Unfriended, page 3
She didn’t pick up the phone—her cell or the family’s phone. She’s not big on answering either because she is phone-o-phobic, or so she says. I don’t know if that is a real thing. My brother and sister both have learning challenges that neurotypical people don’t always understand, though. Older relatives think my brother and sister should just “try harder” or “stop acting like that” which is both mean and clueless—so I’m extra careful not to question people about their issues. Anyway, I was kind of relieved that she didn’t answer.
After dinner, before I went to bed, I checked my computer. Hazel hadn’t e-mailed me, but Natasha did. See you tomorrow . . . meet up at the wall?
The wall is where all the kids who sit at the Popular Table “chill” before school.
HAZEL
BEFORE TRULY FLOUNCED off to lunch with those people, she said, “I’m sorry if you’re feeling hurt. I didn’t intend to hurt you, Hazel. I really didn’t. You’re my best friend and I don’t want you to be mad at me. Okay? Talk to me. Please? Okay. Or don’t. I’m here whenever you want to. Just . . . I . . . okay.”
I stood there, stunned, beyond words. Then I climbed the forbidden steps in C stairwell up to the pee-smelling landing, my new hideout because none of the zombie-automatons in this horrid school dare go where the rules say don’t, and wrote her a new note, which I will probably never deliver because the first one obviously backfired but still.
Truly, (not Dear)
Let me outline what is wrong with your hideously self-serving nonapology:
A. There’s no IF. Obviously I AM hurt.
B. You’re only sorry if (hahahaha, if? No, clearly I am, so: that) I am hurt. When you should be sorry for the way you acted. You’re sorry I’m hurt because that complicates your life. Sorry like you wish I would just deal with the fact that you are completely dumping me for a better (not really better, just more Popular) deal. You’re sorry that you have to deal with my feelings, after we’ve been best friends all this time and bam, you unfriend me in one cold heartbeat. Just the way Natasha did to you, btw. Remember that? And who was there for you, back then? Yeah, that’s right; it was ME.
C. How about being sorry for what YOU DID instead?
D. Whether you intended to hurt me or not (which is debatable. Also, irrelevant), you did hurt me. You dumped me, hard, and publicly, and so coldly I still have icicles in my hair. I might dye it blue, to match the icicles.
E. How many times have we talked about nonapology apologies and how horrible they are?
F. I’m your best friend? Really? Wow. I mean, I thought I was, but—how can I be if you feel no qualms about just abandoning and humiliating me like that? That’s how you treat your best friend? Think about that for a minute.
G. I’m sure you don’t want me to be mad at you. You probably want me to just disappear, or maybe encourage you, or envy you. Just not be mad at you. But tough.
H. You’re here for me? Ha! Sure. Unless the Popular Table whispers your name. Then adios to me, you’re gone. Without a glance back.
I. Good-bye, Truly. I don’t know who you think you are, Miss Popularity or Miss Social Climber or what, but it’s not the person I thought you were: smart, funny, deep, and kind. You’re dumbing yourself down and trading your soul for their attention. Someday, mark my words, you’ll regret this. And it will be too late when you figure out who your true friends were.
J. Watch out for Natasha especially.
NATASHA
THE WHOLE *TRAGEDY* with Truly’s freak friend Hazel is soooo brain-crushinglyyyyy dullllllll. Nobody wants to hear it anymore HELLO! But Truly just keeps playing that crap up for all it’s worth. Brooke is such a sucker for everybody else’s problems, always listening, that whole oh I care so much bull. Just to make everybody like her. Well, I can do that, too, tilt my head and act like Truly’s trauma is so very fascinating. I was soooo sympathetic these past few days. Oh, no, Truly—are you okay? I can’t believe Hazel wrote a nasty note to you! That’s (still) terrible!
I was nauseating myself.
But whatever, I can take it. By the end of today, Truly was walking with me to my classes, nodding at everything I said, laughing exactly right at my jokes, asking my advice.
In elementary school, Truly gave me the advice. She always chose what we’d play, helped me with my homework, comforted me when my parents were harsh. Now it’s me comforting her, getting to be the superior one for once. Oh, that’s awful! Hazel really said that? Totally not okay!
So she ought to remember how good a friend I am to her and not sit between Clay and Brooke. Or does she not even realize that as fast as I brought her in I could make her disappear? And Brooke would not care or even fully notice. Same with Clay.
If Truly can’t figure this fact out on her own, I am going to have to explain a few things to her.
Nicely, of course.
Because I am so unbelievably nice.
BROOKE
MY SISTER MARGOT and I sat together on her bed, the top bunk.
“Will you have to drop ballet classes?” I asked her.
“Hope not,” she said.
Wow. Okay. I was kind of kidding. “What do you think will happen?”
Margot shrugged in that Margot way. It looks so graceful and world-weary.
“Well, they’ll get money from selling the store, right?” I asked.
“Yeah, some,” she whispered, stretching out her long string bean self into a straight line along the bed. She pointed her toes hard, then lifted her legs in a straight line up toward the ceiling. She extended her arms past her ears, so her long fingers tickled the headboard. I’ve fallen asleep hearing these stretches above me forever. “But after they pay off all their debts, how much will be left?”
I stretched out beside her, my jock body heavier, thicker, less bendy. But my feet, unlike hers, could flatten against the ceiling. Good calf stretch.
“You should come up with a talent,” Margot suggested. “You don’t get college scholarships for popularity, and no way they’ll be able to pay.”
“Ugh,” I said. “College. That’s a million years away.”
“It’s not,” Margot whispered, smooth and nearly silent. “Wake up. And especially with Corey’s therapy, there’s not likely to be a lot left over for you.”
“I know,” I whispered back. Still. Eighth grade. I have forever. I do.
We listened to the thunk of the basketball against the hoop in the driveway, Dad out there working with Corey. He’ll have more time at home now, once the store gets sold. Mom, too. And something else will turn up. They’re hardworking. Good people find a way. That’s what they’d said, after they broke the news to us this afternoon about selling the store. We’ll have to hold off on some extras for a while, but we’ll find work and pull through. We’ve got each other. We’re the richest people in town that way. We’ll be all right.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. It was Clay, asking how I did on the math test and if my parents would be mad. Yeah, like they’d care about my math test at this point. Way bigger fish to fry. But I just said, they never ask.
“You still in love with Clay?” Margot asked after I’d gone back and forth texting him a few times.
“No,” I lied. “You still in love with JT?”
“No,” she lied.
“Cool,” I said as phone buzzed again. “So we’re all good.”
“Absolutely.”
We lay there beside each other until dinner not talking, our bodies parallel, our feet on the ceiling.
CLAY
MY BROTHER JT got an 800 on his math SATs and a 5 on his calculus AP test. Those are the best scores you can get. He graduated first in his class. He won multiple awards at graduation, was editor in chief of the school paper, and played varsity soccer. He got into his first choice of college early.
Everybody is impressed with him. Including me. He’s my favorite person, which doesn’t make me unique. Girls all want to go out with him, and probably some guys do, too. He’s the nicest guy I know. He volunteered at the soup kitchen every Sunday morning all through high school with Dad. He has inside jokes with pretty much everybody, including some of the soup kitchen regulars. Also teachers.
So how do I break it to my parents that I just got a 78 on my math test?
I know they think I’m not as smart and not as hardworking as JT. They’re totally justified; it’s the truth. I’m not. JT doesn’t get distracted by reading the entire Internet or playing Xbox for hours at a time or texting with a girl who is not his girlfriend and never will be because she’s his best friend. Well, first of all because his best friend is a guy. A guy who is my best friend’s older brother. And they wouldn’t text each other more than, like, Want to go get some pizza? Sure meet you in 10.
Not like me and Brooke. We can go on texting each other for an hour or more at a time. She got an 89 on the math test. And her parents are completely chill about grades, so 89 is fine.
I don’t even know if mine are chill about grades or aren’t. They have been until now, but I always got A’s and anyway they were focused on JT. Nobody ever brought home a 78 around here before.
What if they punish me?
What if they say, Maybe if you spent a little more time focusing on your schoolwork and a little less time socializing . . .
Or what if they don’t? What if they’re just like, Oh, well, that’s fine. Maybe you’re just a C student and that’s all we can expect from you.
What if they’re actually proud of a 78, from me?
I shut my computer and turned off my phone. The test paper’s big scrawled red 78 glared at me. I slipped it under the textbook, which I opened up to chapter four, determined to cram some of this stuff into my brain. I was good at math last year and every year before this. No reason I should suddenly fail it now. I just have to buckle down, maybe do the homework.
After about five minutes of staring at the page without registering anything, I shut the textbook and opened my computer. There have to be like video tutorials online to help you make sense out of solving quadratic equations. What the heck even is a quadratic equation?
When I looked up, more than an hour had passed and Dad was calling me down for dinner. I hadn’t learned any math but I had seen a bunch of hilarious cat videos.
I dashed down the stairs. As I was putting out the plates and silverware, Mom and Dad were doing their final stirs of the stuff on the stove and discussing current events. Dad said something about Syria. Mom made a point that included the words economics of the region. Dad agreed.
Mom popped open a bottle of wine and poured two glasses, which she carried over to the table. Dad brought the steaming bowl of pasta with some sauce on it that smelled amazing.
I love to eat. I get happy just picking up a fork.
We sat at the table, with its lost-tooth gap where JT should’ve been. They kept talking about Syria or the economy or whatever it was they were discussing. I ate. It was delicious.
“How was school today?” Dad asked. They both held their forks in midair and looked at me.
“Okay,” I said, moving my eyes from one to the other. “What?”
“How are your classes going?” Mom asked. Fork still at half-mast.
I looked over at the seat where JT wasn’t and wished for him to materialize. No luck.
“You liking English?” she asked, lowering her fork, still holding its pile of pasta, to her plate.
“Yeah. Ms. Fenton is great,” I said. “Really sarcastic and funny.”
“And how about math?” Dad asked. He made a big thing of refolding his napkin on his lap. Fine. I plopped my napkin onto my lap, too. “Math going well this year?”
“I don’t love Ms. Davidson, honestly.”
“Okay,” Dad said. “But how are you doing in the class?”
Usually JT would be the one talking about his classes and I’d be free to just eat in peace or maybe mock him. Or, like, fall out of my chair.
“Okay, I guess,” I said. I choked a little on a hunk of bread. I like to just eat while I’m eating.
“It’s interesting—we ask you about your classes and you tell us your feelings about the teachers,” Dad said.
I took some more bread and loaded it up with butter.
“I loved algebra,” Mom said.
“I think my favorite thing about algebra is the definition,” Dad said.
“What definition?” Mom asked.
Dad rubbed his forehead where the hair isn’t anymore, the way he does when he gets excited about a topic. His glasses, as always, toppled off. “The word algebra means the reunion of broken parts.”
“Really?” Mom asked. “That’s so interesting. Don’t you think, Clay?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Sure.”
Dad smiled at me. “It comes from the Arabic words for reunion . . .”
“And of broken parts?” I asked. “Just a guess.”
They both nodded and smiled, waiting for me to say more, like JT would have if he were here instead of me. Maybe quote from some famous mathematician or make a reference to Syria.
“Cool,” I said. I ate some more pasta. They waited patiently. “This is delicious,” I said.
“Oh, good,” Mom said.
“What else is going on in school?” Dad asked, like he knew something was up, something was going wrong. Maybe they send home an e-mail or something if you get a bad mark and this was their way of interrogating me.
“Nothing,” I said. Tough. Too bad. So they didn’t win the lottery twice. Great. I’m stupid. Fine. What? I’m not JT? Right. I’m not.
Sorry.
Nothing I can do. Ask me directly or leave me alone. A 78 is not the world’s worst tragedy. Isn’t something worse happening in Syria?
I yanked the hood up on my sweatshirt and just sat there, waiting for them to finish saying stuff to me.
TRULY
WHEN I CAME out of the bathroom, my older brother Henry said, “The awesome one in pigtails.”
“What?” I asked. I mean, yeah, I had pigtails in, trying it out, not sure if maybe it looked babyish. It was the awesome part that seemed very un-Henry to say.
“In the Odyssey, Book 7, Athena disguises herself as a young girl. Homer describes her as ‘the awesome one in pigtails.’”
“Oh,” I said.
“As in ‘the awesome one in pigtails led Odysseus through the city.’ Remember that part?”
“Henry, I didn’t read the whole—”
“Yes, you did.”
“Well, that was last year, I don’t—”
“Remember? And she was leading him through the—”
“Cool, Henry. I got it. Athena. That’s not what I’m—”
“Your eyes are gray, like hers. Who are you helping escape?”
“Nobody,” I told him. “But, Henry, do you think they look awesome? On me?”
“Your eyes?”
“The hair! The pigtails.” I gave my head a little shake. “Or is it babyish? Come on, Henry. Tell me.”
He shrugged and went back to whatever he was reading. I took the ponytail holders out. I didn’t feel so awesome in them. Every time I try something more interesting with my hair than just wearing it flopped down around my face, it feels like I’m in some sort of costume. Like I’m a little kid again wearing Mom’s nightgown, pretending to strut the red carpet in a gown at the Oscars.
“Who are you wearing?” Natasha would ask when we played red carpet.
“Ronzoni,” I’d answer. “You?”
“Fig Newtons,” she’d say, or something like that, both of us talking in whispery voices, pouting our lips toward wooden spoon–microphones while we watched ourselves in the mirror on the back of the bathroom door.
It’s different in eighth grade, obviously. It’s great, of course, especially now that I’m hanging around more with the Populars. Great but a little confusing. Natasha is so sweet, but then sometimes in a flash she’s a little, well, kind of mean to me. But maybe I am being oversensitive. Hazel thinks I’m oversensitive and spoiled, even though she won’t talk to me now and explain what she meant by that. Spoiled? What does that have to do with anything? How am I spoiled?
Mom said she thinks Hazel is just mad and jealous that I’m hanging around sometimes now with Natasha, and that’s reasonable. The thought crossed my mind of saying thank you, Captain Obvious but of course I would never actually say that to anybody, especially Mom. I do think it’s a pretty hilarious put-down, even though I felt kind of terrible when Natasha used it on me. But then she said it to Evangeline one time later this afternoon and Evangeline cracked up so I decided it’s just a thing they all say to one another and I should not let it bother me.
It’s hard when friends go in different directions, Mom was saying.
“I get that,” I said instead of thank you, Captain Obvious. “And it’s probably that much harder because Hazel hates Natasha.”
“Does she?” Mom asked
“Totally,” I said. “She has told me on many occasions that she can’t believe I used to be best friends with Natasha when Natasha is such a shallow plate.”
“A shallow . . .”
“Plate. I know. Whatever that means. One thing I am not missing so much now that Hazel isn’t talking to me is her weird expressions.”
Mom laughed at that. I like making her laugh.
That only thing that has me worrying that maybe Hazel is right, that I am spoiled and a not-nice person, is: Natasha used to say stuff like that to me about myself, too. One person could be just striking out, trying to say a hateful thing. When it gets to be a chorus, maybe they’re telling the truth?
