We stood underneath rainy bus stops

Sucking on ring pops and reading

Smash Hits, Sugar and Bliss.

We spoke about sex even though

We were too scared to go through with it,

And we dreamed of being bridesmaids

For each other, in peach and pistachio.

But slowly we drifted apart until

You became a single photo, once a year

That would appear on my feed:

You with a boyfriend, you with a husband

And last night, you with a baby

Being bounced in your arms.

I lost pretty much all my school friends after leaving. I found that alcohol was far more enticing and I just drifted away until they hated me – quite rightly so.

But, God it hurts, when I see some of the girls I loved like sisters going out together. And when I see the one I saw as my best friend, getting married with them all as bridesmaids. And then last night I saw that she’s had a baby.

I hate the fact that I ache with jealousy when I made my own poor decisions. But it hurts to know that I’m excluded and that I’m the least successful, and I’m the only one without a partner.

These are things that everyone worries about, so I know it’s only human, but I wish that I could shake this awful feeling in the bottom of my stomach, telling me that I’m an awful person and that nobody could ever possibly love me. It really does hurt to be human.

Much Love

Rachel xx