The High School Years: Part 10 - The Breakup

Missed or forget a part? Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9

Now in the last post I took you all the way to the Super Bowl of my senior year at Windy Hill High School. But in order to understand, this part, I am going to have to backtrack a bit to the start of my senior year and the start of mock trials 2007-08.

In my junior year, I was a lawyer. That year, I felt that from a lawyer perspective I was a weak link, especially seeing as the rest of the side that I was on that year were two of the best that we had. Personally, I felt that I would be better served to be a witness for my last year and allow Anna to be a lawyer, as I could tell that it is something she would be good at. She just had the personality needed to succeed and be a good lawyer, something that I do not have.

I did decided to step down from my lawyer position to be a witness and with 0 people graduating from last year to this year, it left us with an opening and my hope of hopes was that Mr. Zu would give Anna the spot that she deserved. But then something that I was not banking on happened. Remember May from the earlier parts? Well she decided that after being a lawyer as a freshman and a sophomore and then a witness as a junior that for her senior year she wanted to be a lawyer. Oh great.

May was not very good at being a lawyer, in my opinion. Granted, she was only a freshman and a sophomore but she was involved in so many other clubs and activities that I felt that she did not put 150% into mock trials and that bugged me. Mock trials was my only club and I did put 150% into it and it was insulting to think that someone who could careless (May) would be given a spot as a lawyer over someone who would give it her all (Anna) just for the basis of seniority. May was a senior and knew everyone on the club and Anna was just a sophomore whose only friend in the club coming into it was Alura.

Mr. Zu made it as fair as he possibly could by having us all email him who we think should be the final lawyer, and despite the fact that my submission was a really passionate argument that Anna should get the job over May, May won. It was not close. Just then, I had a sinking feeling in my gut that we would not climbing the hurdle into the second round. In my mind at the time, I was confident that had May been a witness and Anna been a lawyer, that would be the necessary recipe to get us to the next round. That elusive next round that we could never get to. This year was going to be our last chance to get in and I wanted it more than anything.

But there was a little hurdle that we needed to get over: The awkwardness of Alura and me. Now time had gone by and I had gotten over the physical crush of it, but I still liked emailing her and as you can imagine, being around her in person was very awkward. I could not pull myself together to say anything personal to her that was not mock trials related and Anna and I basically did nothing but endlessly throw verbal jabs at each other.

Now I know what you are thinking. Why on earth would I advocate her as a lawyer if all we did was make fun of each other? The answer is simple: We were easy targets for each other. She liked to call me ugly with different unique and various descriptions of my face, and she just had the personality that was easy to tease. I mean, for goodness sakes, Anna was the person who could not stop talking about how “hawt” Tom Riddle was in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Thus was the nature of our relationship. We would joke about each other constantly and yet when things turned serious, I was there for her and she was there for me, when she could not tell things to Alura.

Now Anna and Alura were best friends, but when she has a crush on someone that Alura cannot stand, there is a bit of a problem.. During the peak of our verbal jabs in December (according to Anna, my nose was less like a nose and more like a ball with a stick attached to it), I somewhat jokingly asked her if she had any boyfriends outside of her hot celebrity ones.

She admitted to liking someone who in turn only considers a friend (as it turns out this person, named Greg, would later be infatuated with wanting to get inside Anna’s pants). But at the time, Anna liked him, Greg just wanted to be friends, and there was an instance back from middle school where Alura developed a distaste of Greg that she had not yet let go of.

Anna told me she liked Greg in a private email and she wanted more than anything that I not tell anyone, including Alura. Now Alura had been dragged along in this conversation up to the point of her big reveal to me when I (privately) guessed right (she talked about Greg before to me). We needed to drag Alura along and we did just that. She acted like she was mad at me and I kept up the act of “aw, Anna has a crush, how cute” just for the sake of Alura not knowing.

Anna and I may constantly take verbal jabs at each other and make fun of each other, but when it came down to it, even if she was sometimes irritating, nothing would make me want to tell Alura or anyone else the things that Anna told me in private. Nothing. Or at least that’s what I thought.

***

Then the day came. Somehow we got on a random email conversation where we typed up skits role-playing everyone and what not. Yeah, it was as random and odd as it sounds. It was actually a good time though. I’m pretty sure we were all laughing with it and it was nice and fun. Sometimes our conversations got tense so this was a nice little relaxer.

But then that same day out of nowhere, an email from Anna’s account with the title “ALURA AND I HAVE A MESSAGE”.

Me and Alura pretty much don't like you. We've tried telling you nicely, but you don't seem to comprehend the fact that we hate you. Please don't make any attempt to contact us in the future, because we are not interested in associating with you. After today, Alura and I are permanently taking you off our contacts list, and this time, it will be final. We're sorry that it had to come to this, however, we have decided that there can be no other alternative. You leave us with no choice.
"We'll be loathing for forever, loathing, truly, deeply, loathing you our whole lives long"
-Anna and Alura

They had left me with a quote from Wicked, how thoughtful of them. I hate Wicked and that song is ear-piercingly dreadful.

But more to the point. I was not upset. I was not even angry. I just felt empty. There was something about this that was just different than everything else. Sure Anna had threatened this before with the whole debacle with Kait and Kelly, but it was never quite like that. Seemingly so carefully penned and so final. This wasn’t just a “moment of anger”.

I had been over my initial crush of Alura. And the more I thought about it, the more I wondered what was this about? Why? Why now? What the heck just happened? What did I miss? Things were going good, weren’t they? Look, if they wanted to go their separate ways with me, that’s fine, but could they at least elaborate on what the problem was. After thinking about it for a couple of hours, I replied to both Anna and Alura:

Why all of a sudden do you loathe me so much? Now granted, you never liked me, but this seems kind of odd and out of place, especially after we had a lot of fun yesterday with that conversation. If it's about Alura and my ex-liking of her, I'm over that. If you're still angry over the whole misunderstanding with Kait and Kelly, we're lab partners now and we're working on the trebuchet project together. And they asked me to join their group; I didn't barge in on them. If I said something that hurt your feelings that doesn't have anything to do with the above events, then I am deeply, truly, sorry from the bottom of my heart for anything I may have said or done that offended you. I was only trying to have some fun. I understand I can be annoying at times and I realize that. I'm sorry that you hate me and I wish it weren't true, but it is and I won't do anything to change your minds.

And if they didn’t reply to this, then maybe, just maybe, I would tell people about Anna liking Greg. Yeah, it would have been juicy enough to get a rise out of Anna and it would get Alura pissed at Anna their other friends pissed at Anna.

All I wanted was an answer. Just someone to say something. Minutes go by. Nothing. More minutes go by, still nothing. Finally after the longest hour and 13 minutes of my life, an email from Anna comes in.

Alura would not appreciate me answering, but all of a sudden i have a *gasp* conscience and I think I should have been a bit nicer to you.

Ann and Alura were over and decided to write a pretty nasty email to you. I'm sorry, really. Be prepared for an hour long email. So, I'll be honest, last year, I definitely didn't consider you my friend. It sounds mean and all, but you were just some kid from mock trials and I really didn't pay attention to you. When you liked Alura, she was more than a little creeped out and didn't really want to ever talk to you again but since she’s so nice, she couldn't say anything, and I being one of her best friends, didn't like you either by a sort of transitive property. We sorta stopped emailing as frequently, because she hoped you would get the picture and cool down, but we started emailing even more frequently, so she was frustrated. I was frustrated for her, because she was my friend, and obviously I was going through it too. So then this year, I don't know, but after summer, she came back with a worse impression of you than before. We sorta had time to dwell on stuff and she decided she hated you. Since I was still better friends with her than you, I went along with her. We definitely started being meaner, and kept sending you little hints, because we really didn't want to hurt your feelings and just come out and say that we didn't want to talk to you anymore. I personally would feel awful if I made you feel bad, no matter how much i go on about being evil and such, I have a small tiny part of my soul that's a bit nice to people at times and we figured that you'd get pissed off at us and just leave, but apparently you never took offense, or if you did, you hid it really well. Then today, we wrote this email, and then it got sent by some random chain of events and I don't know, but as soon as I sent it, I was like, oh crap what the hell did I just do? But it was a bit late to take it back, and I couldn't act like it was a lie. I don't hate you, and I think I can truly say I never did.

Yes, I think you're a bit annoying, but that's no real reason to hate someone. I don't think we should email anymore, not because I'm mad at you or I hate you, but just because of everything that's happened, I feel it would be unwise. I did enjoy the last few convos we had, and I hate to say goodbye like this, but I don’t really see a better choice. Don't tell Alura I sent this, she told me not to reply to you and don't tell people about Greg, please? And I will stop insulting you at every opportunity at mock trials, and we can start afresh, like acquaintances instead of enemies or best friends or anything. It was fun, I'm not planning on forgetting the first guy to ever like Alura anytime soon...

- Anna

For me, that was the most important email that Anna ever sent to me. It meant everything. Anna really did care. It put me at ease a bit.

Now a little background info, Ann was the bitchy and devious friend of Anna and Alura. She had never met me, but if there is one thing I know it’s this, hell hath no fury like a druggie Christian, Ann Coulter-look-a-like protecting her friends. I had a feeling Ann was the one behind this. It was just so out of character and so random that in my hour long reply, I just had to address it.

You don't know how much that means to me. :-)

Prepare for my hour long email:

This may sound weird, but I was suspicious of the email at first, because although the email came from you, it wasn't your sort of style of email as far as punctuation goes and all. Yes, it was obviously from your account and all, but unless it's in some sort of exclamation or something, you never use capital letters to start a sentence. If both emails are underneath, compare them. Your normal email (which is what you just sent) vs. the one you, Ann, and Alura sent earlier. So I knew something like that was up (I may not be as cultured in literature as you are but I'm fairly smart in others) and you weren't necessarily the one at the keyboard typing it. Also, I am guessing, that now that you mention a 3rd party (Ann) that she did most of the typing because Alura does what appears to look like single spaces after a period. This appears to have 2 spaces after a period.

I did sort of take offense to some of the things like I think the ugliniess carried on a bit much for my sense of humor, but I can laugh at myself and shrug it off. And besides, it wasn't like you sent that out of spite after a big argument like we had with Kait and Kelly, it was just random. Simply random and out of nowhere.

And I will do my part to try not to make fun of you as much (even if it is joking around). There's just something about you (maybe it's the fact you take it well) that's easy to joke around with. Sometimes jokes are warranted, but I'll try not to carry on and/or purposely say something that I know will aggravate you. That doesn't mean I'll stop completely though, I'll just try to lay off a little. And even though you never really considered me a friend (I already knew that part) I don't hate you and I always knew that you never really hated me. And yes, at times, you got on my nerves too and annoyed me a bit, but it's just you being you and if I take offense to that than I'm a no good jerk.

This isn't our goodbye. You're still going to mock trials, right? I'll see you then. I do agree though that maybe we should stop emailing for the time being so that way things don't seem uncomfortable for you like you're backstabbing Laura or something. Now if something mock trials related comes up (like that press release today) then yes I will send it out (to everyone on the team, including you and Laura) but other than that, I think we shouldn't email each other for the time being. You and Laura are best friends. I know that. I get that. I'm not out to change that. However, and I want you to know this. If you ever need something from me (like if it's Greg related or something) you can still come to me and I will be there for you to help you, to listen to whatever rant you may have, or whatever. And I guess I might as well be honest, the thought did come to me of telling about you and Greg. That did cross my mind. But now I will keep my mouth shut definitely. Whether I would or wouldn't have said something had you not emailed me back, I do not know. But now I most definitely won't tell anyone. I think a long break from emailing may be good for all of us, just to collect our thoughts and all. I will see you at our next meeting (the Tuesday after midterms). Thank you again for replying, seeing as I feared that you weren't going to reply as Alura planned. Whether you want me on or off your contacts list, it's up to you but you're still on my address list (you because you were honest with me and both of you because of mock trials).

Don't worry, Anna. Regardless of our future, I will never forget you, the best friend of my first crush. Well, seeing as I most likely won't talk to you again until after mid-terms: good luck on your midterms.

Sorry for the overbearing length of that email, I hope it wasn't too painful to read. Thanks again, Anna. And yes, I do forgive you and I'm not mad at you and I don't hate you at all.

Justin Feinberg

Anna replied:

We're staying in mock trials, if we leave now, it won’t make sense and plus, next year, we'll get to be lawyers, so of course we're gonna stay. I don't ever delete people from my contacts, I have my worst enemies on there, I just sorta trash their description in my contact info box, but i think it would be a good idea to not email as much anymore, except mock-trials related stuff. See you after midterms. Good luck on those. Better go and study!

I would go on to tell her about campaigning really hard for her to be a lawyer this year. She thanked me and was really receptive of the gesture (I had not told her that before). I was at peace with Anna.

But I wanted answers from Alura. I wanted her to talk to me as well. As you can imagine from Anna’s initial reply, Alura did not want anyone to reply and she made sure that she did not. I emailed her several times about it but she never sent anything back. I just wanted her to talk to me. I wanted her to talk to me and tell me why she hated me.

Seeing as she was ignoring emails, I only had one choice in the matter. I was going to have to confront her face-to-face. Mock trials practices were still going on and I was going to see her next Tuesday.

As the days ticked by, I got more and more nervous. It would be early Monday morning and my heart was pounding over the thought of it. I had needed to talk to her personally for the longest time, only I had always avoided it out of awkwardness, but now there was a necessity. I needed to hear from me. For my sanity’s sake, and frankly, because the way she hid behind Anna’s email account and Ann like that was cowardly. Talk to me face-to-face.

Yes, it’s a bit hypocritical on my part, but at least I could say my true feelings in an email without the help of others.

Tuesday comes. My heart is pounding harder than it’s ever been in my life. I arrive in the classroom before Alura did. I wait. My heart has not died down. I needed to talk to her and hear things from her mouth. You want to ignore the emails? Then you are going to have to face the truth right in front of you.

Alura walks in. She is wearing a sky blue sweater with blue jeans on, smiling, as always. I casually go up to her, pull her aside in private, and asked her what I needed to know:

“Alura, can we talk for five minutes?”

“No, I really can’t right now.”

“Come on. Just for 5 minutes.”

“No, I have to leave for help in chemistry.”

“Real quick.”

“No, I don’t have the time.”

“Why do you hate me, Alura?”

“I really can’t talk right now, I have to go see my teacher for chemistry help”, Alura replied. And just like that she took her chem notebook and walked out of the room. She was practically gone before I could get another word in edgewise.

Wow…..like you did not have that one planned out in advance. In defense of her, she did show up at mock trials for a minute just to set her stuff down and go get help in a class, but come on. Can’t it wait? 5 minutes? Please? For me?

It can’t. She does leave her bag there so I know she will be back and maybe, just maybe, I can finally have the conversation with her.

As we are practicing, Alura shows back up. At least she did not leave completely and maybe after the meeting, I can still get a chance to talk to her in private.

As the meeting goes along, I see her handwriting something on a piece of paper, showing it to Anna for some reason. And the instant I saw it I picked up what was going on. She’s going to take the coward’s way out AGAIN.

At the conclusion of the meeting, I get my bags ready to talk to Alura. Before I get a chance to go up to her, she comes up to me and hands me a folded up and crumpled up piece of paper with a handwritten note on it.

“I don’t hate you; I just never want to talk to you again”

Sometimes people are not who you initially thought they were. For me, Alura is one of those people.