Ever since the incident in the forest with Skyler, something has been different, at first I was just really emotionally attached to them because of shared trauma, and I thought it would wear off. But it hasn’t, and I’ve realized I’m actually in love with them I’ve known them for a month now, and I’ve been spending time with them a lot, everything about Skyler is special to me. They’re so insecure and they don’t really like themself and I wish they could see themself through my eyes cause every time I’m around them I feel so happy, but it immediately goes away when I remember that I can’t be with them because of Jake. I already was losing feelings for Jake, but this has made it much worse, because Skyler is everything I’ve wished Jake could be, things like love songs give me happiness and pain at the same time, because they remind me of someone, but that someone isn’t the person they should make me think of.
Naomi is hanging out with me in the living room right now, in a few minutes her mom will take us to school. I’m talking to her about Skyler.
“Skyler is the type of person you should be with” Naomi comments
“I know, but I feel like I’m a bad person if I leave Jake. I was the first person who ever listened to him, because his parents neglected him” I respond
“It isn’t your responsibility to do that for him, he should just start talking to one of the school therapists. He’s like a parasite, he’s hurting you”
“I know, but when I think of his backstory, it just makes me feel so bad”
“I understand, but it’s wrong to stay with someone you don’t have feelings for. I don’t like Jake, but it’s still technically wrong to do that to him. That’s just something I want you to think about”
I do think about what she said, while we’re on the way to school, and when we get to school, I know he should just get a therapist, but I can’t help but feel like I’ll be abandoning him if I break up with him. And if he had it in him to threaten suicide, he may also have it in him to actually go through with suicide, and I can’t be responsible for someone’s death. I just can’t. It may be wrong to stay with someone I don’t love, but it would be even more wrong to indirectly cause his death. Skyler comes up to me, and suddenly everything I was just thinking of flies away.
“Hey Sugar! ” They say excitedly. I notice Dante and Celeste smiling at each other behind them, but I’m not sure why. Then they go inside the school building, but Skyler and I stay outside for a few more minutes. “I really like your hair! How are you?” Skyler says. Kat and I went to dye our hair together this weekend because everyone else in the friend group has their hair dyed.
“Hey Sky! Thank you, I’m doing ok, how are you?” I respond
“I’m just really tired,” they respond, “I had kind of a rough night last night, I couldn’t sleep”
“What made you unable to sleep?” I respond
“I don’t know, I just was stressed about a lot of different things. But anyway, how was your night?”
Jake never asked me what was going on with me, it was always all about him. “It was ok, I kind of had a hard time sleeping too.” I decide not to go into detail about why I couldn’t sleep. We get told to go to class, so we walk into the building, and wave at each other as we walk away from each other to our classes. The reason I couldn’t sleep last night was because Jake was stressing me out again, guilt tripping me for possibly leaving him (even though I never told him I thought of doing that), but it was also the stress of knowing I have feelings for Skyler, which is very obviously not something I can tell them. They probably don’t like me back, because they know I’m in a relationship, but a part of me wishes they liked me. I’m such a mess, I never thought I would end up in a position like this. We start talking about music.
“I’ve written a few songs before…”
”Really?! Can I see them?” I say excitedly
“I don’t know, they’re kind of embarrassing to me” they respond
“Oh, I’m sure they’re not, but you don’t have to show them to me if you don’t want to”
Nothing notable happens in history. In ELA, we start reading the Martian Chronicles, the part of the story we’re reading right now is about a husband and wife who are Martians, and the wife has been having dreams about an Earthman, and she feels attracted to him. Her husband is unloving.
“So she’s in love with this man she’s dreaming about even though she has a husband? That’s bad” A classmate says, and some others agree
I heat up and feel ashamed, because what would my classmates think of me if they knew about my current situation?
After ELA, I go to my locker to get my pencil out of my backpack for my next class. Skyler walks up to me.
“Hey, did you see the new episode of Ferals and Strays last night?”
Ferals and Strays is a show Skyler introduced to me. It can only be watched on YouTube, and it’s about a cat who was left behind by her owners and has to adjust to the feral cat life with other feral cats. “Oh yeah, I did, it was really good. It was really emotional when Missy found out the other cats were talking about her behind her back,” I respond
“Yeah, it was. I wonder what’s gonna happen next, and if she’ll still stay friends with them”
We talk about it for another minute or so, and then Skyler says goodbye to me and walks away. Then Jake shows up and my mood drops.
“Oh, hey Jake…” I say, disappointed to be seeing him
“What were you talking to Skyler for?” He says suspiciously
“Oh, we were just talking about the new episode of Ferals and Strays!”
“Skyler likes that show too?”
“Oh, yeah, they’re the one who introduced me to it actually”
“I don’t want you talking to them”
“What? Why?”
“They like you”
“What??”
“They like you, I can tell”
“Jake, I seriously doubt that-”
“I don’t want you talking to someone who likes you”
We stand silently for a few seconds.
“I’ll see you after school” He says
He walks past me and goes to his class. For a few seconds I process what just happened. Oh for FUCK’S SAKE! I angrily slam my locker shut. Hanging out with Skyler has been brightening things up for me lately, now Jake just took them from me, that stupid boy took away my mental health first and now he’s taken the person who was making things better. I wish we’d never gotten in a relationship so I could be friends with Skyler.
Wait… did… I really just get that thought? Did I really just get the thought that I would rather not be with Jake who I’ve known for two years so I could be closer with Skyler who I met fairly recently? Dear God, what is happening to me? I feel like my relationship with Jake is like a ball and chain even though we’re kids and we obviously aren’t married, it’s like a ball and chain without marriage. I get to class, my mind still preoccupied by what just happened, I don’t pay attention at all for the next few minutes, and end up just asking if I can use the bathroom. In the bathroom, I cry hysterically and write two poems. One about Jake, and one about Skyler
[QUICK AUTHOR’S NOTE: I unfortunately can’t insert the poems as it will make the episode too long. I will post the poems separately]
In the middle of crying, I also start to think about one of the things Jake said. “They like you”, “I don’t want you talking to someone who likes you”. Could that possibly be true? I doubt it but I wonder what makes him think they do, I want to ask him what makes him think they do, but he would start to realize that I like Skyler. I hate that the thought of Skyler liking me makes me feel happy.
At PE…
We wait for the coach to set up the cones to prepare for stretches, and Skyler and I stand next to each other and start talking.
“How are you?” I ask
“I’m alright I guess, in class I had to present and I just felt like people didn’t like my presentation. It got laughed at by uh… someone. But, I’m sorry, how are you?”
Here they are, asking me about my feelings again. “I’m ok, thank you” I respond. We continue talking as we do the stretches. We get into the topic of weird dreams.
“Everybody in our entire friend group has weird dreams,” They comment
“Yeah, that’s interesting” I respond, “I had a dream last night where my soul was out of my body, and I was trying to find myself”
“Wait, really? I had that same dream!” They say. It really seems like Skyler and I have some kind of supernatural connection.
At some point, the wind blows Skyler’s hair from their right eye, which I notice is blue.
“Woah, you have two different-” They aggressively shush me “Sorry”
“No no, it’s ok, I’m sorry,” They say softly, “Just, please don’t tell anyone, ok?”
“Oh no I won’t, I think it’s cool though”
“Really?” They say
“Yeah” I respond
Eventually, since it’s fitness Friday, we all sit on the ground and start doing the exercises. Skyler and I now don’t talk much, but we’re still next to each other.
At the end of PE, Skyler walks a behind me, and suddenly they whisper in my ear.
“I’m really sorry if this is rude to ask, but are you on that time of the month?” They ask me
“Uh, I don’t think so, why?”
“I think you have a period stain”
“Oh shit, what do I do?”
“Here,” They say as they take off their sweatshirt (they have a long sleeved shirt underneath), “Put it around your hips”
“Really?? But what if I leak on to it?”
“Oh, that would be fine, I have another one just like it” They say politely
“Thank you,” I say as I slowly take it from their hand. I tie it around my hips gently, as if afraid I’m gonna tear it.
I feel even more in love with them now, it gets worse every time they do something sweet for me that Jake probably wouldn’t do, Jake is so obsessed with me and doesn’t give me much space but somehow manages to not care for my wellbeing that much at the same time.
At lunch, I’m afraid to go outside because I have Skyler’s sweatshirt around my hips and I can’t let Jake see me, so I text Naomi and ask her to hang out in the girls bathroom with me.
“Hey! So… why do you have Skyler’s sweatshirt around your hips?” Naomi asks me as she enters
“I got my period unexpectedly,”
“Oh wow, and you’re wearing white shorts too”
“I know, and thankfully Skyler was the only person who noticed, and they gave me their sweatshirt to put around my hips”
“Oh wow, they’re really polite”
“I know, and when I said “what if I leak onto it”, they even told me that it wouldn’t matter because they have one just like it”
“They’re such a gentlemen- uh, gentle..person”
“I know”
“Are you really sure you don’t want to leave Jake for them?”
“I can’t shake the feeling that it would make me a bad person”
Fast forward all the way to after 5th period…
I’m in the hallway, leaning against the lockers when I hear heavy footsteps, I think they sound like Jake’s, and I get paranoid so I quickly take the sweatshirt from around my hips and put it in my backpack. I lean more heavily against the lockers so my period stain can’t be seen, and unfortunately, my paranoia is right, Jake comes up to me. Even worse, he puts his hand on the side of my face and kisses me it makes me feel disgusting I would rather kiss literally anything than Jake, and I unfortunately wish it were Skyler. He then pulls away, and then takes my phone from my hand, making sure Skyler is blocked.
“Hold on, I haven’t gotten a chance to do it yet. You can let me do it, I know how to block people” I say as I snatch my phone back. He looks bothered by my tone, but doesn’t say anything about it, I block Skyler and then show him that I did, but I unblock them once he walks away.
I start walking to study hall, and then I see Kat hugging Skyler, I get a sinking feeling, so after Skyler walks away, I go up to Kat.
“Hey, uhm,” I start to say
“We were just hugging because they were anxious, they need people to hug them when they’re nervous” Kat says as if she read my mind and knew what I was gonna ask, “there’s nothing going on between Skyler and me, if that’s what you were wondering” she says with a reassuring smile
Wow. She really can read my mind
At home…
After dinner with my parents, I go to my bedroom and go on my phone and almost immediately get an invitation to a call with Skyler and our friends, and for a moment, I think about the confrontation with Jake earlier. Fuck that. I’ve been miserable for 2 years, it’s time for me to experience some joy.
“Hey Sugar!” Skyler says, being the first person in the call to greet me as usual. We all talk together and laugh together like we always do, we talk about school, we make jokes, and just talk about life in general. It makes me feel like I don’t have to worry about anything anymore, hearing their voices, especially Skyler’s, and the laughter we all share together distracts me from the pain I have all the time.
When the time finally comes around where I have to say goodnight, I am filled with sadness and a melancholic feeling. I really am in love with someone, and that someone isn’t the person I’m dating, and even worse, I couldn’t be more repulsed by the person I’m dating. What am I supposed to do? Where do I go from here?
Broken Minds 