Letter 3: Christmas-February

Dear FutureMe, Hello again! I hope you have a good day today! I'm going to start by restating my order of things here: ☑ Letter 1: Jan 01, 2026 "The Summer" ☑ Letter 2: Jan 02, 2026 "The Breakup" ☑ Letter 3: Jan 03, 2026 "Christmas- February" ☐ Letter 4: Jan 04, 2026 "Today, April 2023" Letter 3: "Christmas-February" I originally planned on writing about Christmas and how hard of a time that was, but I explained a lot of it in my pink scrapbooking binder. I typed it all out and printed it off, so if you'd like to read about Christmas, go for it. Instead of restating all of that, I'll sum it up: All of the Christmas songs reminded me of Noah. In 2022, he had given me his hoodie and I thought about him all the time. It was all very bittersweet to me. The songs made me laugh sometimes, and it made me cry other times. I was still going through it. Stephen and I had gotten close though, especially since he and I worked on lines for Beauty and the Beast. He distracted me and got me thinking about the happier things- things to look forward to! I tried to stay positive about it, because I knew that being negative wouldn't accomplish anything. Right before school got out for Christmas, our class had a party (like we do every year). Noah acknowledged my existence for the first time in a while, and I thought that just maybe he might not hate me. I got excited, thinking that we could be friends or something. I played songs that he liked and tried to reference inside jokes. I don't think he liked that very much. Especially since he knew that he was already talking to a girl that he met 2 weeks after our breakup. If I had known how close they were then, I would've been heartbroken. I had heard rumors, but I tried to ignore them. They made me cry. My mom tried to warn me, but nothing that anyone could say would make me feel better. Look, I know that it tore him apart to think that Stephen and I were falling for each other. It hurt me to see it hurt him, especially when it looked like he was being replaced so quickly. But the truth was that I was trying to distract myself from the hurt that Noah and I's relationship had caused me in the first place. What else was I supposed to do? I could feel God tugging on my heart. Christmas day was a disaster. There was always tension with Katherine around, and I was the only one that knew that she was lesbian at the time. I had known since last Thanksgiving. Surprise! On mom's first Christmas without her mom, Katherine sprung it on everyone in the car: She was lesbian! And she was dating. And she was proud. Apparently, she thought that mom and dad loved her "conditionally". I'm not sure where she got that from. Okay, moving past Christmas now. January 2023. I don't remember much. I know that I was still struggling with getting over Noah. February hit, and things were BUSY. The play was INSANE and Stephen and I had multiple falling-outs before the final performance. At this point, I sorta had a crush on Nate. He was being so super sweet! In fact, I almost missed getting my hair curled because I was talking to him. Turns out, I think he just likes working with princesses. After about a week, he was over me. So I let him go- there was no point. It was fun while it lasted, but then he started to like Ella Katherine. Anyways. February 6, 2023, I found out that Noah was officially dating Hannah. I heard that they had gone out before, but I still cried SO HARD when I heard about it. I kept reminding myself not to lean on my own understanding, but it was very very hard. I kept praying. Soon after, I attended a latin convention. I mention this only because of the series of events that led Noah and I to facetime when I got home. I thought that he had told Hannah about all of the dirty things that we had done. I knew that if he did, Hannah wouldn't stay quiet about that. In fact, she'd want it more. And Noah would make the same mistakes with her as he did with me. The thought made me sick to my stomach, and I convinced him to facetime. It went well! We talked through it all, and by the end I felt okay about everything. We hung up so that he could go meet Hannah on a date, but I didn't mind. I felt like everything was gonna be okay. It was painful later on, but I was able to work through it. Balancing friendships became hard, too, but it was alright. Occasionally, I still had my off weeks. I felt so unvalidated because it had been 5 months since the breakup! Well, Stephen distracted me from that. And I let him. Unfortunately, no matter how much I told him I wanted to stay friends, Stephen couldn't handle it. One night, after we accidently went to a super romantic play together, he tried to kiss me. I pulled away, and he tried again, pulling my hips to his. I was scared. Terrified. I didn't want to give myself away like that! I was shaken. I didn't know who to turn to. I tried to explain to Ella Katherine, but our friendship had just started. Instead, I turned to the person that I know knows me better than anyone on Earth: Noah. It was kinda dumb. We facetimed, and I told him. I didn't know who else to go to! It hurt, but it was worth it. He gave me advice, no matter how biased it was. Stephen and I haven't been friends since. We basically ignore each other at school now, and I have no feelings towards him. I felt awkward only talking about my love life with him, so I made the mistake of asking about how he and Hannah were. He explained how they kissed and often shared the sunset together. He went into detail and I smiled through it. He acted like they were innocent because he wasn't the one initiating some of the dirty stuff. I laughed, but I 100000% disagree. I was actually horrified by a lot of things that he said about their relationship. He explained that he couldn't wait to just make "stories" even if they don't work out. Yes, he was willing to give his heart and body away just to create memories- good or bad. We had to hang up eventually, because I had to go eat. I never told mom or dad that I facetimed him- I knew that they would think it was a bad idea. Yeah, they were probably right. The more I thought about he and Hannah, the more sick I felt. Physically sick. Well, that just about leads up to where I am now. In my next letter, I'll explain how I feel about the situation now and where I stand on it all. Love, Lovie <3