Jealous Much?
By Genny, age 19, Malta
Carla was always the centre of attention around boys, and that's why no one took it as a surprise when she started dating the captain of the football team, Edward (also known as Eddy), the handsome, smart guy every girl dreamt of. They had been together for a year when all the shenanigans began.
Eddy was madly in love with Carla, and she was in love too, or so she thought. They would always go out on their own, hang out by themselves, go to dinner every Saturday and Sunday, just the two of them, until they got bored of such a lifestyle. In order to be together they had abandoned all their friends, and now they started realizing it was a bad idea. So they started hanging with Eddy's former friends, which were a group of crazy teenage boys and girls. They would go everywhere together.
Things seemed to be going well, and Carla and Eddy never seemed happier, until some of their friends started interesting themselves in Carla more than they should have. Eddy's best friend Colin had always had a thing for Carla, even before she met Eddy, and she'd had a thing for Colin too. Now they were hanging out in the same group each and every day, and things started to get a bit risky. One night, after they had gone out, Eddy and Carla went to bed until a text woke Carla up. It was Colin, telling her she was beautiful. Surprised, Carla texted him back and told him, "yeah right, u don't need me! Goodnite," thinking he wasn't being serious.
She was obviously wrong, because the very next night, while they were at a party, Eddy went to get some drinks and left Carla with Colin. Colin took the opportunity and told Carla he wasn't feeling very well, and asked her to go outside with him to get a little bit of air. Nearly drunk, Carla agreed, not thinking about the consequences.
When they were outside, Colin grabbed Carla and started kissing her, and she didn't hold back. Now, she had cheated on Eddy for the first time, and with his best friend. They went back inside, got their drinks from Eddy, then Eddy drove Colin home, and then drove Carla home, not knowing about anything that had happened.
Six months passed by. Carla and Eddy were now hanging out with a new group which also had some couples in it, and they seemed happier and better. Everything appeared to be going well until Colin started texting a girl from their new group, Elizabeth. Carla became furious, because she obviously still liked Colin. Elizabeth, on the other hand, was extremely happy and excited for the sudden attention.
Months passed. After they were going together, Elizabeth cheated on Colin, and as revenge he cheated back on her with Carla again. Carla was confused and confessed to Elizabeth that once in the past she had kissed Colin. Elizabeth was surprised and told her that he was a jerk and that it was better for the two of them to just forget about him.
In time, Carla came to forget Colin, but Elizabeth was more devious than she appeared to be, and continued texting Colin without telling anyone. Once Colin and Elizabeth started dating again, Carla confronted Elizabeth and told her, "You should have told me you were texting Colin when you said you wouldn't."
Elizabeth, who had not paid any mind to Carla and always done what her head told her, replied, "But you're still in a relationship with Eddy." But, by this time, Eddy had started to drift apart from Carla.
At one point when she was a middle teen, Carla had developed a massive drinking problem, one of her deep, dark secrets, and as she saw Eddy slipping away, she started drinking heavily again, getting hammered every time they went out. She ended up cheating on Eddy four other times with two of his other best friends.
Elizabeth found out about Carla's cheating, and struck with anger she told everything to Eddy. Eddy, trusting Carla with all his heart, didn't believe Elizabeth, and told Carla. Carla became extremely angry with Elizabeth, and told Colin all about Elizabeth's cheating. It became a vicious circle, a real life soap opera.
A couple more months passed. Colin and Carla didn't speak as much as they used to, and the same with Elizabeth and Colin. Still, things with Eddy and Carla were the same - Carla still drank too much and cheated every time she got a chance, Eddy still flirted with other girls, and Elizabeth and Colin still messed around every once in a while.
The moral of the story: If you are in a relationship, be happy with the one you're with, and if by chance you start having any doubts, talk about it with your partner immediately, and if it is meant to end, just end it before it gets worse. Love is a powerful emotion, which most of the time is underestimated. A relationship must be strictly between two people, not the entire world.
So what if just the two of you hang out every time? I'm not saying that you should block out the whole world; go out once in a while and have a drink with friends, but nothing more! But be wary and be smart about it. Trust only yourself, because those people you call 'your friends' could be the ones who knock you down and most likely are jealous of you. Then, when they are going out with your ex, you'll be the one with no friends, by yourself, alone!!
