t see this fabulous person that you claim is underneath all her bitchiness. I just see a bitch.”

I look at her, standing there with her hands on her hips, full of self-righteous anger. She suddenly feels so far away, and it makes me sad. “You want to know the truth, Jess?” I ask softly. “I do miss you. But not this you. I miss my friend from the beginning of school. The one who knew how to let loose and have a good time. The one who was adventurous and smart and funny. We don’t laugh together anymore. Doesn’t that bother you?”

Her lips go white. “We don’t do anything together anymore, Annie,” she says. “That’s what bothers me.”

“How can you even say that? I’m here right now, Jessie. Right now! And all you want to do is talk about Courtney and make me feel guilty for having other friends. You make it so much work to spend time with you. I feel like I’m always walking on eggshells—like if I do or say the wrong thing, you’ll get upset. And it’s not fair that you’re making me choose between spending time with you and being friends with Courtney and Larissa. If you weren’t so stubborn, we could all be friends.”

“They don’t want to be friends with me, Annie! And I don’t want to be friends with them. Why can’t you see that? Why are you trying so hard to force me to play nice with people who have been awful to me? I don’t want to forgive and forget. I just want to move on and make friends I can trust.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You see it, Annie. I know you do. You sit by and watch Courtney treat me like garbage and you do nothing about it. No, sorry—you make me feel guilty and like it’s my fault. I don’t like them, Annie, and I don’t like who you’re becoming when you’re around them.”

My whole body goes cold. “What I see, Jess, is a bunch of people who are bringing you into their group and treating you like anyone else. They’re not handling you like you’re fragile or damaged goods, which seems to be what you want in some kind of fucked-up way. You need to stop playing the victim all the time and crying every time someone looks at you sideways.” I’m so furious with her that my hands are shaking. “You’re right, I don’t rush to defend you or fight your battles for you. And do you want to know why? Because I see you as a strong and capable person, Jess, not as a pathetic loser who can’t stand up for herself.”

Her head snaps back as though I hit her. “I’m not playing the victim. I am the victim. And I can’t believe you’re blaming me for getting picked on. You’re not the person I thought you were, Annie.”

“You know what, Jess? Neither are you.”

I want to throttle her for being this way. I storm to the door, bumping her shoulder on the way. “You’re being a baby,” I tell her. “I hope you know that.”

“And you’re ditching the best friend you’ll ever have. You know, this pathetic place you want to escape from was here for you when you were lonely and sad about how things were going at home. I can’t believe you’d just leave me and forget all the times I was there for you.”

I go still, my hand on the doorknob. “I’m not forgetting those times at all. I wish you were still that same friend, but you’re not. You’ve changed, Jessie. You’re so busy keeping score of all the ways people are doing you wrong that you have no time left to be a friend to anyone.”

I wrench open the door and walk out of her room without looking back. I’m done with feeling guilty.

Jessie

I was drifting in and out of sleep when the lights suddenly snapped on and my mother’s voice filled the room.

“We need to talk.”

I forced one eye open and groaned as the light assaulted my tired brain. “I’m napping.”

“I can see that. It’s four thirty in the afternoon and you’ve been in bed all day. Enough of this. What’s going on?”

“It’s nothing, Mom.” It’s everything.

Ever since my big fight with Annie, the days have been sliding past each other. It’s like I’m floating above myself, watching some girl who looks like me screw up her life. Second semester is turning into an unholy mess, and yet I’m just drifting through the