Hidden Under

Alex Martinez

This was a story about something that happened to me, I'm a theater freak, so I made a personal Pro's piece.

"Have you ever felt too shy or scared to tell someone how you felt about them? Or you kept your feeling hidden deep down so that someone else-your friend-can have a chance? Well Ash knows how you feel. She keeps her love for her best friend under wraps to make her friend happy, so she can get the happy ever after, instead of herself after all, what are friends for, right?

Hidden Under, by...Anna C. Carrera, a personal narrative. "I say loudly, yet I sound like a whisper." ...Why didn't I just tell him? He would have understood, right? No I couldn't, I can't, for Katt. I mean, she deserves him, I don't. I had my chance. Now I have to let him go, and I will. I will forget.
"No, what am I saying, I can't, I never will." I argue with myself. I close my eyes, and think for a moment, I think of how I wrote this, of how it made me feel.
I didn't tell him, and I won't ever. I'll keep it under wraps. Hidden under. Make them happy, let him be happy. I'll do anything to keep everyone happy. I slink around in the jungle that we call school. I never speak, never make comments, and keep my head low. I don't want to hear anything from him, I want to forget, to forget him, all the fun we had, all that time, that year entirely, but I can't, I'll shove that down, hide it under. The feelings though, are unbearable, they burn through my soul like an open wild fire that can't be tamed. If I think of him, my eyes go misty, I loose myself and nothing matters. I can go on and on and on thinking of those memories I try to forget.

I close my eyes again, thinking of how those words I spoke, that I meant so truly and deeply. I continued, Those sweet memories when we were all we thought about. Those silly moments when we would talk about the silliest things. The other memories that were fun and full of laughs, the most ridiculous actions we did, but as he said they were fun, which was true. I curse the summer that came. We stopped the talking and the mirth we had. When we met again, he had forgotten, I felt a great big hole come and move into my chest. He had forgotten me. He moved on from our times, and I felt like the lost one. I discovered he grew the happiness with the shy timid girl that I came to be fond with. I knew I had to give him away, to her.

I swallowed back the bitterness for the next sentence, "He wasn't mine anymore, he was hers. She had kept it hidden under since last year, now it was my turn, to keep it hidden under, he was hers, not mine. I tried to let him go, but I couldn't, I tried so hard, yet he seemed to be glued to my heart, it's begging him to stay, I hid it way, deep down under. Ever since I stay away, not wanting to make her feel bad, her knowing how in the beginning how I kept it hidden under. I told her a lie to keep the guilt from building in her, she thought what I thought, she felt what I felt, she sees what I see, she's me, but she lives it, I hide the girl that is identical to her."

So goes on life, I walk alone in the rain, but my only thought, Go ahead rain on me, let no one see me crying. If anyone looked down under, hidden under they would see how much I really cry, they would find so many secrets and lots of lies, but what you'll see the most is how hard it is to stay strong, when nothing is right and everything is wrong. That you may know my name, but do you know my story? You see my smile, not my pain. You can read my lips, not my mind. I didn't fight for him, instead I watched him slip away. I watched him fade into a memory, or at least tried to, because I knew it was for the best. I know my heart can't take it anymore. Tears trickle down my face." I sigh quietly, and continue, "The saddest part isn't that with each day passing day I feel like I need you more, but it's the fact that you don't need me at all. Someone had asked me if I had missed him. I didn't answer. I just closed my eyes and walked away, and whispered So much.

After all this time, it's still him. I wanted to know how he made me laugh, and smile without trying, and just when I think I'm over him, I see him, I catch a glance of that beautiful smile, and I fall. I fall for him harder and it seems I will always have to keep it under, deep down." I breathe.
"Hidden under," I conclude.