One More Mistake

Grace Halsey is trying to get used to high school and ends up with a guy she's no longer happy with. She wants out, but he won't leave her alone. And she's feeling strangely attracted to another girl.

It was a mistake. Plain and simple. Grace didn’t know why she got involved with him in the first place. They’d only known each other a month, for the love of God! Looking back on it, with what she knew later, she was pretty sure John was a crutch to get through the start of high school. Maybe she’d genuinely loved him. Maybe she hadn’t. Grace sure didn’t know anymore.

She didn’t know when exactly she realized John was sexist. He’d categorized himself as “old-fashioned” and didn’t like it when she put her arm around him instead of the other way around, but she could ignore that because she was still taking the lead, for the most part. She’d had experience with being in a relationship and he hadn’t, so she was more confidant.

The first big problem happened when they’d been dating for about six months. Grace had been in the school play and as such, was exhausted and still trying to recover and get back to her normal schedule.

John had a problem, that day, with a very innocent comment she’d made: “Of course I’m going to sit with Kristi, she’s my best friend.” Through a series of passed notes in math class, they tried to deal with the situation.

He started off with something like this:

“What you said - and the way you said it - really

upset me. “Of course I’m going to sit with Kristi,

she’s my best friend.” Why is she more important

than me? Why don’t you ever say “Of course I’m

going to sit with John, he’s my boyfriend.” I feel

like you value your other friends equally or more

than me, which is NOT okay. We have been dating

for six months. I should be more important than your

other friends, even if you’ve known them longer. And

no, that is not unreasonable.”

Grace responded:

“Yes it is! I never said she was more important than

you! You’re just assuming!”

This led to a long argument about whether or not it was reasonable for him to expect her to compare him to her other friends and choose him every time. The most notable exchange - or at least, the one that pissed her off the most - was when she said comparing friends and boyfriends was like comparing apples and oranges.

John said:

“Well, do you prefer apples or oranges? And which am I?”

That day they came very close to breaking up. Given what happened later, Grace wished they had. He backed off for the moment, but was clearly just doing it so he wouldn’t “lose her”, and the issues surfaced again. He got more aggressive in how he treated the problem. One quote in particular comes to mind.

“Why do you ignore me, but are all over Kristi and

Chantel? I’m your damn boyfriend. I deserve some

attention?”

She wished she knew the answer to that question.

It was all too obvious really. Grace had stopped enjoying being with him. John’s constant insistence that he be the most important thing in her life, above her family and her friends and her schoolwork and even herself, was grating at her nerves. Grace had been through something like this before. In Seventh Grade, her so-called friends had told her to choose between them and the boy she’d been spending time with. She was experiencing deja-vu, except this time, it was the boy who was trying to make her choose.

One Wednesday night, they got into a text argument. John was angry that she kept not being available for time with him after school. Grace was angry that he didn’t understand how busy she was, even without the play.

By then, Grace was trying to find a way to break it off. She had never been the one to end a relationship before. She didn’t know how exactly to do it. So she tried to steer the conversation in that direction and waited for him to say something she could use to make her decision clear.

Finally, she listed off why she wasn’t available: she had extracurriculars, her brothers and sister had extracurriculars she had to go to, her family often took time just for them, and she needed her space sometimes. John’s response was:

“Then you can have it. Because I’m not going

to date a girl who doesn’t have any time for me.”

It was exactly what she’d wanted. She sent back:

“Fine.”

He quickly said:

“No! It’s not fine! I was trying to be intimidating!

Grace! How can you be okay with it ending like

that? Fine?!

Grace said:

“I have to go now. My dad’s home.”

and turned her phone off.

They had a talk the next day at school. John wanted to continue the relationship. Grace didn’t, but she did her best to let him down easy. She also said she’d be willing to keep up a friendship with him.

That was when things got bad.

John started stalking her. Okay, maybe not really stalking, but he followed her around at school even to the classes they didn’t have together, begging her not to end it. She was getting kind of annoyed, but she still said no as kindly as she could.

Then there was another text argument. This one was worse.

He started off with the same tune he’d been singing for two weeks:

“Why can’t things go back to the way they

were? We were happy and I’m sad now.”

When Grace still wouldn’t get back together with him, he got mean. He said she’d never really loved him because she’d broken up with him, and that she’d planned on ending it from the beginning. He also said that “true love” was “forever”.

She pointed out that this was the first time he’d been in a relationship. Since she’d been in three, counting the one with him, she was more experienced and had a better idea than him about how she felt.

John said:

“I think the opposite. I think that because of

how many boyfriends you’ve had, you can’t

distinguish your feelings anymore.”

He also said that he knew what love really was because he still loved every girl he’d asked out, including her.

Grace said high school relationships almost never last very long. She told John that half the marriages in the world end in divorce and that was without taking into account all the non-marriage relationships. She used her parents, who had gotten divorced four years previously, as an example.

He countered by calling them idiots for making the commitment if they didn’t intend to keep it.

The cherry on top was when John said it was Grace’s fault everything had gone wrong.

“Well I did the best I could and treated you

better than I probably should have, so yeah,

the problem must have been on your end.”

And then, after they’d text-yelled at each other for a couple hours, he asked her to restart the relationship again.

Grace still said no. Finally, they said they could just be friends, even though by then, she really should have just ended all contact with him.

Four minutes after they reached their decision and she left for dinner, John sent another text.

“No! It’s not okay! It’s not okay that you got

your way and I didn’t! We’re not done with

this! I’m not gonna take s**t on my opinions

and get ignored all the time. I’m gonna get my

way once. This is not okay!”

She ignored it. He sent her another one in the morning.

“Grace, please, I would really like to give it

another try. We know more and can do better

and we could be happy together. Please.”

That day at school was very awkward. She said, for the umpteenth time, that she had no interest in getting back together with him. And she said that if he didn’t stop pestering her about it, she wouldn’t be able to even be friends with him.

She got another text that afternoon.

“It’s a lost cause. Let’s just ignore each other

and go our separate ways.”

She said:

“Okay. Bye.”

Grace thought that was the end of it. That should have been the end of it. But it wasn’t, because then John started hitting on her best friend.

Which got a lot worse when you take into account that Kristi was one of two friends she had in her grade and he wasn’t being careful about putting them in the middle. Grace was. She knew what it felt like to have people giving you a “me or them” ultimatum. She didn’t want to do that to them. But it meant she was losing them.

She didn’t know when exactly she realized her anger at John went beyond protective friendship. It felt a lot more like the jealous ex, except it was him she was jealous of.

It was a few more months before Grace admitted it to herself.

She had a crush on her best friend. Her best friend who was also a girl.

She had never thought of herself as a lesbian. She’d had three boyfriends by freshman year. She hadn’t even considered she could be anything but straight. But now...

Now she was looking at other girls with a whole new eye. Now she was appreciating the shape of a girl’s body or how pretty her face was. Now boys seemed less essential to her than her older brothers, which was saying a lot. And the girl she liked the most was her best friend.

The operative word being was.

Grace had hated lying to Kristi. It was just too hard. So she told her about her crush, making it very clear that she had no intention of acting on it.

That was right before summer. When she came back to school in September, her friends were barely even talking to her and they had formed a tight bond with John.

It hurt. Badly. And the fact that her crush on Kristi had lain dormant for the summer and was now coming back in full bloom wasn’t helping.

Grace did the only thing she could. She tried to move on with her life. She made some new friends. She focused on her schoolwork. And she didn’t mention her homosexuality to anyone again. It was too hard. For the time being, she pretended she was straight.

And if she cried into her pillow a few nights, well, it was all part of growing up.

It got easier when John started going out with Chantel, who Grace hadn’t had a crush on. She justified it by saying that since Chantel had had boyfriends before and Kristi hadn’t, Chantel had a better idea of how to take care of herself. But really, Grace was just glad she wouldn’t have to see her crush with her ex.

It was hard. But it was getting better. And in the long run, she knew it would have been worse to stay with John. So she knew she’d made the right choice.

Author's Note

This is based off something that actually happened to a friend of mine, which is why it may read like someone's memory. I'm not sure. The names of the characters have been changed, but they themselves are real and so are the events.

Reviews

[Zaliodir]

Its a very nice story. I like how it flows along the page. I happen to enjoy stories that sound like a memory, or maybe an entry or series of entries from a diary. The only thing I wish for is more imagery. I want to see the story, not just read it. Thanks for the great read!