B is for...

B is for...

Well..we'll call him B, shall we?

B for buddy.  B for best friend.  B for betrayer.  And, of course, we can't forget B for big ol' liar.

In middle school, B and I were practically inseparable.  I was new to the state; my family had just moved from Minnesota to Massachusetts, and I was that quiet kid whose voice you heard the most during class, answering every question the teacher asked.  He was the first person to approach me, and we hit it off.  Opposites attract, I guess.  We were both somewhat outside the social net, but he, unlike me, only ever wanted to be 'cool'.  He was very interested in girls; we often joked that I was the only girl he had never crushed on.  I knew why that was, in my heart.  I've never had much of a self-esteem, and I knew that, not being physically attractive, I didn't have any redeeming qualities in the eyes of most teenage boys.  I confided in B.  He made me feel better about myself.

We attended different high schools.  I graduated to our town's public high school, while he went off to a technical school thirty minutes away.  We were still close, though, talking on the phone all the time.  Halloween of our freshman year, I got him together with one of our friends - let's call her E.  When they started going out, they were extremely tightly knit.  I was happy for them, although I suppose I felt rather like a third wheel: E was the person I was closest to, other than B.

A couple of months after they started dating, B started acting distant.  He was constantly becoming less and less available to talk or hang out, and sometimes he would divert me with strange excuses.  Once, he hung up on me, saying that his grandmother was calling on the other line; I later discovered that it had been E calling.  This hurt me, but not as much as what came later.

In June after that school year, I went off to a summer camp.  E called me during the second week, and told me that she and B had just broken up.  Confused, I called him up, and he flipped out on me.  He told me that E didn't deserve him, and that, furthermore, I was always being a - well, let's just say he had several choice words to say about my 'attitude' towards him, and they're not exactly PG.  He claimed that I was constantly mean to him, always putting him down and never letting him speak.  He went on to throw sarcasms about my self-image issues, calling them and me pathetic and ridiculous.  Perhaps he knew that 'fat' and 'ugly' would be enough to upset me, and they did, coupled with his scathing tongue and disdain.  He ended with 'Just don't call me ever again', and hung up.

His abrupt change of heart, of mood, of attitude left me emotional for days.  I was a mess.  Tears would spring to my eyes at the slightest upset.  And although I got over it, the memory of the way our friendship crashed still irks me to this day.  Now I'm ready to share our story.

B for broken hearts.