Posted: 5/20/11.

Dual Identity Chapter 12: Fall Apart

Summary: The Story According to Gwen

I hate the feeling of being left out of the loop. I don't know why I hate it, but it's always been that way. That doesn't mean I need to know everything. There is such a thing as privacy. But you can't hide the important things from people you care about. If you do, it means you didn't really care about them.

Maybe that's an unreasonable philosophy, but I'm not apologizing for it. That's how I feel. It's almost like a moral code...

Peter started avoiding me one day. It wasn't gradual; he just stopped contact completely. I didn't think anything of it at first because I assumed he was simply having a bad day. Except it kept going.

Something was wrong, but he wouldn't tell me what. He was losing sleep. I didn't need to talk to him to see it. I might have been jumping to conclusions, but he seemed angry at something.

I told myself to give him three days of space and that was my limit. At school on the fourth day I approached him and demanded an answer, calmly but sternly. He brushed me off - He was putting less effort into being polite lately. He only told me not to worry and he'd deal with it on his own.

He never said "it's nothing." He always told me "don't worry about it." He was admitting something was there, but stressing that it didn't concern me. ...How couldn't I be concerned?

Mary was concerned too. Sometimes I noticed them talking together. Not the "what's wrong" "it's nothing" routine Peter and I were doing. Those two were really talking, but about what I had no idea. As much as I hate secrets, I don't eavesdrop.

Though I did talk about it with Mary later. She confessed, she knew what was bothering Peter, but she couldn't break her confidence with him. Peter didn't want ANYONE to know and she only found out by accident. She apologized, I understood. I wanted Peter to be the one to tell me anyway.

I wasn't mad at Mary... but I was jealous. It didn't seem fair that she could know when Peter wouldn't tell his own girlfriend. For a brief moment, I thought they were dating - cheating on me. But they both denied it and I believe them both. And yet it didn't make me any less mad at the whole situation.

I didn't know Peter that well in the beginning. Before he asked me out, he was just a friend from school. Truth be told, I was only interested in him because I thought he was interested in me. I told myself, why not? But... I started to really like him. ...There was no specific reason or trait I was drawn to... I just liked him.

I feel a little silly saying this... we're only teenagers... but I started to think we were meant for each other. I hoped this would be a real relationship that lasted into adulthood. But then to see him suffer like that and shut me out... I became angry at him for not trusting me with whatever truth he was hiding.

I knew it was personal... It might even have been shameful for Peter... I knew I probably couldn't help, whatever it was... He might even have been trying to protect me. But I couldn't ignore the feeling that people in love should be able to tell each other anything.

I was being demanding and unreasonable, but I couldn't deny my feelings.

So I went to Peter and demanded one last time, angrier than I should have been.

"I get that you don't want to talk about it - I GET it. But we can't really be 'together' if you keep shutting me out!"

Peter's tired expression turned grave. He slowly lowered his face.

"...Then I guess we can't be together," he said at last.

Neither of us really wanted that. I regretted ever pushing him to talk, but I was too angry and self-righteous to withdraw my ultimatum.

Thus, my first boyfriend and I broke up.

Mary heard. She tried to console me - she also wanted Peter to open up to me and kept saying he was in the wrong for not doing that - but I kind of shrugged the whole thing off. I thought it would be easier to get over a breakup if I treated it like it wasn't a big deal.

I tried to stop thinking about Peter's problem. It was okay to be out of the loop now, because I wasn't involved anymore.

At least... that's what I told myself.