I consider planting myself on the couch and working on one of my Winona Ryder-flavored fan art projects while my brothers play video games. But the sadness feels like a bad case of food poisoning, rolling in and out of my body in waves. It’s nothing I’d want either of them to see.
I head to my room, the farthest down the hall and away from the living room. Our cat, Aemond, regrettably named by Owen because our sweet rescue is missing an eye, is sleeping on my bed. I drop down next to him and pull upBeetlejuiceon my computer. My brain always slows down fastest watching something I love.
I just have to survive tonight. This sucks, but everything will hurt a little less in the morning. Watching Winona movies always helps.
But I can’t focus on the laptop screen. I itch for my phone.
Muscle memory would take me to all our social media apps, to our text group chat.
I pull up the chat chain between me and Paisley instead.
I’ve ignored so many tiny slights in the past. Technically, I have no idea if Paisley, Harlow, and Opal are done with me as a friend. Maybe they’re not done and expect me to just lie down and take this. Hell, they might not even know Beck told me and will act innocent come school on Monday. I could swallow this all down and look forward to having Halloween plans involving my special interest. I could accept the scraps.
But at the same time, what would happen if I were head-on about this? Is there a chance they’d respect me more and things would change?
That would be pretty incredible. It’s what I wanted to do since Paisley disappeared into the diner bathroom earlier tonight. I owe it to myself to break the pattern.
I type up the message before I realize what I’m doing.
ME: hey what the fuck? i know you went on the camping trip without me
I send the message before I can regret it, exhaling for the first time since my fingertips touched my screen on that chat.
And three dots show up. My heart lodges itself in my throat. I force myself to keep the chat open despite every instinct to chuck my phone out the window and never speak to anyone ever again.
Then nothing.
Anxiety rippling under my skin, I set my phone face down as far away from me as I can. God, why did I do that? What if this was all some huge misunderstanding and that text is what gets me ostracized? My throat tightens up as I barely watch Barbara and Adam sit in the cosmic waiting room that gave me the most nightmares as a kid.
I dig my fingertips into my sheets, feel how soft they’ve become with their years of washings. My room smells like the vanilla candle I’ve nearly burned down to the wick. I have to stay grounded. I can’t let this emotional spiral win, but I’m losing my grip. My eyes are seeing the images on my computer screen, but they’re not processing as a movie.
I turn my phone over and my breath hitches.
There’s a text from Paisley.
PAISLEY:im doing you a favor we’re all gonna die out here
My face heats. What the fuck? What kind of a response isthat?
I always overthink my messages. Am I coming across as nice enough, peppy enough, go-with-the-flow enough? If I send one risky text, that’s all I’ll send for the next month. But clearly one of my best friends can’t be bothered to do that.
Now, my fingers fly across my screen composing my second text in less than ten seconds.
Only for Paisley’s message to disappear before I can send my reply.MESSAGE UNSENTleft under my callout. Something less familiar replaces the sadness and humiliation. Something that burns its way through my chest and stays blooming. My breath comes out ragged as I try to figure out a next move.
She’s playing games. They just put me through emotional hell and now they’re playing games. I can imagine it too, Harlow and Opal giggling as they look over Paisley’s shoulder as she types. I bet they’re drunk or high and realized they don’t know how to entertain themselves without their phones. So they used the only service left to rub this in my face.
What assholes they are. The phrase repeats like the echo of an old bell through a building.They’re such fucking assholes. It’s time to face the facts: They’re my best friends, but I can’t stand them.
Why am I putting up with this bullshit? Would being friendless for the rest of junior and senior years really bethatmuch worse than having to deal with this? I’m only at this school as a means to an end for college. There’s only one hour a day I have to be social, and senior year I’ll be able to go home during that time. For the first time since I first started noticing my friends treating me differently, it actually feelsgoodto imagine life without them.
But it’s more than that. I’m ready to feel better, but I’m more ready,right now, for them to feel as shitty as I do. I’m not going to let them just get away with it this time. No more lying down and taking it. I’m ready to bite before I disappear from their lives. I want them to hear exactly what they’ve done to me, so if they have an ounce of empathy somewhere underneath all that narcissism, they’ll remember this for the rest of their lives.
I already texted Paisley. I can do something that scares me more.
I have to see them. I’m not going to be some punching bag from behind a screen. If they want to excommunicate me from the friend group, they can do it to my face.
Four