Unfriended, page 7
“Not me,” Mike Shimizu said. “I’d stomp that stuff anytime.”
“Pigs,” Lulu said in her squeaky voice.
“What?” Theo protested. “I don’t get it.”
“You guys have dirty minds,” Mike said. “We’re actually talking about bubble wrap.”
“Speaking of—I need some serious bubble tea,” Evangeline said. “Have you guys tried that place yet?”
“Gross,” Clay said. “I tried that this summer! It’s horrible. It’s like gobs of goo and they shoot up the straw into your mouth like snot bullets.”
“Snot bullets,” Lulu shrieked. She started laughing her squeaky, snorty laugh. “Now I definitely want some.”
“Who looked at tea,” Clay asked Lulu, “and thought, you know what this stuff needs? Snot bullets.”
She doubled over squeak-laughing at that.
“Seriously,” I agreed, trying to be positive. Lulu is not the only positive person on the planet. “And then the snot bullets smack your . . . you know, when you suck them up the straw and, wham, they hit your . . . you know.”
Everybody looked blankly at me.
“The little dongy thing in the back of your throat,” I said.
“You have a dongy thing in the back of your throat?” Evangeline asked.
“Thanks for sharing,” Lulu said. She was acting all rude to me, I knew, because she got stuck being the French guy in the History Day play. Lulu’s dad is a marine, so she fully did not want to be the French traitor, but tough. Could be worse; Truly took the lousy housemaid part for herself. I’m not the one in charge of giving out parts, obviously, though, so if Lulu wanted to be pissy she should take it out on Truly.
“Dongy thing,” Theo said. “Heh heh heh. Dongy thing.”
Oh, please.
Truly limped back to us and hovered at the edge of the circle, quivering like a hummingbird. I turned to her and smiled. “Everything okay, Truly?”
“I can come!” Truly said. What a triumph. Hurray. “My mom said she’ll pick me up at five thirty at the pizza place, is that okay?”
“Sure,” I said. “Hey, Truly, what’s the little dongy thing in the back of your throat called?”
“The uvula?” Truly answered.
I put my arm around Truly but said to Brooke and Clay, “I told you she’s smart.”
“I knew it was a uvula,” Theo told Lulu, behind us. “But I like the sound of ‘dongy thing.’”
“You would,” Lulu said. But then she squeak-laughed. “Dongy thing. That is pretty excellent.”
As we started off toward town, I heard Jack asking Truly if she wanted him to carry her books for her.
“Oh, puke,” I whispered to Brooke. “What is this, 1958? Carry her books for her?”
“Ha,” Brooke said, but not enthusiastically.
Okay. “Plus, she got stitches in her knee; she didn’t have her hands both amputated. Get a grip, people.” I couldn’t tell if Brooke thought that was funny, and was maybe just holding in her laugh. “Too soon?” I asked.
Her older brother always said that last year. He was a big fan of Too Soon, and Brooke is a big fan of her brother. Well, all her siblings. They’re like a cult or something, how they stick together and have inside jokes.
But Brooke didn’t laugh. She walked away instead, up ahead with Clay and Evangeline. Come on, it was just a joke. I wasn’t suggesting we actually amputate Truly’s hands. What is wrong with everybody lately?
Both Jack and Clay were practically walking into telephone poles every time Truly blinked. She should just tone it down before she embarrasses herself. Maybe she just doesn’t realize. Good thing she has me looking out for her.
Me, full up with awww and sympathy.
HAZEL
I DID NOT expect to like Brooke. She was supposed to be a shallow plate so I could feel confirmed in my superiority to Truly, who was following Brooke around like a late-afternoon shadow. Or, if Brooke had any spark of intelligence at all, I’d make her realize how meaningless her perfect plastic life is, and she’d be shocked, crushed, her reign as queen of the school doomed to collapse. Either outcome would be fine with me. But then she had to go ahead and be subtly funny. And worse: actually nice. It was messing me up.
If I wanted to be friends with Brooke, what did that make me? The same sad wannabe as every other pathetic girl in the school.
To get over my self-hatred, I had to take action.
So I did something perfect. I was certain of both the righteousness of it and the necessity. Then I wrote this letter explaining, which of course I have no intention of ever sending. But in case I die suddenly and tragically, this letter will be found along with the others among my personal effects and the truth will be discovered. I think the truth remains important.
Dear Truly,
Remember when you and I were best friends? Ahhh, so many memories. Here’s one: last month, we mocked how every year at school they go on and on about how we should keep all our passwords private. Remember? You and I were like, what is the deal, here? They tell us to trust one another, to turn to one another for support. They encourage us to be worthy of the trust our friends so rightly place in us. But then they add, don’t tell your friends, even your best friends, your e-mail and phone passwords, or your locker combinations. Why? Because in fact you can’t trust anybody. Remember that?
Yeah. Turns out, they have a good point.
They should probably emphasize more the trick of don’t make your password for your e-mail and all your social media stuff just be your locker combination, or, for example, locker143542, if that happens to be your locker combination.
It is just too easy for somebody who used to be your best friend (until you dumped her) to guess such a thing, Truly, especially if you already told her (that is, me) your locker combination. And gave her (me) your password on a Post-it note.
Because then it is way too easy for that person, even a very nice person, if she is a person with any computer skills—a person like, say, me—to hack into your account and for example send Brooke a copy of an e-mail that Natasha sent you today.
I have to admit I was nauseated when I read that e-mail. It was the one about Henry and Molly. You must know the one I mean.
I knew Natasha was awful but I was unprepared for that level of despicableness, despite the fact that none of her e-mails (all of which I read, of course) were the slightest bit interesting or kind.
But after the particular e-mail in question, even though I am not particularly close with Henry and I get the sense Molly thinks I’m weird (she always asks about my hair), I honestly wanted to go over to Natasha’s house and kick her in the large teeth.
Then I thought of a better plan.
As you may have guessed, Truly, it was the e-mail about how you act all innocent but obviously you’re scheming to make Clay like you. She knows you’re awkward with people, just like your brother who has Asperger’s and your sister who has behavior issues. Obviously social disability runs in your family, so she is just trying to help you learn how to act normal.
It was like a clinic, that e-mail; a perfect machine gun spraying bullets of insult on you and your brother and your sister, all at once. I was just about ready to erect the barricades to fight for you all. Even if they weren’t both so intelligent and interesting, they wouldn’t deserve to be insulted like that, by that judgmental lemonhead who was just trolling you, anyway. And I knew where to get backup.
You may be surprised to learn this but I got to know Brooke somewhat intimately, very quickly, three days ago. So I can say with some confidence that I had already gotten some deep insight into Brooke’s character. Due to her presence at one of the worst moments of my life (at the death of someone very dear to me; I’m not ready to discuss it) I had learned that Brooke was someone of rare sensitivity and morals.
I knew in my heart that Brooke would want to know what Natasha wrote to you. I was certain that Brooke was someone who would not like one of her friends (that is, Natasha) treating another of her friends (meaning you) like that. I also suspected that she would not approve of her supposed friend being nasty about neurological or psychological or learning differences. Not just because her younger brother goes to resource room, where I volunteer after school on Tuesdays, and where he struggles mightily (though of course adorably) let me tell you.
Just generally, too. I think people don’t realize what a good person Brooke is. They think she’s pretty and cool only. They sell her short, in my opinion.
Since I was certain Natasha would feel worse about whatever Brooke decided to do to her than she would about anything I could do, even kick her in her large, expensive teeth, I realized that the best course of action would be just to alert Brooke. To the facts. No elaboration required. I could stay here in the shadows, unseen, unnoticed as usual. No suggestions of how to handle what she read, no parameters of punishment. Just let Brooke see the e-mail from Natasha to you, and Brooke could decide what was required as a response. I had an extremely strong feeling that Brooke would want to take some action to punish Natasha for what she had written.
And I guess I was right.
As I tend to be.
BROOKE
WAIT, SERIOUSLY?
Is she kidding me?
Who does something like that, put down somebody’s sibs? And why? Just to make the friend feel crappy or embarrassed about herself—and her family?
Not that she should even feel embarrassed because come on, we all have our issues, you get whatever brain or body you get and whatever sibs, too. My little brother Corey is a monster and a half, total pain in my butt, but if somebody said something down-putting about him? My door is slammed shut to you from then on, ex-friend.
But that was so obviously what Natasha’s intention was, and worse: to offhandedly mention Truly’s brother’s and sister’s issues, in order to intimidate Truly and make her think she is less than, make her think she is awkward and being judged harshly. By us.
Making me and Evangeline and Clay and Lulu and Jack seem like we would all privately think less of Truly because of whatever struggles her family has.
Screw you, Natasha. No.
Screw you for saying anything mean about two kids I don’t even know, who might or even might not have problems. None of my business, but if they do have stuff to deal with, more power to them. They’re probably working harder than any of us just to get through the day. But screw you even more for thinking you speak for me or anybody else in putting them down.
You think you’re going to act like that, all conniving and passive-aggressively abusive, and then still have friends when the day is done?
No.
Just, no.
TRULY
I DON’T KNOW what happened today but because of something, something I have to figure happened online or last night or I don’t know when or where—Natasha got kicked out of the Popular Table.
Brooke was sitting where Natasha usually sits when Natasha and I walked into the cafeteria. I was walking around to where I usually (well, for the past two weeks) sit. So I didn’t hear exactly what they said, very quietly, to each other. The thing I did hear was Brooke saying to Natasha, “Why don’t you stop pretending to be all innocent?”
Natasha glared at Brooke for a second and then at Clay and me for a bunch more. Clay got very interested in his sandwich. I stayed still and small.
“Maybe find somewhere else to sit,” Brooke said to Natasha.
Natasha smiled tensely. “Brooke . . .”
“I’m serious,” Brooke said.
Natasha stormed away, tossing her full lunch bag in the trash as she went.
My stomach was in such a knot I couldn’t open my own lunch bag, either. I just sat there, trying not to move until Brooke and Clay finished eating their lunches. I tossed my untouched lunch into the garbage next to Natasha’s and followed everybody else out to the playground.
I started biting my fingernails again. Mom hasn’t noticed yet but I’m sure she will very soon. I’m down to the nubs. It’s bad. Brooke has such pretty hands she could be in nail polish ads. I have to get this under control.
But all I have to do now is start wondering if I am the next one to be kicked out of the Popular Table, especially since Natasha is the one who brought me in and was trying to be my protector against everybody else I don’t know very well, and apparently I keep messing up, and within the minute I am gnawing at my cuticles like they’re the only food in a famine.
NATASHA
THEY DUMPED ME. Just like that. No warning, no gradual growing apart. They were my best friends in the world, my sisters, my twins, my future bridesmaids at my wedding, the only people on earth I told my darkest secrets to. Brooke, Lulu, Evangeline—the girls I dressed up with in matching costumes last Halloween. Also just all alike on random days, for fun, because we’re such dorks together. These were the girls who totally had my back when Clay and I broke up. Especially Brooke.
Or so I thought.
But as of lunch today, that was all abruptly in the past. I walked into the cafeteria at 11:20 this morning without a clue and headed straight toward our table. But I didn’t even get to sit down at it.
Walking out of the cafeteria afterward I wasn’t even mad yet. I was just thinking I will never sit at our table ever again. Nobody gets invited back in once they’re kicked out.
I should know, I was thinking, since I’m the one who made that rule, last May, when Marilicia was kicked out. She deserved it, for being such a damp sponge. She didn’t have to be with us, if she thought it was so lame to dress alike for the field trip. Everybody else thought it was a good idea. She didn’t need to dis me like that. Everybody agreed. I don’t care that she hates me. She does, she’s obvious about it. Tough. It was her own fault, and she can go live her sad little life with the other weirdos at the extreme freak table.
But that’s not me. I’m no damp sponge. What did I even do? Did I do one foul thing, ever, to Brooke? I mean that she could possibly know about? Seriously—what? Went out with Clay? She said it was fine with her. I have the texts to prove it.
That’s when it hit me: even though it was Brooke who did all the talking there at the table today, of course, in her typical calm measured Brooke way, I realized by the time I got to the library with the other outcast losers that it must have been sweet downcast-eyed Truly behind whatever happened.
She must have somehow turned Brooke against me. Maybe as revenge for supposedly, in her words, “dumping” her in sixth grade? Truly is a very patient person, so maybe. Maybe she has been waiting and plotting all this time to, like, give me a taste of my own medicine, make me feel how she must have felt when I unfriended her. But that is so unfair, to turn my best friend against me.
All my friends.
For revenge about something that happened when we were, what? Eleven? Are you kidding me?
Fine, then, I decided, plopping down my books on the library table. That’s what she wants? To take me on? Good. Bring it.
I sat there at the front library table perfectly straight and tall like my father always says I should. For the first time it felt good to be straight and tall, because I was buzzing with energy. Tall and strong not like a telephone pole for once but like a badass. As Daddy says, I don’t have to shrink down and try to take up less space. I don’t have to hide what I am. I’m tall like him, so good. Take charge. I’ll never look adorable like Truly, my petite mother has pointed out more than once, and trying only makes me look ridiculous.
Maybe they dumped me because I’m too tall? No, Evangeline is just as tall. The pimples on my forehead? I am doing everything possible to get rid of them. Am I just not pretty enough? I work so hard at being pretty, it’s the only hobby I have time for. And nice. Nice, nice, nice, and pretty, my hair smoother, my skin clearer, my clothes perfect. I’m worn-out but it’s never enough.
Be yourself, the adults always say. Yeah, right: myself. Which is who, exactly? Myself is some gawky stranger. I don’t even know her. Myself is the girl who just got dumped by her best friends. Why would I want to be her?
Mom would probably be like, yeah, well, you must’ve done something wrong if all your friends hate you. If I told her this happened. Which, ha, no.
Fine. I’ll be who I really am: tall, strong, and independent, like Daddy tells me to be. Like all his willowy ditz girlfriends. Well, they’re all tall, at least.
Brooke thinks Truly is so sweet and innocent, but she doesn’t know Truly like I do. Thanks to me, Brooke and Truly are whispering in the halls, cracking each other up, passing notes. Three weeks, less, and those two are tight as new jeans.
And who’s left out now? Me.
But not for long.
What really pisses me off is, I tried to be nice to Truly. Help her. Bring her into the popular crowd, like she so obviously wanted to be. She dumped her green-haired best bud in one hot heartbeat when I just mentioned she could sit with us once at lunch.
What kind of person does that?
That’s what I should’ve said to Brooke, when she said to me, what kind of person does what you did, Natasha?
Does what? Is all I came up with, and she wouldn’t explain.
That’s what I would say to a jury: what kind of person dumps her best friend the second she gets a chance to sit at the Popular Table? Right? Boom! They’d all agree. What kind of person? A shallow, selfish person is the answer. I was just trying to be nice to her, give her exactly what she wanted, and this is how I’m repaid? She barges in and takes my seat at the table the way my frigging temporary stepfather took my dad’s seat at our kitchen table back when? And Truly of all people knows—she had to know—how that would feel to me. She was my best friend during that whole crap-storm—and now she’s decided to make that run on repeat in my actual life?
“Pigs,” Lulu said in her squeaky voice.
“What?” Theo protested. “I don’t get it.”
“You guys have dirty minds,” Mike said. “We’re actually talking about bubble wrap.”
“Speaking of—I need some serious bubble tea,” Evangeline said. “Have you guys tried that place yet?”
“Gross,” Clay said. “I tried that this summer! It’s horrible. It’s like gobs of goo and they shoot up the straw into your mouth like snot bullets.”
“Snot bullets,” Lulu shrieked. She started laughing her squeaky, snorty laugh. “Now I definitely want some.”
“Who looked at tea,” Clay asked Lulu, “and thought, you know what this stuff needs? Snot bullets.”
She doubled over squeak-laughing at that.
“Seriously,” I agreed, trying to be positive. Lulu is not the only positive person on the planet. “And then the snot bullets smack your . . . you know, when you suck them up the straw and, wham, they hit your . . . you know.”
Everybody looked blankly at me.
“The little dongy thing in the back of your throat,” I said.
“You have a dongy thing in the back of your throat?” Evangeline asked.
“Thanks for sharing,” Lulu said. She was acting all rude to me, I knew, because she got stuck being the French guy in the History Day play. Lulu’s dad is a marine, so she fully did not want to be the French traitor, but tough. Could be worse; Truly took the lousy housemaid part for herself. I’m not the one in charge of giving out parts, obviously, though, so if Lulu wanted to be pissy she should take it out on Truly.
“Dongy thing,” Theo said. “Heh heh heh. Dongy thing.”
Oh, please.
Truly limped back to us and hovered at the edge of the circle, quivering like a hummingbird. I turned to her and smiled. “Everything okay, Truly?”
“I can come!” Truly said. What a triumph. Hurray. “My mom said she’ll pick me up at five thirty at the pizza place, is that okay?”
“Sure,” I said. “Hey, Truly, what’s the little dongy thing in the back of your throat called?”
“The uvula?” Truly answered.
I put my arm around Truly but said to Brooke and Clay, “I told you she’s smart.”
“I knew it was a uvula,” Theo told Lulu, behind us. “But I like the sound of ‘dongy thing.’”
“You would,” Lulu said. But then she squeak-laughed. “Dongy thing. That is pretty excellent.”
As we started off toward town, I heard Jack asking Truly if she wanted him to carry her books for her.
“Oh, puke,” I whispered to Brooke. “What is this, 1958? Carry her books for her?”
“Ha,” Brooke said, but not enthusiastically.
Okay. “Plus, she got stitches in her knee; she didn’t have her hands both amputated. Get a grip, people.” I couldn’t tell if Brooke thought that was funny, and was maybe just holding in her laugh. “Too soon?” I asked.
Her older brother always said that last year. He was a big fan of Too Soon, and Brooke is a big fan of her brother. Well, all her siblings. They’re like a cult or something, how they stick together and have inside jokes.
But Brooke didn’t laugh. She walked away instead, up ahead with Clay and Evangeline. Come on, it was just a joke. I wasn’t suggesting we actually amputate Truly’s hands. What is wrong with everybody lately?
Both Jack and Clay were practically walking into telephone poles every time Truly blinked. She should just tone it down before she embarrasses herself. Maybe she just doesn’t realize. Good thing she has me looking out for her.
Me, full up with awww and sympathy.
HAZEL
I DID NOT expect to like Brooke. She was supposed to be a shallow plate so I could feel confirmed in my superiority to Truly, who was following Brooke around like a late-afternoon shadow. Or, if Brooke had any spark of intelligence at all, I’d make her realize how meaningless her perfect plastic life is, and she’d be shocked, crushed, her reign as queen of the school doomed to collapse. Either outcome would be fine with me. But then she had to go ahead and be subtly funny. And worse: actually nice. It was messing me up.
If I wanted to be friends with Brooke, what did that make me? The same sad wannabe as every other pathetic girl in the school.
To get over my self-hatred, I had to take action.
So I did something perfect. I was certain of both the righteousness of it and the necessity. Then I wrote this letter explaining, which of course I have no intention of ever sending. But in case I die suddenly and tragically, this letter will be found along with the others among my personal effects and the truth will be discovered. I think the truth remains important.
Dear Truly,
Remember when you and I were best friends? Ahhh, so many memories. Here’s one: last month, we mocked how every year at school they go on and on about how we should keep all our passwords private. Remember? You and I were like, what is the deal, here? They tell us to trust one another, to turn to one another for support. They encourage us to be worthy of the trust our friends so rightly place in us. But then they add, don’t tell your friends, even your best friends, your e-mail and phone passwords, or your locker combinations. Why? Because in fact you can’t trust anybody. Remember that?
Yeah. Turns out, they have a good point.
They should probably emphasize more the trick of don’t make your password for your e-mail and all your social media stuff just be your locker combination, or, for example, locker143542, if that happens to be your locker combination.
It is just too easy for somebody who used to be your best friend (until you dumped her) to guess such a thing, Truly, especially if you already told her (that is, me) your locker combination. And gave her (me) your password on a Post-it note.
Because then it is way too easy for that person, even a very nice person, if she is a person with any computer skills—a person like, say, me—to hack into your account and for example send Brooke a copy of an e-mail that Natasha sent you today.
I have to admit I was nauseated when I read that e-mail. It was the one about Henry and Molly. You must know the one I mean.
I knew Natasha was awful but I was unprepared for that level of despicableness, despite the fact that none of her e-mails (all of which I read, of course) were the slightest bit interesting or kind.
But after the particular e-mail in question, even though I am not particularly close with Henry and I get the sense Molly thinks I’m weird (she always asks about my hair), I honestly wanted to go over to Natasha’s house and kick her in the large teeth.
Then I thought of a better plan.
As you may have guessed, Truly, it was the e-mail about how you act all innocent but obviously you’re scheming to make Clay like you. She knows you’re awkward with people, just like your brother who has Asperger’s and your sister who has behavior issues. Obviously social disability runs in your family, so she is just trying to help you learn how to act normal.
It was like a clinic, that e-mail; a perfect machine gun spraying bullets of insult on you and your brother and your sister, all at once. I was just about ready to erect the barricades to fight for you all. Even if they weren’t both so intelligent and interesting, they wouldn’t deserve to be insulted like that, by that judgmental lemonhead who was just trolling you, anyway. And I knew where to get backup.
You may be surprised to learn this but I got to know Brooke somewhat intimately, very quickly, three days ago. So I can say with some confidence that I had already gotten some deep insight into Brooke’s character. Due to her presence at one of the worst moments of my life (at the death of someone very dear to me; I’m not ready to discuss it) I had learned that Brooke was someone of rare sensitivity and morals.
I knew in my heart that Brooke would want to know what Natasha wrote to you. I was certain that Brooke was someone who would not like one of her friends (that is, Natasha) treating another of her friends (meaning you) like that. I also suspected that she would not approve of her supposed friend being nasty about neurological or psychological or learning differences. Not just because her younger brother goes to resource room, where I volunteer after school on Tuesdays, and where he struggles mightily (though of course adorably) let me tell you.
Just generally, too. I think people don’t realize what a good person Brooke is. They think she’s pretty and cool only. They sell her short, in my opinion.
Since I was certain Natasha would feel worse about whatever Brooke decided to do to her than she would about anything I could do, even kick her in her large, expensive teeth, I realized that the best course of action would be just to alert Brooke. To the facts. No elaboration required. I could stay here in the shadows, unseen, unnoticed as usual. No suggestions of how to handle what she read, no parameters of punishment. Just let Brooke see the e-mail from Natasha to you, and Brooke could decide what was required as a response. I had an extremely strong feeling that Brooke would want to take some action to punish Natasha for what she had written.
And I guess I was right.
As I tend to be.
BROOKE
WAIT, SERIOUSLY?
Is she kidding me?
Who does something like that, put down somebody’s sibs? And why? Just to make the friend feel crappy or embarrassed about herself—and her family?
Not that she should even feel embarrassed because come on, we all have our issues, you get whatever brain or body you get and whatever sibs, too. My little brother Corey is a monster and a half, total pain in my butt, but if somebody said something down-putting about him? My door is slammed shut to you from then on, ex-friend.
But that was so obviously what Natasha’s intention was, and worse: to offhandedly mention Truly’s brother’s and sister’s issues, in order to intimidate Truly and make her think she is less than, make her think she is awkward and being judged harshly. By us.
Making me and Evangeline and Clay and Lulu and Jack seem like we would all privately think less of Truly because of whatever struggles her family has.
Screw you, Natasha. No.
Screw you for saying anything mean about two kids I don’t even know, who might or even might not have problems. None of my business, but if they do have stuff to deal with, more power to them. They’re probably working harder than any of us just to get through the day. But screw you even more for thinking you speak for me or anybody else in putting them down.
You think you’re going to act like that, all conniving and passive-aggressively abusive, and then still have friends when the day is done?
No.
Just, no.
TRULY
I DON’T KNOW what happened today but because of something, something I have to figure happened online or last night or I don’t know when or where—Natasha got kicked out of the Popular Table.
Brooke was sitting where Natasha usually sits when Natasha and I walked into the cafeteria. I was walking around to where I usually (well, for the past two weeks) sit. So I didn’t hear exactly what they said, very quietly, to each other. The thing I did hear was Brooke saying to Natasha, “Why don’t you stop pretending to be all innocent?”
Natasha glared at Brooke for a second and then at Clay and me for a bunch more. Clay got very interested in his sandwich. I stayed still and small.
“Maybe find somewhere else to sit,” Brooke said to Natasha.
Natasha smiled tensely. “Brooke . . .”
“I’m serious,” Brooke said.
Natasha stormed away, tossing her full lunch bag in the trash as she went.
My stomach was in such a knot I couldn’t open my own lunch bag, either. I just sat there, trying not to move until Brooke and Clay finished eating their lunches. I tossed my untouched lunch into the garbage next to Natasha’s and followed everybody else out to the playground.
I started biting my fingernails again. Mom hasn’t noticed yet but I’m sure she will very soon. I’m down to the nubs. It’s bad. Brooke has such pretty hands she could be in nail polish ads. I have to get this under control.
But all I have to do now is start wondering if I am the next one to be kicked out of the Popular Table, especially since Natasha is the one who brought me in and was trying to be my protector against everybody else I don’t know very well, and apparently I keep messing up, and within the minute I am gnawing at my cuticles like they’re the only food in a famine.
NATASHA
THEY DUMPED ME. Just like that. No warning, no gradual growing apart. They were my best friends in the world, my sisters, my twins, my future bridesmaids at my wedding, the only people on earth I told my darkest secrets to. Brooke, Lulu, Evangeline—the girls I dressed up with in matching costumes last Halloween. Also just all alike on random days, for fun, because we’re such dorks together. These were the girls who totally had my back when Clay and I broke up. Especially Brooke.
Or so I thought.
But as of lunch today, that was all abruptly in the past. I walked into the cafeteria at 11:20 this morning without a clue and headed straight toward our table. But I didn’t even get to sit down at it.
Walking out of the cafeteria afterward I wasn’t even mad yet. I was just thinking I will never sit at our table ever again. Nobody gets invited back in once they’re kicked out.
I should know, I was thinking, since I’m the one who made that rule, last May, when Marilicia was kicked out. She deserved it, for being such a damp sponge. She didn’t have to be with us, if she thought it was so lame to dress alike for the field trip. Everybody else thought it was a good idea. She didn’t need to dis me like that. Everybody agreed. I don’t care that she hates me. She does, she’s obvious about it. Tough. It was her own fault, and she can go live her sad little life with the other weirdos at the extreme freak table.
But that’s not me. I’m no damp sponge. What did I even do? Did I do one foul thing, ever, to Brooke? I mean that she could possibly know about? Seriously—what? Went out with Clay? She said it was fine with her. I have the texts to prove it.
That’s when it hit me: even though it was Brooke who did all the talking there at the table today, of course, in her typical calm measured Brooke way, I realized by the time I got to the library with the other outcast losers that it must have been sweet downcast-eyed Truly behind whatever happened.
She must have somehow turned Brooke against me. Maybe as revenge for supposedly, in her words, “dumping” her in sixth grade? Truly is a very patient person, so maybe. Maybe she has been waiting and plotting all this time to, like, give me a taste of my own medicine, make me feel how she must have felt when I unfriended her. But that is so unfair, to turn my best friend against me.
All my friends.
For revenge about something that happened when we were, what? Eleven? Are you kidding me?
Fine, then, I decided, plopping down my books on the library table. That’s what she wants? To take me on? Good. Bring it.
I sat there at the front library table perfectly straight and tall like my father always says I should. For the first time it felt good to be straight and tall, because I was buzzing with energy. Tall and strong not like a telephone pole for once but like a badass. As Daddy says, I don’t have to shrink down and try to take up less space. I don’t have to hide what I am. I’m tall like him, so good. Take charge. I’ll never look adorable like Truly, my petite mother has pointed out more than once, and trying only makes me look ridiculous.
Maybe they dumped me because I’m too tall? No, Evangeline is just as tall. The pimples on my forehead? I am doing everything possible to get rid of them. Am I just not pretty enough? I work so hard at being pretty, it’s the only hobby I have time for. And nice. Nice, nice, nice, and pretty, my hair smoother, my skin clearer, my clothes perfect. I’m worn-out but it’s never enough.
Be yourself, the adults always say. Yeah, right: myself. Which is who, exactly? Myself is some gawky stranger. I don’t even know her. Myself is the girl who just got dumped by her best friends. Why would I want to be her?
Mom would probably be like, yeah, well, you must’ve done something wrong if all your friends hate you. If I told her this happened. Which, ha, no.
Fine. I’ll be who I really am: tall, strong, and independent, like Daddy tells me to be. Like all his willowy ditz girlfriends. Well, they’re all tall, at least.
Brooke thinks Truly is so sweet and innocent, but she doesn’t know Truly like I do. Thanks to me, Brooke and Truly are whispering in the halls, cracking each other up, passing notes. Three weeks, less, and those two are tight as new jeans.
And who’s left out now? Me.
But not for long.
What really pisses me off is, I tried to be nice to Truly. Help her. Bring her into the popular crowd, like she so obviously wanted to be. She dumped her green-haired best bud in one hot heartbeat when I just mentioned she could sit with us once at lunch.
What kind of person does that?
That’s what I should’ve said to Brooke, when she said to me, what kind of person does what you did, Natasha?
Does what? Is all I came up with, and she wouldn’t explain.
That’s what I would say to a jury: what kind of person dumps her best friend the second she gets a chance to sit at the Popular Table? Right? Boom! They’d all agree. What kind of person? A shallow, selfish person is the answer. I was just trying to be nice to her, give her exactly what she wanted, and this is how I’m repaid? She barges in and takes my seat at the table the way my frigging temporary stepfather took my dad’s seat at our kitchen table back when? And Truly of all people knows—she had to know—how that would feel to me. She was my best friend during that whole crap-storm—and now she’s decided to make that run on repeat in my actual life?
