Today started pretty normal. I got up, had breakfast, and went to work. When I get to work, I have a system that I always fallow. While I’m doing the daily downloads, I check my email, Facebook and Instagram. Nothing out of the usual, as I checked my email and deleted junk mail. Nothing out of the ordinary as I checked Facebook and read the local gossip on my towns official page. And then I got on Instagram. I don’t have Instagram on my phone, and I really only check it for one reason. To look up Jenna Goode everyday. And everyday that I check her, I hold my breath ready for the punch in the gut that will surely come. And today it was a much harder punch than usual. Today I got on to see that Jenna Goode has announced that she is engaged to the boy that I have been in love with since I was 18 years old.
I have never met Jenna Goode, but I hate her. To understand, we have to go back almost four years exactly. When I was 18, my little sister and I went to a concert. At this concert we met two boys. Parker Green and Jace Larson. They were funny, and cute, and pretty much everything you could imagine in your dream boy you meet at a concert. The whole night was amazing, we danced with them and laughed and I fell completely in love with Parker. Everything about him encompassed what I wanted and I couldn’t stop thinking about him. We friended each other on Facebook and kept in touch through posts. That summer he got called on his mission and left, so I kept up with how he was doing on the blog where his mom would post his emails.
At the time, I was working at a UPS store and one day a women came in sending a package to the same place he was serving his mission. I, of course, looked at addresses, not names when I was at work, so seeing the address, I said ‘I know a boy serving his mission here’ she replied with an excited ‘you do?’ I nodded and said ‘his name is Parker Green’ ‘that’s my nephew!’ she exclaimed. I looked down at the name and realized I was holding a package for the one and only Parker Green, coming to him from his aunt. I couldn’t believe the coincidence. What a small world, Parker lived more than hour away from here, and yet here was this connection. His aunt continued to come in and give me updates on Parker, and I can’t lie, I started to feel like this was some sort of sign. Parker and I were meant to be together and the universe was pulling us together with small connections like this.
When Parker got home two years later, we were both at school in the same city. Different schools, but same vicinity. The first time I saw Parker after his mission was at the exact same place I had seen him the very first time. The same concert venue where we had met almost exactly three years before. My heart stopped. I couldn’t think of what to say to him all I knew was that I had to say something and then….. I saw he had a girl with him. I froze. Every insecurity I had come rushing to the surface. This girl he was with was tall, and blonde, and fit, and beautiful. I still remember what she was wearing. A white shirt. I have never in my life been able to pull off a white shirt and here is this beautiful girl, with my dream guy, pulling off a white shirt. I couldn’t talk to him. The only interaction we had was when I tried to pretend to take a picture of my friend that was actually a picture of him to send to my sister. He asked if he was in the picture, because he had got blasted with the flash. So many things could have happened in that moment. I could have not been an idiot for once in my life and jumped into a conversation. But instead I mumble something like ‘only a little’. Oh, what I would give to have that day back.
Parker and I continued to see each other all over the place. Once again, I felt like the universe was pulling us together. But, Parker was always dating. I was friends with him on Facebook, so I saw it every time a girl he went out with posted a picture from their dates. Every girl he went out with was so much….. MORE than me. My insecurities rendered me useless and I found myself hiding from his gaze every time we were in the same vicinity. I wanted so badly for something to happen between us, and yet I felt like I was stopping myself from getting anywhere.
After Christmas I moved home. I was so poor and I had no choice. Not long after I had moved home, did a new girl post a picture with Parker. Every time a girl posted with him the knot in my stomach got a little tighter, but so far no one had posted twice with him which gave me hope. I looked at the picture, and once again felt like it was a sign, because their picture was in the exact same place I had been that very night. We must have just missed each other, and I felt the universe again. But then about a month later, another picture was posted. All of sudden Jenna Goode didn’t seem like no big deal anymore. Slowly, more pictures got posted. Parker changed his profile picture to one of the two of them together. I found Jenna’s Instagram and felt sick with what I saw. Almost every picture was her and Parker. All I could do was watch as this girl and my guy got more and more serious. I would find myself panicking, trying to think of someway to stop it. Other days I told myself that I was over him, and it didn’t matter who he was with. Some days I told myself I hated him, because he was the dumb one to not go after me. One day, I deleted him as a friend on Facebook, thinking that if I wasn’t seeing updates on his life, I wouldn’t think about him. I was wrong obviously. I have dreams about him all the time. Once, when I told myself I was completely over him, and that I liked someone else, I had a dream about him. I was with the boy I liked and he had told me that he liked me. We where getting ready to leave, when Parker showed up. He looked at me and said ‘I love you’ and without even a second thought, I left the other boy behind to be with Parker. When I woke up, I realized that no matter what I told myself, or if I was dating someone else, if Parker said he wanted me, I would choose him.
I check Jenna’s Instagram everyday, and I’ve know for awhile now it was coming, I knew they would get engaged. But when I opened it today, and I saw the picture of her ring….. I think I felt my heart break.
I don’t know Jenna Goode, but from everything I’ve seen on social media, I wouldn’t like her anyway. The captions on her pictures, the clothes she wears, everything about her is so opposite of me. Even her ring is something I would never, ever choose. And I keep telling myself that if Parker can love someone like her, then there is no way we were meant to be. Somehow that doesn’t make it any easier.
I don’t know Jenna Goode, but I hate her. I’m also jealous of her. And I wish I could understand why she gets the life that was supposed to be mine.
I don’t know Jenna Goode, but I hate her.
But Parker doesn’t.