Jolly Jefferson #1

“Why is it that we don't always recognize when love begins, but we always know exactly when it ends?” – Steve Martin as Harris Telemacher, L.A. Story

“Let’s make a burn box!”

That was my friend Sherry. She’s my best friend, and that was her solution whenever she broke up with a guy. So now that James and I had broken up, she was suggesting the same thing.

“I don’t know, Sherry. I kinda like some of this stuff….”

“What’s to like?” she insisted. “He’s a jerk. Trust me. You burn all the crap he gave you, anything associated with him, you’ll feel WAY better.”

I looked around my room. Everything reminded me of James. We had spent so much time here. We had shared our first time here. I couldn’t see anything without thinking of him. And the pictures….They were all over my room. They were all over my Facebook page.

Looking back at them, they seemed like a lie. They showed smiling faces and numerous kisses. They showed a great time at Winter Formal. They didn’t show the huge fight we got in that night, because James and a bunch of his frat buddies decided to get plastered.

They showed a tearful reunion at the local airport after coming back from our first Christmas apart. It didn’t show the fact that he’d cheated on me with his ex when he was at home.

Looking around the room, I saw all these photos of this happy girl and her perfect boyfriend. And I realized now, she didn’t exist. She never had. Oh, I’d thought I was happy at the time. And certainly, anyone coming into my room would assume I was. But was I really? I think, deep down, I always knew. We fought constantly. When I wanted to spend time with him, he’d accuse me of smothering him. We’d fight about the stupidest shit.

And here was this girl with my face, with an idiotic grin on it, looking like she was living some storybook romance.

And the worst part was, I wished it was true. I would give anything for those moments to be the only true moments. Because the fact of the matter is, when those pictures were taken, I was happy. If I could have lived only those moments captured in the photos, I’d have been the happy-go-lucky girl who smiled back at me. I wanted it back so badly.

I turned back to Sherry.

“Burn it,” I said. “Burn it all.”