"You can't embarrass yourself even more than you have now," Elena said lightly, her voice carrying gentle amusement as she truly struggled to keep a straight face and not burst out laughing at what she had just witnessed and how he was trying so desperately hard to save face and maintain some dignity.
This comment only made David want to just die on the spot, to simply cease existing. He was absolutely sure that for years to come, possibly decades, he would look back on this exact moment and roll around in his bed at night, cursing himself for being so awkward and pathetic… but it was precisely this reason, this raw embarrassing honesty, why this moment could never be forgotten by David, why it was burned into his memory forever.
"You and I can't be friends," David said lightly, the words coming out before he could stop them, stunning her completely. She, of course, immediately wanted answers to this bizarre statement.
For one thing, why wouldn't she want to be friends with someone like David? He was friends with literally everyone in the school. The whole school knew David's name and face; not one single person hated David or had a bad word to say about him.
David played every sport imaginable just for fun, never taking any of them too seriously. He hung out with most of the clubs at school, dropping in on their meetings. And he was a genuine genius in math and academics, something which had initially made her hate him with a passion. Why did his intelligence bother her? Because when she first saw David in class, she saw only a class clown who got in the way of everyone else learning, who disrupted the lessons.
But when he was called out by the teacher to answer a difficult question, David had easily answered the question correctly without any effort and returned to goofing around with his friends like it was nothing, like the academic work was beneath his notice. Music, sports, and even studies—David was a natural genius at all of them, but he deliberately put most of his attention and effort into music above everything else.
Another reason she wanted to be friends with him… well, she had developed a crush on David over time… his music, it had won her heart.
Funny right? The prettiest girl in school, the one every guy wanted to date, crushing on someone like David who saw himself as ugly and unworthy. Someone like David, whose entire goal in life was to become a rock star, chose that dream specifically so that he could have as many people love him as possible, filling the void inside.
"Why? I don't think we ever met properly before now, so how did I possibly offend you?" she asked, honestly confused by his rejection and wanting to understand.
"It's not that…" David said awkwardly, not knowing how he could possibly explain this without sounding like an idiot. But seeing her glaring at him intensely, demanding answers with her eyes, he decided to tell her the truth.
He spoke in a low voice, barely audible, which only made her twist her face in confusion, not hearing what he had said at all. So he repeated it a bit louder, but it still wasn't loud enough for her to make out the words.
"You're out of my league…" he finally said clearly, leaving her stunned for a good long second, frozen in place. She didn't know what to say for a moment, processing his words, before her face dropped into something sadder.
David had not known then, couldn't have known, but she genuinely hated her appearance and what it represented. It had led to her parents treating her differently from her siblings, causing them to put all their focus and attention on her while ignoring her little sister, who wasn't lucky enough to be born with looks as good as hers.
Her parents, from a very young age, had relentlessly instilled the idea of marrying a rich man into her head. They never saw her as a person with her own dreams and desires but as a tool they could use to climb the social ladder and get rich by association… so David's way of seeing her, of putting her on a pedestal because of her looks, just made her dislike herself even more.
"I'm ugly, you're the most beautiful person I have ever met in my entire life. If we become friends, I would just be hit with the constant hope of a reality that can never actually be." David said softly, his voice heavy with resignation. The air went quiet between them after his confession. He didn't know why exactly, but he felt like he had to explain further, to make her understand.
"Who are you to say you're ugly?" she asked, the question catching David completely off guard and making him blink in surprise.
"I can look in a mirror," David explained simply, stating what he thought was an obvious fact.
"I think you're handsome," she said truthfully, her voice sincere. The statement made David shake his head slightly in disbelief, and he leaned his head closer to her, unsure he had heard her right and needing confirmation.
"Wait, Mom was the one to ask you out?" Sarah, who was the one sitting behind David in the theater, asked in genuine shock at this revelation, completely stunned by learning this detail.
"Yeah, I had to give her an eye test first to make sure she could actually see… and after that we started dating," David said while frantically hitting buttons on the remote, trying desperately to skip all of this personal history, but the memories were unskippable, forcing him to sit and watch his past drama-filled life of Middle school and High school play out on screen.
For example, the screen showed how David had someone else who liked him romantically who tried to hit on David and get his attention, making Elena extremely jealous. At that time, David was deeply unsure if they should make their relationship public knowledge or keep it secret.
This situation had forced Elena to step forward decisively, publicly proclaiming David as her boyfriend in front of everyone, shocking the entire school.
The announcement opened a sea of chaos and social drama, which caused David, bit by bit over time, to come to the gradual realization that he might not be conventionally handsome by society's standards, but in someone's eyes—in Elena's eyes—he was the most beautiful thing in the world. This realization made him love her even more deeply.
Friends turned into enemies as time passed and the relationship continued, since… well, everyone in school was in love with Elena to some degree. Many guys couldn't stand the fact that she had picked someone like him over them.
David went through a lot of hardship because of this, such as when his father took his own life after spending just one month being the loving father David had always wanted him to be, finally showing affection before ending everything. But Elena was his strength and support through it all, never leaving his side.
Elena became his rock and foundation through many terrible things, anchoring him when everything else fell apart. And slowly, because of her constant support and love, David began to grow genuinely confident in himself.
He built up enough self-worth that he wasn't desperately trying to be everyone's friend anymore, didn't need universal approval. This newfound confidence also pushed his dreams of becoming a musician forward significantly… but those dreams hit a massive wall when his best friend at the time suddenly took his own life without warning.
It was darkly funny in a tragic way—years apart, first his father had killed himself, and now his best friend had done the same. And this time, his best friend took his own life because of him, because of David's relationship.
He left behind a letter explaining that he had been in love with Elena all along, but she was dating his best friend instead. He loved her desperately; the guilt of harboring those feelings was too much to bear, leading to his death as the only escape he could see…
Elena had hidden this information from David for years, knowing this revelation would completely destroy him emotionally. It was only around the time he got the divorce that he would finally find the truth out.
Around the end of High School, David and a few of his close friends were seriously planning to drop out together and live out their dreams of becoming musicians in the name of their friend who had taken his life, honoring his memory… but it was then that David betrayed the whole group's plans, giving up his dream entirely to stay with Elena, who had just discovered she was pregnant.
How could he possibly leave her alone while she was crying every night, having severe panic attacks about how her strict parents would react to the pregnancy? So he stepped up and took responsibility, just like how she had held his hand firmly through the hardest moments of his life when he was falling apart.