Student
Mr. Maite
Honors English 9
4 May 2001
Don’t Need This
Well, Sofie and I broke up. I
was the one who did it and I feel like a miserable loser. So kill me,
what can I say? There was just something too painful about staying
together, like my heart was a muscle that got exercised too much and it turned
sore and tender. When we started seeing
each other last spring, it all seemed to great. Then boom, everything
changed. This guy, an older boyfriend of Sofie's named Jason, came back home
from college, and from that point on I never felt like I was the only
one. Sofie just liked him so much that it showed. She changed when
he was around. She burned a little brighter, her eyes opened a little wider.
But she said she and Jason were history,
so I tried to hang in there, I really did. I tried to be the understanding
boyfriend. I put up with his long phone calls to her when I was at her
house, the too frequent visits, and Sofie's occasional mention of just how perfectly,
awesomely great this guy was. So... I cracked. I told her that this
stuff was getting to me, but she blew it off. How could I think that when
I was her boyfriend? she said. After all we'd been through, didn't I
trust her yet? Then she'd kiss me really sweetly to wipe away my fears. But
sometimes it was hard for me to believe that Sofie wasn't just torturing
me. Once in the park, we ran into Caitlyn, a friend of Sofie's who hadn't
seen her in a while. Sofie did the intros, but then it was like I dropped
into a swamp while they caught up.
"So how's Jason?"
Caitlyn asked.
"He's really
great," said Sofie. "He's decided to change his major
back to liberal arts. He thought that business was too confining."
"Yeah, and he's always loved
the romantic poets... He should be an english professor..."
Hello! I mean, couldn't anybody see
me there with my face and neck on fire? I didn't say a word, and it just
went on and on: Jason's car, Jason's job, Jason's brother, Then all of
the sudden, I cleared my throat really loudly. They both turned and
looked at me, and then Sofie made her little joke. "Caitlyn, I think we have to stop talking about Jason,"
she said. "It gets Darin upset." Bad enough that she would say
that, right? But then they both giggled like I was a little child who's sensitive
feelings had to be protected from the truth.
My friend, Austin, had told
me his rule on when to break up with a girl: "If the two of you
together, turns you into something you're not," he said, "you're
better off being yourself- even if it's by yourself." All summer, it
seemed, I had been becoming someone different- awful, mean, someone I didn't
like: the jealous boyfriend.
I broke up with Sofie the next
day. I'm outta here. Done. Very clean, I thought. Go back to
Jason, you seem to care for him a lot. I'll be okay. Best of luck.
Hasta la vista. The thing about breaking up, though, is that it's just as
bad to be the dumper as it is to be the one dumped. I didn't break up
with her because I fell out of love with her. I was breaking up with her
because I liked her too much and felt I'd never get her all to myself.
So for the last couple of weeks I
went home every night. I stared at the phone and looked at the key ring
from Six Flags and the ticket stubs of all the movies. I put the t-shirts
and her Garfield and all her other things in a box and left it outside the back
of her house one day when I knew nobody was home. A box filled with
Sofie's momentos arrived without a word the next day. So it was
official. I was sad. This whole time I was picturing Sofie and Jason, together
again. So I was shocked when I saw Sofie buying school clothes at the
mall, walking hand in hand with some guy I had never even seen before. I sort
of trailed them for a while, then finally got up the nerve to go up and say
hello. Sofie seemed really pleased to see me. She gave me this big hug
and couldn't seem to take her eyes from me while we talked. Actually, it
didn't seem much more than a minute, and then I heard a voice from my right.
"So you're Darin,"
it said. "I've heard a lot about you."