Welcome to Gaia! :: View User's Journal | Gaia Journals

My phone hit the wood floor with a loud thud. My only hope that it was finally broken.
No.
Instead of laying silently, dead, it rang again; a sign that it’s heart was still beating. I sighed and slid off of my bed. I might as well answer it this time. If I didn’t they would just call me back five minutes later.
I didn’t bother taking a glance at the caller ID that flashed on the front of my cellular device, I already knew who it was, she had called me three other times today.
“Hello?” I asked, more annoyed than ever.
“Jayden!? Everyone’s been trying to get a hold of you for months now! We miss you so much!” Ha. I really doubt that. I was only important because I wasn’t there.
“I guess I’ve been busy…” I muttered, my voice almost mute due to my lack of interest on the constant topic that delayed any further conversation.
She didn’t answer at first. Maybe she was still thinking, was a response even necessary? My sarcastic responses would only be like the many before them. Perhaps she was planning some new question that would be harder for me to crawl around. Or maybe, like I had not really planned, but secretly and unconsciously have, I’ve hurt her and everyone else and so they naturally stray away from talking to me anymore, just like I really didn’t know I wanted. Though it made no sense, it really did, and somehow I knew I was right.
“Oh. I see.” Her answer was bleak, just as I suspected. Her constant struggle to try and ignore the fact that I didn’t care became weaker every time we spoke to one another. One day she would just give up, I hope. We both became silent. The quiet hum of the phone filled the space between us. “So, what have you been up to? Anything new? Have you gone anywhere?”
She was going to have to try a lot harder than that. I muffled back my laugh at her own pathetic conflict with herself but a smile escaped through my mouth and I hoped that she wouldn’t be able to sense it though my voice. “Nothing much. I stay home most of the time.” I couldn’t help but be proud of my response, I could almost pass as having fun, but then I remembered the day dream that I had been so rudely intruded on and my moodiness came back.
Cattie Melba, my previous best friend of my past life. If anything, she was the closest thing I had to a best friend. It sickened me that she was being used to do the dirty work and call me everyday so no one else had to. When I was back in South Carolina, she was one of the only people that acted real. She didn’t care what people thought. She was outgoing and fun and I loved her.
Everyone else, who unfortunately thought so little that they came up with some poor excuse to call themselves my best friends were really my worst enemies. I don’t want anything to do with them now and I didn’t want anything to do with them then. I hated them, and they never knew it. When they weren’t around I imagined all of the horrible things I would say to them and tell them what I really thought of them. I never did, of course.
As far as I saw it, I was nothing. I was just ‘there’ to them. If they needed a shopping buddy, sure, I’d be there. If they needed a shoulder to cry on, I would make sure I was there for them. But if it was the other way, well I could just forget it. At the time of the move, I was sad, I was sad that I was leaving what I thought was my perfect life. But now, I couldn’t be happier, even though I am so alone. It made me realize everything I never had.
Now I just had to deal with the collateral damage that has racked up over the last few months.
I could hear her breath escape her mouth in a deep sigh. She was becoming just as annoyed as I. Soon she would end the call with some excuse of how she has something she has to do or somewhere she has to be and escape back to her oh so perfect life without me. A minute went by, nothing. This wasn’t like her. She usually didn’t wait so long to reply, even in her worst moods she responded quicker. Maybe, perhaps, I have finally gotten to her. It’s too much, I’m too much.
I really did not want to hurt her, but it seemed to be the only way. “What’s wrong Cattie?” I asked slyly, barely letting my words slither out my mouth. “Have you nothing else to say to me? Or maybe your having trouble reading what ever Grace has written for you on that slip of paper your reading off of? You are so pathetic.”
I could hear her gasp into the phone. I could picture her face in my mind; tangled with her emotions, her brow scrunching up in distress, and now her face turning dark red. In anger, maybe, but now after almost a month and a half, anger wasn’t exactly the word I was looking for.
Suddenly, her voice pecked through the bitter silence I had created. “I’M NOT READING OFF OF ANY STUPID PAPER!” Her voice cracked and I knew her salty tears would begin to fall from her eyes. Her voice, so loud and distort, shocked me and I couldn’t find any words to say. I was only left with one other option, I would listen for once. “Is that honestly what you think Jayden?! You think we all got together and planned this out? What good would that do us? You’re not here! We miss you! That’s all! If anything, I thought we were the closest but now you won’t answer my calls any more either. What do you want from us?!” Her breathing was uneven and I could hear her soft sobs brewing from deep in her stomach.
They still don’t get it. No one did, and no one would. “I’m sorry, Cattie, really I am. This is how it should be. I do believe that you did care, but as for everyone else, I think it’s safe to say it was all a lie. I thought my life was great but after a week or so I realized how much easier life was without everyone bothering me.” I sighed, regaining my breath. “The truth is, I really don’t miss anyone. So many people are fake. You know how I feel about Grace, I truly hate that girl. She’s a poser, and I know I’m not the only one who feels that way.”
“I know. But it’s not worth the trouble. So what do you want to do about this then? I’m just trying to help…” her voice became a whisper she struggled past her tears.
“I want you to leave me alone. It’s for the best, I promise.” Now, even though I had started out so strong, I was now becoming weak and a softer side of me began to merge through my heavy iron bars I put up as my defense. ”Trust me when I say, ‘go away’.”
A dial tone replaced what should have been her voice. I sighed miserably and tried to forget her and everyone else.
I was many miles away from what use to be my life. I was on the other side of the country, in a new town; a new life, with new people, and a new beginning. I didn’t have the time or the heart to try and keep with my past. It was impossible to keep the constant game I play with my reality when I now lived so far away from it. It was pulling me apart and so I finally had to pull the plug on my own life line. In a sense, I died, but for me, I was just born.
Today was like any other and was exactly the same yet I could sense a difference I was not yet aware of. It was only eleven o’clock and I already felt like I was running late for an appointment I didn’t make. I turned on my stereo and flipped through my songs until I found my favorite that soothed my anxiousness flowed through my bones, waking me up like caffeine for the average business man. I stretched; standing on the tips of my toes and reaching my arms up above my head. I shuffled into the bathroom and looked into the mirror.
My smeared black eyeliner crusted over my tired green eyes. I fell asleep earlier last night, still wearing my clothes and all of my makeup. I have been so tired lately, most likely from my sleepless nights that have become oddly common. My hair was in obvious distress, pulled in every other direction on my head. My hair wasn’t long, but it was exactly short. It was short enough to still look good when the wind would displace it but it was long enough to still look feminine and hide my face when I was in the mood to be hidden. My hair was sun-kissed blonde and completely natural, never touched by an artificial color.
My eyes, a deep light green, sometimes filled with anger, or the sadness that filled my heart. I wish I was prettier, because my inside is so ugly and destroyed I need something to fill the spaces from the missing pieces lost, forgotten, and broken. My heart, like a puzzle with its disappearing pieces, has had its share of high school drama and one to many heart breaks. This move has showed me though, I’ve been holding onto too many things that never mattered and were only pulling things further apart than they already were.
After a quick shower my senses began to warm up and my brain wheezed awake like an old computer. I turned the music up louder, filling up the blaring silence of the house that rang relentlessly inside my ears. I added a dash of black eyeliner and cherry chap stick and some how managed to look like I had some unfortunate meaning to live.
“Don’t give me that look Osma.” I glared down at my black cat staring up at me with the most accusing eyes. “I’ll find what I’m looking for one day, but for now I’ll just have to pretend like I care.”
Osma meowed at me in disapproval. She was my biggest critic and usually the most trustworthy. She was a cat, I was told, but she was a better friend than most.
“I know,” I sighed, “I’m not fooling you, but it’s everyone else I’m worrying about.” Some days I wondered how healthy it was for me to speak to my cat like she was an actual person because I knew she was much better than that. She deserved better than my usual cases of paranoia and weird conversations about the things that never mattered.
“Rmeoooaw!” She meowed from deep in her stomach, obviously not agreeing, again.
“I care what my family thinks, thank you very much.” I groweled back at her, “I wasn’t associating those who don’t really care about me.”
She meowed softly, similar to a person raising an eyebrow questioning me.
“One day.” I repeated as I picked up my bag from my desk chair.
I headed out the front door of my large empty house and set out to find my new favorite place where I ran away to escape the dreadful substance that life threw in my direction, like a practical joke that was nowhere near amusing in any way. My house was the prison where my I was my own worst enemy that beat me up every night for the mistakes that I seem to keep making.
Today, like every week day, my parents weren’t home. They were working, like they promised would be the better life. Yeah, it was better, in an overly sarcastic way maybe. I was alone more than a child should be. Staying home reminded me of the life I wish I wasn’t apart of. Where I was going was the only thing that could keep my mind off the obvious. I could smile here and actually mean it.
The lake; where my dreams could run free with no distractions, no excuses, just me, the sun, and warm waters that splashed up on shore keeping my feet warm while I disappeared into the daydreams that kept me more than safe, they kept me sane.
The walk to the lake wasn’t too long, it was just a bit creepy. It required me to go through the woods. It wasn’t the woods that frightened me, it was the fact that I was alone; the tress whispering around me, the animals creeping up behind me, my nerves crawling through my skin, it messed with my head. The worst part of the walk was going past the house.
This is just part of it! Comment please!