sacrifices

it's been almost seven months since i started my new school and i still can't help thinking i don't belong there. those girls don't understand how lucky they are. they have every opportunity available to them, opportunities i've made so many sacrifices for, and they aren't even grateful.
it was just over a year ago i took the scholarship exam. i've wished so many times i could erase that day and let everything go back to normal, but i can't. i made the decision to apply in early february, when i went through that awkward phase of not knowing what was wrong with me, but aware that something certainly was.
then there was nathaniel.
but it was too late: i'd applied. i took the test hoping to god i wouldn't pass, and received a letter a week later from mrs anne templemann confirming my 60% scholarship and 20% bursary. so my parents only had to pay 20% of the total £8,000 a year fee.
to be honest i never really made a decision about it. i remember my dad's hands shaking when he opened the letter. they told me i had a week to decide, but my school had already been informed that i was to leave at the end of the year. i talked to nathaniel about it, and he told me i had every reason in the world to go for it. i was thinking, but i did not say it, that there was a huge reason for me to stay. i should have said it there and then.
i left it a month or two before i told my friends, although it had already been made obvious by teacher's congratulations and remarks. everybody seemed to forget that i had only a couple of months left, and when that time ran out, we were no longer very close anymore.
summer was amazing. my first summer in love; in real love. but that time ran out too, and nathaniel returned to school before i did. i felt so jealous. it only started to dawn on us on the last few days of summer. we could literally feel it slipping through our fingers.
i made a promise to myself to end our relationship before the summer ended. but i was greedy, and wanted just a little more time. i wish i'd ended it then, so it could have stayed special, instead of becoming desperately hurtful. things might be different now if we had ended it then like we should have done.
i miss you still, and think of you often, nathaniel.