MidReal Story
Jealousy's Deception: A Young Love's Resilience
Scenario: High school couple
Create my version of this story
Sarah Jennings
Emily's best friend and confidante, single and supportive of Emily and Jason, curly blonde hair, freckles, outgoing and humorous.
Emily Carter
high school student, in a relationship with Jason, long brown hair, green eyes, shy but resilient.
Jason Reed
high school student, Emily's boyfriend, short black hair, blue eyes, athletic build, protective and ambitious.
I was walking down the hall to my next class when I heard a group of girls whispering.
I tried to ignore them, but then I heard one of them say Jason’s name.
Jason Reed was my boyfriend, and he was also the most popular guy in school.
He was the quarterback of our football team, and he had girls throwing themselves at him all the time.
I’d been dating him for almost a year now, and I’d gotten used to all the attention he got from other girls.
But that didn’t mean I liked it.
I stopped walking and pretended to be looking for something in my bag so I could eavesdrop on their conversation.
“Did you hear what happened at the party last night?”
one of the girls asked.
“No, what?”
another girl replied.
“Jason Reed was totally flirting with that new girl from out of town,”
the first girl said.
“You mean Emily’s boyfriend?”
the second girl asked in shock.
“Yeah, I know,”
the first girl said with a laugh.
“I guess he’s not as into her as she thought.”
Tears pricked the back of my eyes, but I held them back and continued on my way to class.
I knew I shouldn’t listen to gossip, but I couldn’t help it.
I wanted to know more about what they were saying.
I tried to tell myself that it was all lies.
That Jason would never do anything to hurt me.
We’d been through so much together, and he’d always been there for me when I needed him.
He’d always told me that I was the only girl for him, and that he loved me more than anything in the world.
And I believed him.
I had to believe him.
If I didn’t, then what was the point of us being together?
When I got to my next class, I took a deep breath and tried to push the rumors out of my mind.
I had a test to take, and I needed to focus.
I took my seat and pulled out my notebook and a pencil, but I couldn’t get the image of Jason with another girl out of my head.
No matter how hard I tried.
I’d known that dating Jason would be hard when we first started going out last year, but I never imagined it would be this difficult.
All the girls in school were constantly trying to get his attention, and it drove me crazy sometimes.
But he always made me feel like I was the most important person in his life, and that he would do anything for me.
He always went out of his way to make sure that I felt special, and that he loved me more than anything else in the world.
Of course, that didn’t stop me from feeling insecure at times.
I knew that there were other girls who were prettier than me, and who were more popular than me too.
Girls who were better for him than I could ever be.
But Jason always told me that none of that mattered, and that he loved me just the way that I was.
And I believed him.
Even if it wasn’t always easy to do so.
I forced myself to concentrate on the test in front of me, but all I could think about was what those girls had said in the hallway.
It wasn’t like them to lie about something like that, even if they were just trying to cause trouble.
And it wasn’t the first time I’d heard someone say something like that either.
Over the past year, people had been trying to break us up for months now, and it was starting to take its toll on me.
I wanted to trust Jason with all my heart.
But it was hard when people kept telling me things like this all the time.
Things that made me wonder if he really did love me as much as he said he did.
Things that made me wonder if he was cheating on me behind my back.
She’s probably way prettier than Emily anyway.”
“Yeah, poor girl.”
I felt my eyes fill with tears as the girls continued to talk about me like I wasn’t even there.
I tried to stay strong, but it was hard when people kept saying things like that about me, especially when they were true.
I knew that I wasn’t the most beautiful girl in school, or the most popular either, but that didn’t mean I deserved to be treated like this.
I wiped away my tears and tried to focus on the test again, but it was no use.
I couldn’t stop thinking about Jason, and what he’d done to me this time.
He’d told me over and over again that he hadn’t done anything wrong, and that he loved me more than anything in the world, but a part of me couldn’t help but wonder if he was lying to me too.
If everything he’d ever said to me was just a big joke, and that he’d never really cared about me at all.
I shook my head as the tears started to fall again, and tried to concentrate on the questions in front of me one last time.
We met during our sophomore year, at a party our friend Sarah threw while her parents were out of town.
I was sitting alone on the stairs when he approached me and asked if I was okay.
He had the most gorgeous blue eyes I’d ever seen, and they took my breath away the moment he looked at me with them for the first time.
It was love at first sight, for both of us, or so I thought anyway.
We talked for hours after that, and by the end of the night, we were officially a couple.
He told me then that he loved me more than anything else in the world, and that he would do anything for me if it meant keeping me safe from harm.
And even though we hadn’t been together for very long, I believed him because I knew it was true.
I could feel it every time he held me in his arms, or told me that he loved me with all his heart, even when we were apart for days at a time because of football practice or games or whatever else he had going on at school.
He was always there for me when I needed him.
And he always made sure that I knew how much he loved and cared for me no matter what.
That’s why he’d done so many things for me over the past year to show how much he loved and cared for me.
He’d taken me out to dinner at some of the nicest restaurants in town, and bought me so many presents that it was hard to keep up with them all.
He’d even written poems for me, and helped decorate my locker and my bedroom when he asked me to be his girlfriend that first night.
And he’d done so many other things too over the past year that it was impossible to list them all here.
But even though he’d done so many things to show how much he loved and cared for me, part of me still couldn’t help but wonder if it was all just an act.
If everything he’d ever said and done for me was just a big joke to him that he played with all his girlfriends before he dumped them for someone else.
So after we sat there for a few minutes in silence while he held me in his arms and stroked my long brown hair, I finally asked him if he really loved me or not.
“Of course, I do,” he replied as he leaned down and kissed my forehead softly.
“You know that I do.I’ve told you that a million times before.”
“I know you have,” I answered as I looked up at him and met his gaze with mine.
“But sometimes people say things that they don’t really mean.”
“Are you talking about those gossip girls from earlier?”
he asked as he wiped away one of the tears that had slipped down from my eye earlier.
I nodded as another tear slipped down from my eye and landed on his hand.
“I told you before that they were lying,” he continued as he wiped away another tear from my other eye.
And then he leaned down again and gently kissed my lips before continuing.
“And even if they weren’t lying, it wouldn’t matter anyway because none of those girls mean anything to me like you do.”
“You mean that?”
“More than anything,” he replied as he leaned down one more time and kissed me again before he pulled me into another hug.
“I promise that I’ll never hurt you like they said I did.
You mean too much to me, Emily, even more than you know.”
And then he leaned down and kissed me again before he rested his forehead against mine as he continued to hold me in his arms.
I didn’t know what to say after that, so I just sat there in silence with him for a few minutes while he held me in his arms and stroked my hair again.
And even though I wanted to believe that he would never hurt me like those girls said, a small voice in the back of my mind told me that I couldn’t be so sure.
That I might be wrong about everything, and that I might be setting myself up for a big fall if I wasn’t careful with my heart.
So after we sat there for a few minutes in silence while I thought about everything that had happened over the past year, I finally looked up at him and decided to ask him something that had been bothering me for a while now.
“Jason,” I said as I looked up at him and met his gaze with mine again.
“Yes, baby?”
he answered as he looked down at me with a curious expression on his face.
He reached out and stroked my hair again as he waited for me to say more, and then he picked up one of his hands and placed it on my cheek before he wiped away another tear that had slipped down from my eye while I wasn’t paying attention.
“You mean so much to me,” I said as I looked back up at him again, “and you’ve done so many things for me over the past year that have made me so happy, but even though you’ve done all those things for me… I still can’t help but wonder if maybe you’re just trying to blind me with your love.”
“I’m not,” he replied immediately when he heard what I said.
“But how do you know?”
“我願意吃屎”
“I’m not sure,” I replied softly, “but sometimes that’s how it feels, and sometimes… sometimes, I wonder why you even want to be with someone like me in the first place.”
“Someone like you?”
He asked when he heard what I said.
And then a curious expression appeared on his face again.
“What do you mean, someone like you?”
“You know,” I replied hesitantly, “someone who’s not pretty, or smart, or popular like you are.”
“What are you talking about?”
he asked when he heard what I said, and then a pained expression appeared on his face when he realized what I was saying.
“Is that why you’ve been acting so weird around me all day?Because you don’t think you’re pretty or smart enough for me?”
“I am pretty enough for you,” I replied softly when I heard what he said.
“But I don’t know about anything else.”
“Emily,” he replied as he leaned down and kissed me again before he pulled away one more time so that he could look me in the eye.
“You are more than enough for me, okay?I don’t care about any of that other stuff.I don’t care about other girls or other boys or anything else.I only care about you, and how happy it makes me to be around you.And how lucky I am to have met you in the first place.
So please don’t ever say that again, okay?Because it’s not true.
You are perfect just the way you are, and there’s nothing more that I would ever want from you other than for you to keep being as amazing and wonderful as you already are.”
He reached out to stroke my hair again after that before he bent down to kiss me another time, and even though I could still hear the small voice in the back of my head telling me that he might be wrong, a part of me wanted to believe him anyway.
A part of me wanted to believe that he loved me, and only me, just like he said, and that everything would be okay if only I could find a way to trust him.
But even though I wanted to believe him, a part of me still couldn’t shake off that small voice in the back of my head.
The same voice that I had been hearing for my entire life, and that didn’t show any signs of leaving me in peace anytime soon.
The voice that had followed me all throughout high school, and last year, and middle school, and even elementary school if I was being honest with myself.
And even though I had tried to tell myself that things would be different, and that high school would be a new beginning for me, it hadn’t taken me long to realize that it hadn’t changed anything at all.
Not really, not when it came to my own personal insecurities, or my own personal demons, and especially not when it came to my own personal relationships.
And even though I had tried to push those things aside, and ignore them as best as I could, it only took one rumor to remind me of them and bring them back to life all over again.
One rumor to force me to admit to myself what I already knew deep down inside, but was still too afraid to put into words because I didn’t want to believe it.