By the time I arrived back at Miranda's house, it was eight, and I
was a mess. I was soaked from head to toe with rain, crying my eyes out,
and I was hungry and tired and most of all, brokenhearted. I wanted to
crawl into Miranda's bed and hide under the covers and never come out, not
for anyone or anything. I felt so horrible, I was sure that nothing could
ever make me feel better ever again.
I rang Miranda's doorbell, hoping that she and her family hadn't decided to go anywhere while I was gone, thinking that I would be at Gordo's. Fortunately, a moment later, the door opened and Miranda appeared. Seeing immediately how disheveled I looked, she ushered me inside with a concerned motherly expression on her face.
Without asking me any questions and without a word to her parents, silently she lead me up to her bedroom. She took out my favorite ducky pajamas from my suitcase and handed them to me.
"Go and change, and I'll be right here waiting for you when you come out, okay?" she said gently, in a way that made me want to do nothing other than to follow her directions.
When I came out, dry and changed, Miranda was still standing there, waiting for me like she promised. She took action right away. She had known me for so long and so well that I didn't need to tell her how upset I was for her to automatically know. I knew that even though I hadn't said anything to her in the fifteen minutes I'd been back at her house, already she could tell how hurt I was and that it had to have something to do with Gordo.
We sat down on her bed, and Miranda looked right at me. "Do you want to tell me what happened, or are you not ready to talk about it yet?"
She understood. Finally, someone in the world that understood my crazy, mixed up emotions! She knew without asking me to explain that talking about what had happened would make it all the more real, like peeling the Band-Aid away and leaving the wound open to infection. Talking would be like letting my guard down, opening myself up to all the hurt and pain that would undoubtedly flood over me.
I knew that whether or not I was ready to talk about it yet, talking about it would help. It would make me feel better, and if I needed to talk about the situation in the future it would be good if someone knew the background information without having to force myself into explaining all over again, if by then the pain was completely gone.
"It all started when I left your house and went to the Digital Bean," I bravely began, taking a deep breath and swallowing hard to turn back the tears that I could already feel coming on. "I went to get us smoothies, I mean, me and Gordo us, because he was sick, you know? I thought it would make him feel better when I went to visit him. Well, I bought the smoothies and there was Ethan, and he looked really upset, like he was having a problem. So I asked him what was wrong, and he told me that he might have to move away before the summer's over, and it's up to him to decide if he's going to move or not."
I took another deep breath and then continued. "Um, and, anyway, I thought that he could use someone to talk to for a few minutes, so I sat down with him and tried to help him sort out his problems. I mean, I know I'm with Gordo now, or was with Gordo, but... Ethan's my friend, whether I feel that way about him or not. So when we were done talking a few minutes later, we stood up and he gave me a hug to thank me. And that was when..." I had to stop for a minute to wipe a budding tear away that was about to slide down my cheek.
"That was when I turned to see Gordo standing by the door. He saw us hugging, and he thought...he thought that...we were together. So he started running away from me, and he wouldn't stop. I tried calling after him, but he didn't answer, and then before I could do anything, he was gone. So I started walking. I was walking and I didn't know where I was going until....until awhile after I started walking. I don't know if you can understand that, but that's what I was doing."
"I completely understand that," Miranda said truthfully, nodding. "You remember... back when I was having that, um, eating problem? After you tried talking to me at the mall, I did that a lot. I think that's what made me figure things out, you know?"
I nodded. "That makes a lot of sense to me. But anyway, I was walking, and I thought that the best person to help me decide what to do was Kate, because she seems to know all the right things to do about Gordo... and she said something that really changed my mind. I decided to go after him. And I did, and then it started to rain, but I didn't care. When I got to his house, no one was home, so I sat down on the front porch to wait out the rain, and see if he got home while I was there waiting. Well, they got home, and then as soon as Gordo got out of the car, another girl did too...and I think they were together. Together together. So I took off. I left. I can't believe he'd do something like that to me, Miranda."
Miranda just nodded, and from the look on her face I could tell that she felt true sympathy for me, not pity, the only kind a good friend can feel. "I think you might need some time to yourself, Lizzie," she decided quickly. "I'll go downstairs for awhile and let you think alone, okay? Unless, of course, you don't want to be alone. In that case, I can stay."
"No, you have a good idea," I agreed. "Maybe some time alone to think might be good for me, you know? Thanks, though, Miranda....you... you're a really good friend. My best friend."
Miranda left and I layed down on my side on her bed, my back to the door. I stared at the wall blankly. I was feeling a bunch of different emotions all at once and I didn't know which one to start with, which one I was feeling the most....which one was the one causing me all of this pain. Fear? Jealousy? Absolute pain? Heart ache? Lonliness?
I sighed, my heart heavy. I couldn't remember the last time I felt this awful. I didn't think I ever had. Was this how Gordo felt when he saw me and Ethan together at the Digital Bean? If it was, then I understood why he left, without giving me any chance to explain. If it was...how I felt when he walked out on me must be how he's feeling right now. Because didn't I do to him exactly what he did to me? Didn't I just walk out on him without knowing for sure that what he was doing was wrong?
But if he was trying to get back at me by being with that girl because he thought I was with Ethan... well, that was unforgivable. What if he was guilty? What if that was the reason he was looking at me like that? My body was shaking with anger toward Gordo. That little...trying to make me feel bad and then turing around and being with that other girl? I am so much prettier than she is.
"Lizzie, I wouldn't be surprised if Gordo said he loved you." Kate's words echoed painfully loudly through my head. "Said he loved you. Said he loved you. He loved you. Loved you. Loved. You."
That was a lie. If he loved me, why would he hurt me this way, in the worst way possible?
No. That was all wrong. Deep inside, I knew that Gordo could never do anything like that to me....because I knew his heart and always had. It all lead right back to me.... this was all my fault and I knew it. If I hadn't given in to talking to Ethan, maybe none of this would have ever happened. Maybe I would have been spared all of this hurt and all of this pain. There were too many maybes and what ifs to even begin to think about.... too many what could have beens.
This is all your fault, Lizzie. All of this is because of you. You deserve to be in all of this pain because of one tiny choice you made today, one tiny choice that changed your life. One. Tiny. Choice. Your fault, all your fault. All. Your. Fault. You are in pain and it is all your own doing. You should have made Gordo top priority. Instead, you stopped to help a friend, just a friend. Not a best friend, not even a close friend, just a friend. He had a problem, but he was a capable person who could have handled his own problems because of that all on his own.
Stupid, stupid, stupid, Lizzie. You never deserved a boyfriend. You were a bad girlfriend. You always have been. You were embarrassed by Larry. You weren't good enough for Ronnie. You couldn't handle the fame that came with dating Frankie, which he couldn't help. You were a terrible girlfriend to each of them, and they were all perfectly good guys. Well, except for Larry, maybe, but still. And now I'd managed to get a great guy, possibly the best one I'll ever get in my entire life, and look what I'd done. What was wrong with me?
Everybody's talking But they don't say a think They look at me with sad eyes But I don't want their sympathy It's cool you didn't want me Sometimes you can't go back. But why'd you have to go and Make a mess like that? Now I just have to say
Before I let go
Good going, Lizzie. You just threw away the best relationship you'll ever have for maybe the rest of your life. You let go the one guy in the entire universe who loves you more than he loves himself, the one guy who would literally probably die for you, the one guy who would give anything in a minute to ensure your happiness. You don't just find a guy like that on the street every day, you know. Guys like Gordo are very hard to come by.
Have you ever been low Have you ever had a friend That let you down so When the truth came out Were you the last to know Were you left out in the cold Cause what you did was low
He's known you all your life. He knows you better than anyone, he knows your past and wants to be there for your future. Even your parents and Miranda don't understand you as well as he does. You've built a stable relationshipo with him... you've built trust with him. Now, in a single instant, you've destroyed all of it. All of it! And it's all your fault. All. Your. Fault.
No I don't need your number There's nothing left to say Except I never thought it'd hurt That much to be safe My friends are outside waiting I've gotta go
Gordo was a great guy all right, the perfect one for you, maybe. But you know there is no doubt that once school starts up and girls start tiring of the short, meaningless relationships with boys they've grown accustomed to, they'll all be looking for something more. They'd discover Gordo as the great guy you've always known he was, and then there will be girls lining up at his door to go out with him. You never deserved Gordo, Lizzie. He was always out of your league, way too good for you. You never deserved him. Never.
Have you ever been low Have you ever had a friend That let you down so When the truth came out Were you the last to know Were you left out in the cold
Cause what you did was low
My head was starting to hurt, and my eyes began to burn. I was so sick of being me, stupid Lizzie McGuire. who can't ever be a halfway decent person. Somehow I always manage to come up short. I'm not as popular and skinny and pretty as Kate. I'm not fun or interesting like Miranda. I'm nowhere near as smart as Gordo. I replicate every other teenage shegeek in America. And who's fault was it? All. My. Fault.
I walk out of this darkness With no sense of regret And I have a clear conscience We both know that you can't say that So here's to show For all the time I loved you so So
I leaned back against Miranda's pillow, the case wet from my tears and soaking hair. Slowly, I let myself drift off to sleep, with more pain in my heart than I ever thought I could bear alone.
Have you ever been low Have you ever had a friend That let you down so When the truth came out Were you the last to know Were you left out in the cold Cause what you did was low
I rang Miranda's doorbell, hoping that she and her family hadn't decided to go anywhere while I was gone, thinking that I would be at Gordo's. Fortunately, a moment later, the door opened and Miranda appeared. Seeing immediately how disheveled I looked, she ushered me inside with a concerned motherly expression on her face.
Without asking me any questions and without a word to her parents, silently she lead me up to her bedroom. She took out my favorite ducky pajamas from my suitcase and handed them to me.
"Go and change, and I'll be right here waiting for you when you come out, okay?" she said gently, in a way that made me want to do nothing other than to follow her directions.
When I came out, dry and changed, Miranda was still standing there, waiting for me like she promised. She took action right away. She had known me for so long and so well that I didn't need to tell her how upset I was for her to automatically know. I knew that even though I hadn't said anything to her in the fifteen minutes I'd been back at her house, already she could tell how hurt I was and that it had to have something to do with Gordo.
We sat down on her bed, and Miranda looked right at me. "Do you want to tell me what happened, or are you not ready to talk about it yet?"
She understood. Finally, someone in the world that understood my crazy, mixed up emotions! She knew without asking me to explain that talking about what had happened would make it all the more real, like peeling the Band-Aid away and leaving the wound open to infection. Talking would be like letting my guard down, opening myself up to all the hurt and pain that would undoubtedly flood over me.
I knew that whether or not I was ready to talk about it yet, talking about it would help. It would make me feel better, and if I needed to talk about the situation in the future it would be good if someone knew the background information without having to force myself into explaining all over again, if by then the pain was completely gone.
"It all started when I left your house and went to the Digital Bean," I bravely began, taking a deep breath and swallowing hard to turn back the tears that I could already feel coming on. "I went to get us smoothies, I mean, me and Gordo us, because he was sick, you know? I thought it would make him feel better when I went to visit him. Well, I bought the smoothies and there was Ethan, and he looked really upset, like he was having a problem. So I asked him what was wrong, and he told me that he might have to move away before the summer's over, and it's up to him to decide if he's going to move or not."
I took another deep breath and then continued. "Um, and, anyway, I thought that he could use someone to talk to for a few minutes, so I sat down with him and tried to help him sort out his problems. I mean, I know I'm with Gordo now, or was with Gordo, but... Ethan's my friend, whether I feel that way about him or not. So when we were done talking a few minutes later, we stood up and he gave me a hug to thank me. And that was when..." I had to stop for a minute to wipe a budding tear away that was about to slide down my cheek.
"That was when I turned to see Gordo standing by the door. He saw us hugging, and he thought...he thought that...we were together. So he started running away from me, and he wouldn't stop. I tried calling after him, but he didn't answer, and then before I could do anything, he was gone. So I started walking. I was walking and I didn't know where I was going until....until awhile after I started walking. I don't know if you can understand that, but that's what I was doing."
"I completely understand that," Miranda said truthfully, nodding. "You remember... back when I was having that, um, eating problem? After you tried talking to me at the mall, I did that a lot. I think that's what made me figure things out, you know?"
I nodded. "That makes a lot of sense to me. But anyway, I was walking, and I thought that the best person to help me decide what to do was Kate, because she seems to know all the right things to do about Gordo... and she said something that really changed my mind. I decided to go after him. And I did, and then it started to rain, but I didn't care. When I got to his house, no one was home, so I sat down on the front porch to wait out the rain, and see if he got home while I was there waiting. Well, they got home, and then as soon as Gordo got out of the car, another girl did too...and I think they were together. Together together. So I took off. I left. I can't believe he'd do something like that to me, Miranda."
Miranda just nodded, and from the look on her face I could tell that she felt true sympathy for me, not pity, the only kind a good friend can feel. "I think you might need some time to yourself, Lizzie," she decided quickly. "I'll go downstairs for awhile and let you think alone, okay? Unless, of course, you don't want to be alone. In that case, I can stay."
"No, you have a good idea," I agreed. "Maybe some time alone to think might be good for me, you know? Thanks, though, Miranda....you... you're a really good friend. My best friend."
Miranda left and I layed down on my side on her bed, my back to the door. I stared at the wall blankly. I was feeling a bunch of different emotions all at once and I didn't know which one to start with, which one I was feeling the most....which one was the one causing me all of this pain. Fear? Jealousy? Absolute pain? Heart ache? Lonliness?
I sighed, my heart heavy. I couldn't remember the last time I felt this awful. I didn't think I ever had. Was this how Gordo felt when he saw me and Ethan together at the Digital Bean? If it was, then I understood why he left, without giving me any chance to explain. If it was...how I felt when he walked out on me must be how he's feeling right now. Because didn't I do to him exactly what he did to me? Didn't I just walk out on him without knowing for sure that what he was doing was wrong?
But if he was trying to get back at me by being with that girl because he thought I was with Ethan... well, that was unforgivable. What if he was guilty? What if that was the reason he was looking at me like that? My body was shaking with anger toward Gordo. That little...trying to make me feel bad and then turing around and being with that other girl? I am so much prettier than she is.
"Lizzie, I wouldn't be surprised if Gordo said he loved you." Kate's words echoed painfully loudly through my head. "Said he loved you. Said he loved you. He loved you. Loved you. Loved. You."
That was a lie. If he loved me, why would he hurt me this way, in the worst way possible?
No. That was all wrong. Deep inside, I knew that Gordo could never do anything like that to me....because I knew his heart and always had. It all lead right back to me.... this was all my fault and I knew it. If I hadn't given in to talking to Ethan, maybe none of this would have ever happened. Maybe I would have been spared all of this hurt and all of this pain. There were too many maybes and what ifs to even begin to think about.... too many what could have beens.
This is all your fault, Lizzie. All of this is because of you. You deserve to be in all of this pain because of one tiny choice you made today, one tiny choice that changed your life. One. Tiny. Choice. Your fault, all your fault. All. Your. Fault. You are in pain and it is all your own doing. You should have made Gordo top priority. Instead, you stopped to help a friend, just a friend. Not a best friend, not even a close friend, just a friend. He had a problem, but he was a capable person who could have handled his own problems because of that all on his own.
Stupid, stupid, stupid, Lizzie. You never deserved a boyfriend. You were a bad girlfriend. You always have been. You were embarrassed by Larry. You weren't good enough for Ronnie. You couldn't handle the fame that came with dating Frankie, which he couldn't help. You were a terrible girlfriend to each of them, and they were all perfectly good guys. Well, except for Larry, maybe, but still. And now I'd managed to get a great guy, possibly the best one I'll ever get in my entire life, and look what I'd done. What was wrong with me?
Everybody's talking But they don't say a think They look at me with sad eyes But I don't want their sympathy It's cool you didn't want me Sometimes you can't go back. But why'd you have to go and Make a mess like that? Now I just have to say
Before I let go
Good going, Lizzie. You just threw away the best relationship you'll ever have for maybe the rest of your life. You let go the one guy in the entire universe who loves you more than he loves himself, the one guy who would literally probably die for you, the one guy who would give anything in a minute to ensure your happiness. You don't just find a guy like that on the street every day, you know. Guys like Gordo are very hard to come by.
Have you ever been low Have you ever had a friend That let you down so When the truth came out Were you the last to know Were you left out in the cold Cause what you did was low
He's known you all your life. He knows you better than anyone, he knows your past and wants to be there for your future. Even your parents and Miranda don't understand you as well as he does. You've built a stable relationshipo with him... you've built trust with him. Now, in a single instant, you've destroyed all of it. All of it! And it's all your fault. All. Your. Fault.
No I don't need your number There's nothing left to say Except I never thought it'd hurt That much to be safe My friends are outside waiting I've gotta go
Gordo was a great guy all right, the perfect one for you, maybe. But you know there is no doubt that once school starts up and girls start tiring of the short, meaningless relationships with boys they've grown accustomed to, they'll all be looking for something more. They'd discover Gordo as the great guy you've always known he was, and then there will be girls lining up at his door to go out with him. You never deserved Gordo, Lizzie. He was always out of your league, way too good for you. You never deserved him. Never.
Have you ever been low Have you ever had a friend That let you down so When the truth came out Were you the last to know Were you left out in the cold
Cause what you did was low
My head was starting to hurt, and my eyes began to burn. I was so sick of being me, stupid Lizzie McGuire. who can't ever be a halfway decent person. Somehow I always manage to come up short. I'm not as popular and skinny and pretty as Kate. I'm not fun or interesting like Miranda. I'm nowhere near as smart as Gordo. I replicate every other teenage shegeek in America. And who's fault was it? All. My. Fault.
I walk out of this darkness With no sense of regret And I have a clear conscience We both know that you can't say that So here's to show For all the time I loved you so So
I leaned back against Miranda's pillow, the case wet from my tears and soaking hair. Slowly, I let myself drift off to sleep, with more pain in my heart than I ever thought I could bear alone.
Have you ever been low Have you ever had a friend That let you down so When the truth came out Were you the last to know Were you left out in the cold Cause what you did was low