Rachel Pelayo

'Splendor in the Grass'

Dear Diary, I am utterly confused. I don't know what to do or what to say. My mind feels like a cluster of white noise. My life has felt like it has gotten crazier since the day I started high school. I had gone through these years invisible until the day I was introduced to Bud Stamper. I was a nobody before him. I did everything blanketed by the beige paint that hugged these walls. Bud wasn't so easily hidden. He would walk into a room and everyone would look because he was like a god that roamed these halls in his free time. I felt insecure by this because I soon began to feel like my social status was determined by his. It was as if I wouldn't make it in life without riding his coattails. I wasn't "nobody" anymore, but I wasn't the person I wanted to be either. I didn't want to be just the girlfriend. I didn't want to be the prize hanging off his arm who wouldn't speak unless spoken to first. I grew tired of the endless gossip that fills these halls but I should have expected the all the rumors that flew around the school. But I didn't, not until they came my way. The whispers I pretended I couldn't hear become so unbearably loud sometimes. I could swear they were trying to tunnel themselves into my ears. Bud never seemed to mind them which didn't help my paranoia. I could never talk to him; at least, not about the things I wish to clear my thoughts about. He would never listen to the concerns I voiced to him. He may have heard the words but that doesn't mean he acknowledged them. It felt like he wasn't with me half the time we were together. My words always fell on deaf ears to only be brushed away into the nothingness around us. He decided when there was to be a conversation and when we were to say nothing in each other's presence. I had grown tired of the kissing. It was maybe the only thing we did when words couldn't be found. It soon changed and no longer felt the same. At first, they were sweet and gentle, but they turned desperate and hungry quite quickly. I couldn't keep up although I did try. The sparks, the thousands of fireworks that blossomed behind my closed eyelids also left me in the darkness to be consumed by the desperate grasps and uncertainty of a teenage boy I thought I knew. I didn't want it to be true. I thought I was in love with Bud. I thought we shared that love. That our hearts would have beat as one forever and always. I thought he would be all I needed and that he would keep my heart safe because it would be beating right next to his. But it didn't turn out that way no matter how hard I tried and wanted it to. I wanted it to so desperately end with a fairytale ending. I wanted all of my dreams to collide into a beautiful future with him but it didn't turn out that way. It turned out to not be the love I thought it was. He became someone I couldn't recognize. I didn't know what his touch felt like and I couldn't quite visualize the slope of his lips. He was no longer the person I fell in love with and there is nothing I can do about it. I can't change him. I can't mold him into something he isn't. If only life was easier on us in those moments. If only we could still love one another the way I thought we did. I pray one day I'll find all my answers to my unanswered questions. Maybe one day I will hear the name Bud Stamper and I won't cringe from the pain it brings back to me. One day I'll find love again. Maybe not right away, but I can wait. I still must let my heart heal from the damages it has endured. But when broken pieces can merge as one and you can no longer see where it split in two I find love. A love I know I'm worthy of. One day.