"Author's Note: The following is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental ... Especially you Jenny Beckman ... Bitch"

So the other day, I finally watched, "500 Days of Summer" and I loved it because unlike those other happily-ever-after Disney movies, this movie showed how a relationship that seemed to be going so well, fell into a thousand miserable pieces; just like it does in real life. 

One of the most heartbreaking moments of the movie was when Summer remeets Tom at his favorite spot.  He asks her, "Why?"  (Why did she leave him?  Why did she say she didn't want to be in a relationship with anyone but is now married?  Why did she not have the courage to just tell him she had moved on with her life?  Why did she give him that last string of hope and then pull the rug from under?  Why did she have to be such a heartless biatch?)  And she replies, "I just knew with him what I wasn't sure with you."

And as much as I hated her, I loved her reply.

I really thought this friendship thing with Max could work but I have realized I was wrong.  Before I met Max, I was a lot like Tom.  I believed in all that love at first sight, the one, mushy romantic crap.  And then after Max left, I was an emotional wreck, crazy at times but mostly just dead inside.  A lot of people tried to comfort me with their "there's plenty of fishes in the sea," "it's his lost, not yours," etc.  But I knew the truth, how I felt about Max was something I would never feel about anyone else.

It's been a few year since Max broke up with me and in that two years, I've probably been interested in five men at most.  And it's not that I was even really interested in them; they, in some way or form, reminded me of Max and so I pushed myself to pursue something with them, in hopes that what Max and I had could be rekindle in a relationship with someone who was like him.

Max was "the one."  In my twenty-five years of life, I have never felt so much passion with anyone before.  Before Max, there were plenty of boys I liked but there was never someone I just had to get to know, someone I just had to be with; Max was different.  The moment I saw him, I just knew that he would be someone important in my life.  My feelings for Max were beyond passionate and I will always love him, whether I would like to or not. 

But here's the ugly truth, Max will never feel the same.  The passion I feel, the love I have, he will never understand or reciprocate.  Because if he did, we'd still be together, but we're not.  Much like Summer, Max will find someone who he will just know he is meant to be with, something he was never sure enough with me.

 I'm not trying to sound conceited; in fact, that's the last thing I want to come off as but it's gotten to the point where I want to say, would you like me better if I was overweight and hideous looking?

So today, my cousins, again, brought up the fact that their parents do not like me.  Ever since I was a little kid, I never understood their parent's hatred for me.  I had never done anything to offend them; I mean they lived five hundred miles away from me for almost as long as I could remember.  I grew up seeing them the occasionally Fourth of July family reunion and if we were lucky, Thanksgiving.  As we all got older, it was apparent that their parents greatly disapproved of me.  My cousin, Anna, was never allowed to spend the night at my house when their family came to visit and this greatly bothered me because Anna and I were close friends, closer friends than our other girl cousins but she, of course, was only allowed to sleep over at their house.  I was jealous but more importantly I was hurt that they never allowed her to sleep at my house.

When I turned sixteen or so, Anna confirmed my suspicious.  Her dad had told her to stay away from me because I was a "bad" girl.  I don't know what he considered bad; I dressed modestly, I got good grades, I worked and paid for what I wanted, and I did everything according to the book of "being a good girl". Anywho, recently, my younger cousins, Anna's brothers have been telling me that their mom has been telling them that they shouldn't be hanging out with me.  I feel like I'm a kid all over again, except this time, it's their mother who does not like me. 

So why am I so bothered by this? Because every time, Anna's parents don't want their kids to hang out with me they use lame excuses like, "She does naughty things," "She's promiscuous," "She's a slut," and a dozen more false accusations.  And the honest truth is, I'm not any of those.  Heck, there's a part of me that wishes those were true so that I wouldn't feel so bad for myself.

So today, when I heard it again for the billionth time, I was just sick of it.  So I shouted what they had been thinking all along, "IT'S NOT MY FAULT I'M PRETTY!!!"  And that was it.  That's the honest truth. 

Beautiful people shouldn't have to feel worthless by others just because they're beautiful.  And it sure isn't my fault that I'm pretty.  So I say, "Screw you!"  Well, I wouldn't say that to them because it's disrespectful but I sure am thinking it.  The next time they talk to me in their fake, caring voice, I'll smile pretty because I'm above all that garbage!

I use to have this amazing friend named Max.  Out of all my guy friends, Max was my favorite.  He was the most laid back, soft-spoken, in the background kind of guy while I'm the loud, fun, opinionated girl.  We realized that we could be the best of friends because unlike our mutual friends, we both were always the designated drivers or the ones who could quickly avoid a drink or shot without causing a scene.  There were many nights were him and I would end up in a room somewhere playing scrabble or mariokart or playing the tennis on the Wii going undetected for three or four hours until some intoxicated person would stumble in and say, "Hey, I've found them!"  Our favorite thing to do together was karaoke though; if the karaoke machine was available him and I would of course hog the mics because one, we were both amazing singers and two, intoxicated people just shouldn't sing.  During the day, instead of working, we would be at work texting each other the entire day  about anything and everything. Whenever our friends were going to do anything, he would text me or call and asked if I was planning to go because he didn't want to be there without me and vice versa.

Max and I had our chance to be something and what seemed to be going so right quickly took the wrong turn.  I see him sporadically now; sometimes we'll be in the recording studio together or sometimes we'll be at the same tournament or sometimes we'll bump into each other at the clubs but it's not like it use to be.  It's been almost a year since our unfateful day of realizing that we will never be anything more than friends but today when I saw him, the way he smiled at me, it made my heart skip a beat and my stomach turn over.  It was like that smile reminded me of all those other times he smiled at me, like I was the only girl he saw and wanted to see.  And I came home thinking about how much I miss him and how much I still like him.

And then I realized the ugly truth, I will always and forever be only his friend.