I’ve been dating Jake for two years now, our two year anniversary was two months ago and he asked me to be his girlfriend in 7th grade when we had been friends for a few months. He was sad a lot, so I would always help him, he and my friend Naomi were the first people I met at this school, they were my first friends in America. My parents and I are Russian, we moved here when I was 12 and my legal name is Anastasia, but Naomi has speech problems and couldn’t pronounce my name, and since she knew that I love candies and desserts she started calling me Sugar, so other people started calling me the nickname and now it’s my preference. Even though Jake and Naomi were my first friends, they aren’t friends with each other cause Naomi hates Jake, and it’s honestly reasonable that she does. As I stated I would help Jake when he was sad, it got to the point where it was my responsibility, he depended on me. I feel more like his therapist than his girlfriend because his poor mental health is my problem to fix, and I don’t have time for myself I just have this constant huge heavy weight on my chest all the time and it makes it hard to breathe. At the same time, he gets mad at me easily and is very mean to me, those are the two moods. He depends on me completely, or he mistreats me and I used to fall for all the guilt trips, but recently something in me snapped and I can usually see right through them. I am miserable and I’m unfortunately am losing feelings for him, and I’m a bad person for staying with someone who I don’t love but I’m also a bad person if I leave him, he needs me. I guess I’m just stuck with him, I’ll just have to marry him eventually and feel this way for the rest of my life, there is no hope.
Today is the 5th day of the school year, it’s Friday so I’ve gotten through the first week of 9th grade but I missed the first two days of school because I was sick, and of course Jake made me feel like I was a bad person for not being with him in person when I was sick. He disregarded the fact that I was ill and could spread the sickness to others, and that I myself wasn’t feeling good enough to be here, that’s how he always is he’s a selfish son of a bitch. I walk into class and sit in my seat next to Naomi.
“Hey Sugar, how are you?” She says
“I’m ok”, I say, “I had another argument with Jake last night”
“I keep telling you, you need to break up with him. He’s hurting you”
The teacher signals us to pay attention. I start recalling the argument Jake and I had, I hadn’t thought about it since last night, he was angry at me because I told him I’m going to my aunt’s apartment this weekend and that I won’t really be able to talk because I’ll be spending time with her and my cousin. He wants me to choose him over my family, his excuse is that one day he’ll marry me so he’ll be part of my family, unfortunately, at this rate, he might not be wrong about that.
At lunch…
Jake signals me to sit with him and his friends but I hate his friends, and I don’t want to be around him. I decide to pretend I didn’t see him and go sit with Naomi and I have a very peaceful time talking with Naomi, then I look over at the table Skyler is sitting at. I remember two days ago I had a pleasant conversation with Skyler, for some reason yesterday they didn’t really seem interested in talking to me anymore but they seem to be a nice person though.
“So, what was the argument you had with Jake last night?” Naomi asks me
“I told him that I’m going to my aunt’s apartment this weekend, and that I’ll be spending time with her and my cousins and won’t really be able to talk to him that much”
“He wants you to prioritize him over your family?” Naomi says with disgust
“Yes, his excuse is that he’ll marry me one day so he will be my family”
“Please don’t let that happen, Sugar. I’m begging you, you have to leave him. He isn’t going to change, you know that it will never get better”
“Yes, I do know that. I still feel like I’m a bad person if I leave him because I’m the only person who makes him feel supported”
“That isn’t your responsibility, he needs to go to therapy”
“He refuses to go to therapy”
I start to think about the argument Jake will start with me over this, he will be mad at me for sitting with Naomi instead of him. I turn and look at him for a second and see him glare at me.
At home…
I have dinner with my parents and then go to my room and sit at my desk. I look at my messages and see a lot from Jake.
“Why did you sit with her instead of me?”
“Do you hate my friends? As my girlfriend you should respect my friends”
“You know I need you to be happy”
“You let me be sad the whole time at lunch by not being there”
I respond, “Her other friend wasn’t at lunch today, I just didn’t want her to be lonely”
“Why couldn’t you invite her to sit with us too?” …
Jake doesn’t really know that Naomi hates him, but does he really think my sweet friend would want to sit with him and his smelly, loud and annoying friends? Of course I can’t tell him that, so instead I just respond with “I just didn’t think of that, I’m sorry”
He responds with a few messages,
“Why didn’t you think of it?”
“Why don’t you think of me as much as I think of you?”
“I’ve really needed you lately and it hurts that you don’t need me as much as I need you”
“I’m sorry for bothering you about not sitting with me at lunch, I just feel better when you’re around me”
“You’re so sweet and I love you so much”
“I’ve been so unhappy these past few days”
I feel irritated and ignore his messages for a few minutes, then he sends me an image, and I finally look, it’s a picture of his mother’s prescription sleeping pills.
“Are you going to take those?” I ask
“I’m gonna overdose” He responds
“Jake don’t do that, don’t hurt yourself” I respond. I may be losing feelings for him, but I don’t want him to be seriously hurt.
“I’m gonna kms” he responds
“No Jake, please don’t”
…
“Jake?”
He doesn’t respond he continues to not respond for a while and suddenly it doesn’t matter that I’m losing feelings for him anymore. I just don’t want him to die he could be overdosing right now he could be passed out he could be dead. Suddenly, my phone dies and I scramble looking for a charger in a panic where the hell is it I want to cry but I can’t I keep obsessively looking for a while.
1:35 AM
I have finally found a charger, I see what time it is on the clock, I’m laying in my bed, staring at my phone and I start spamming him. He still hasn’t responded, I’m anxious and thinking about all the positive memories with him, and although there aren’t as many good memories as there are bad memories, the bad ones don’t really matter right now. Whichever way I feel about him isn’t my priority because I’m just terrified of him dying, I continue not being able to sleep, my entire body burning hot and sweaty.
3:20 AM
The clock now says it’s 3:20, I’m sitting at my desk again, exhausted but still burning and really worried. Then I get a notification on my phone, finally, I immediately grab my phone and look at it. What I see fills me with rage.
“Hey this is Jakes little sis, hes alive hes lying to u”
Oh for FUCK’S SAKE! FUCK! I fucking scream.
“Hey Hailey, thank you for letting me know, could you please get Jake to his phone for me?” I respond
“Sure” She replies
I wait a minute, and when I see that he’s typing I immediately call him
“Why the fuck did you do that to me?? Why did you say you were killing yourself?”
“Why are you yelling at me?” He responds in a sad tone
“Because you fucking lied to me! Tell me right now, why did you do that?”
“I wanted to make sure you still cared about me! I promise I’ll never do it aga-”
I hang up. How could he do this?? There are people out there actually suffering who feel the need to kill themselves, and here he is saying he’s gonna do it just to manipulate someone, and he made me WASTE TIME BEING WORRIED. I so badly didn’t want him to die, but as a matter of fact, I HOPE he dies. Not from killing himself, but from getting HIT BY A FUCKING CAR. I keep screaming and I stand up and take the clock off of the wall and throw it on the floor, I grab a pair of boots from the corner of my room and slam them on the clock multiple times until it shatters. Then that’s when my parents come in.
“Honey, are you alright?” My mom says
Then I burst into tears, and without even making me explain what’s wrong my parents hug me.
“What do you want to do right now? What will make you feel better?” My dad says
“I want to sleep,” I say without even really thinking about it
“Alright, you go make her some warm milk” My mom says to my dad
As Dad leaves and goes to the kitchen, my mom just keeps holding me while I cry. Maybe when I finally fall asleep and when I’m dreaming, I won’t dream about Jake, and so I’ll finally be able to get away from him.
Broken Minds 