to the other girl:
I suppose I don't really hate you.
I've seen the art you painted of him
His name wasn't labeled there,
but I loved him enough to recognize those eyes anywhere. 
In each of your paint strokes, 
I see your heartbreak. 
I feel it as my own. 

When I need to remember him,
I look at her watercolor.
His true essence is best captured

in my memories and her paintings
In many ways, we're kindred spirits, you and I. 
I'm not sure who drove him from the other, you or I. 

Neither one of us could keep him
Neither one of us could make him stay
He left us both
and we'll never be the same.

May 12, 2015

"Go, Luis! Throw the ball in the net!" Jordan hollers, cheering ecstatically.

"I do not understand this game," I say with some distaste.

In an effort to be supportive girlfriends, Jordan and I are here cheering on Luis and Josh at their last lacrosse game of the season. Neither of us really understands lacrosse and I am morally against all varieties of sports, but we're doing our best to support them despite the sun beating down on our shoulders and the uncomfortable metal of the bleachers underneath us.

"Woohoo! Score! Win!" Jordan yells, equally clueless.

"Jord, we've become those girls," I say with astonishment.

"What girls?"

"The athlete girlfriend girls. You know, the ones who are defined by the fact that their boyfriends are athletes. Next thing you know we'll be wearing sports bras and painting their names across our midriffs," I say with a giggle.

"That actually would have been a good idea," Jordan says mischievously. "And all we have are these lousy signs."

I pick up one of our signs; they're so unartistic they're almost sad. They're colored blue and gold and say "Go Bees" in Sharpie. I've seen third graders make better quality art.

"Yeah, we might have been better off with the body paint," I say with a laugh.

Josh steals the ball a few times, which I think is a good thing, and Luis gets one point. Any time they touch the ball, Jordan and I cheer hysterically. The people around us probably think we've lost our minds. Despite our enthusiastic cheering, I eventually succumb to boredom and go the concession stand to get us some shaved ice. I order raspberry for Jordan and cherry for myself, and as I turn to head back to the grandstands, I nearly bump into a familiar face.

"Oh, gosh, I'm sorry!" I say and realize I nearly collided with Sierra Toy, Josh's friend who joined us on his birthday ziplining trip. "Sierra, right?"

She looks at me with a strange expression on her face. "Rachel, hi," she says, voice vacant.

"Uh, how have you been?" I say awkwardly.

"I'm doing well. I took the semester off, but I'm back for my senior art show next week."

"Oh, the Reinhold Exhibit? You got in? That's amazing, congratulations!" I say with a smile.

I'm signed up to report on the exhibit next week for the Bee, and from everything I've read, it's difficult to get in, even for seniors.

"Thanks," she says, brushing a strand of straight midnight hair from her eyes. "I, uh, heard about you and Josh," she says, offering me an attempted smile.

"Yeah," I say, unable to keep from smiling. "We started dating a few months ago."

"Congratulations," she says, avoiding my gaze. "Anyways, I better go. It was nice to see you again."

"You too," I say, watching her walk away.

Since my awkward conversation with Sierra at Josh's birthday party, I've wondered if Sierra harbored feelings for Josh. This conversation proves that I may have been right, but there's nothing I can do about it now.

I shrug the awkward encounter aside and head back up to the stands just in time to see Luis slam the ball or puck or whatever it is into the net. Despite his last minute effort, our team still loses amidst shouts of glee and triumph from our opponents.

Jordan groans, "Ugh. So close."

"Jord, it's seven to three. They kinda suck," I say, glancing at the scoreboard.

"You better get in the supportive spirit," Jordan teases, "that's what athlete girlfriends do."

I laugh and wander away from the bleachers to find Josh. I see a crowd of lacrosse players, but I don't spot Josh so I keep searching. Finally, I spot him standing in a corner beyond the referee booth. I approach him surreptitiously, hoping to surprise him with a sneak attack. As I approach, however, I hear the low murmur of voices and recognize Sierra's soft tones. Though I know better than to eavesdrop, I sneak to the corner and listen from the shadows.

"You didn't even tell her about me?" Sierra is exclaiming in a barely hushed tone of anger.

"I couldn't. Everything happened so fast that I didn't want to screw things up with her like I did with you," Josh says.

My heart drops in my chest, and I struggle to breathe. I don't know exactly what they're saying, but I suddenly know that everything is irredeemably wrong.

Sierra scoffs, "Oh, yeah, everything happened so fast. You don't think I know that? You called me before you went to that banquet. 'Just friends,' you told me. I knew there was something going on, but you denied it."

Josh pleads with her, "There wasn't anything going on, not until that night. Sierra, you know I never meant to hurt you."

Her voice falls so it's just a whisper. "But you did, Josh. You crushed me, and now you're going to do the same thing to her if you don't tell her the truth."

"What if it ruins everything?" Josh asks.

My brain is struggling to make sense of all that they're saying. There's something missing, something that I've been completely blind to, and all I can understand is that Josh has lied to me.

In the moments that I stand there, lost in thought, a memory from my childhood flashes back to me in vivid color. When I was a child, my mom's side of the family rented a beach house for a week every summer at the Outer Banks in North Carolina. We would travel there together and spend a week gathering seashells, running from the waves, and chasing seagulls. Every year, Dad and I would build a magnificent sand castle. I remember one year it took us all day; it spread across the beach with turrets and moats and even balconies. 

I remember standing up after we were finished, placing my sandy hands on my hips, and declaring, "Nothing can tear this down."

I thought that castle was as permanent as stone, but later that night, the tides came in while I was asleep, and the next morning I found the castle was completely washed away. That's the feeling I have right now. I always dreamed of a castle for Josh and me, and when my dreams started to come true, the dreams turned into a castle of stone that I thought even the waters of time could not destroy. Now I see, however, that the castle was always made of sand, and I am watching it be washed away right in front of me.

I find my feet moving forward of their own accord until I am standing before Josh and Sierra in plain sight. I know that I should be angry or questioning or sad, but all I can see is the picture of the empty beach where our castle used to be.

"Rach!" Josh exclaims when he sees me.

We are all frozen in place, the three of us, somehow tied together by our own actions and feelings. 

"Josh?" I finally murmur tremulously; my voice sounds a thousand miles away.

"Rach, I can explain," he says.

"How can you?" I ask, my voice eerily calm as if I am in a trance. "What did you lie to me about, Josh?"

Josh and Sierra trade a knowing look, and I can almost see the history between them. What I thought was a crush or a mere friendship was obviously so much more.

"You two? What happened?" I ask, trying to construct a timeline in my head.

"Remember the night after the bar?" Josh asks.

I feel as if gasoline is running through my bloodstream. "Of course I remember." My voice is steely. "How could I forget?"

"That night, I told you we couldn't...we shouldn't be together. I knew I had to get over you, so-"

Sierra cuts him off. "You two were a thing before you and I dated? What was I, a rebound?"

They dated. I suddenly understand. Josh needed to get over me, so he dated Sierra. I'm not mad that he dated, I'm not even mad that he tried to get over me; I'm mad that we've been together for two and a half months, and I'm just now finding out about this. Our castle has been built on a foundation that cannot stand.

"Josh," I whisper, pleading with him to tell me that this is a dream, that everything is a lie, but he says nothing. 

I turn and stumble away, walking and then running as quickly as I can. I hear his voice calling out to me, but I keep running.

~~~~~

So what do you think? We don't know the whole story yet, but the truth is starting to unravel. How would you respond if you were in Rachel's shoes? Is her anger justified? Is there any coming back from this sort of betrayal?

Stay tuned for the chapter I'll publish on Monday to see what happens next. 

 ~ Hannah