Fiona and Sarah are sitting at the back of the classroom. Fiona is copying Sarah’s maths homework. Sarah is nibbling at a roll and sending text messages to someone. Possibly Shane. Probably Shane.
“Texting Shane?” I ask.
She looks up. “Hey, Abi. Yeah, it’s Shane.”
“She is so in love with him.” Fiona smirks.
Sarah rolls her eyes. “Stop. Please. I’m not.”
“Yes, you are. It’s so obvious.”
“I’m not! I’m just excited about the band, that’s all.”
“Sure.”
“Go do your homework,” Sarah tells her.
Fiona goes back to her maths.
“I don’t like him,” Sarah says firmly. “I don’t.”
It sounds like she’s trying to convince herself of that fact, but I don’t say anything.
“I believe you,” I reassure her.
I hope Shane isn’t going to be the sole topic of conversation for the next six months. I remember when she was going out with Kieran. At first it was, “He’s so wonderful/kind/gorgeous, don’t you think so? I wonder if he likes me. Do you think he likes me? No, of course he doesn’t. He probably just thinks of me as a friend. Maybe he doesn’t even like me as a friend! Maybe he really hates me and every time I talk to him he can’t wait to get away from me . . .”
Stage Two. Budding Romance. “I think he likes me. I mean, he’s been calling me every night this week. That has to mean something, right? And we’re going to the cinema on Saturday. But I don’t know if it’s a just-as-friends thing, or if we’re going to the cinema together. You know what I mean?”
Stage Three. Getting Together. “So, we’re officially going out now! Oh my God, I can’t believe it. My boyfriend, Kieran. Wow. But what if he only wants to go out with me so he can say he has a girlfriend?”
Stage Four. Jealousy and Insecurity. “We saw his ex yesterday. She’s so pretty, you wouldn’t believe it. And skinny. He’s still friends with her, you know. He was really nice to her. He probably wishes he was still with her.”
Stage Five. Boredom. “It’s just not exciting anymore. He’s so predictable. I don’t even bother getting dressed up for him anymore. I mean, what’s the point? We’re like an old married couple.”
Stage Six. Fighting. “I hate him. Absolutely hate him. Every time he says something, I just want to shoot him. He’s so boring! He never shuts up about that stupid car he wants to buy. I mean, who cares?”
Stage Seven. Post-Break-Up Blues. “I miss him so much. Why did I break up with him? Why? He was such a great boyfriend. I’m so stupid!”
Stage Eight. A New Beginning. “So we’re back together now. It’s great! Really! Even if he’s boring and I hate his friends and he spends way too much time hanging around his ex-girlfriend. This is what I want. Really.”
Stage Nine. Coming To One’s Senses. “Thank God that asshole is out of my life for good.”
Not that I don’t absolutely adore Sarah. I mean, she is one of my closest friends in the entire world. I just wish that the boyfriend crisis wasn’t so all-consuming. It gets boring hearing about your friend’s love life. Especially if your own happens to be somewhat non-existent at the time.
Chapter Fourteen
To be fair to Sarah, she didn’t babble on about Shane all through lunch. The babbling was mostly band-related. Sort of like Michelle in American Pie. Fiona and I nodded and smiled like the good friends we are.
I find it hard to get enthusiastic about anything. Sometimes even going out with my friends seems like too much effort.
After lunch it’s time for assorted Pointless Classes. I settle back and examine my homework journal. Behind me, Karen is whispering to Leanne. I can’t believe she doesn’t realise how horrible Leanne really is. I can’t believe the others don’t, either. I don’t get why Karen is a part of their group. An enthusiastic member, I mean. I’m just the quiet one who sits there biting her nails. She likes them. She really does.
I hate her sometimes.
Our last class is careers, in which no one listens. We get handouts on different universities. I think I’ll do Arts in UCD. A nice, pointless degree, right? I can study a couple of subjects I like for a few years without having to decide what I actually want to do.
I actually love careers class, even if half the time it’s devoted to a lecture on the importance of having a study timetable. It’s like a glimpse into the future, the post-secondary-school bliss. I can’t wait.
Sophie and the Bleach Brigade are amusing themselves by asking stupid questions and then not bothering to listen to the answers. Ha. Ha. Yes, hilarious. Ever thought of doing stand-up comedy, girls? Here’s a tip – don’t.
In two and a half years’ time they will be the ones with not enough points for the course they want to do, or finding dead-end jobs which will leave them bitter and hardened before they’re thirty.
Now, they waste time and annoy the hell out of the rest of the class. Well, me, at least.
Must – resist – the – urge – to – strangle –
Chapter Fifteen
I am still seething when the bell goes. What I really don’t need is another dose of band fever. I might end up saying something I’d regret. I don’t want that to happen either.
I’m in luck. Sarah is waiting outside the classroom for me when we’re finally let out (after yet another reminder of the importance of good study habits, which is completely relevant to Transition-Year students) with a please-don’t-hate-me look on her face.
“Shane wants me to go over to his house today, so I’ll be walking back there with Fiona,” she says in a rush.
I shrug. “Have a good time.”
“You don’t mind, do you?”
“It’s ten minutes. I’ll cope.” I smile.
She beams. “See you tomorrow.”
And it’s another Alanis-accompanied walk home for Abi. When you think about it, it makes sense. Angry-girl music for angry-girl Abigail. Call me the stereotype, then, but what you don’t know is that there’s more to me than meets the eye. I can be reasonable-girl. I can be reliable-girl. I can be contented-girl, even. I refuse to fit into any set category, so don’t even try to stick a label on me because it’ll never fully describe who I am.
You might have noticed that I have a slight problem with conformity.
But anyway. I arrive home. Turn on TV. Check phone. My life is so mundane. One message. From Graham. Cue shudder from me.
You know, before I explain about Graham I’d like to state for the record that we were never a couple. Never. Because a lot of people seem to be under the impression that he’s my ex, and that’s why I can’t stand him.
I never went out with Graham!
Sorry. I’m still a little uptight about the situation. Possibly because he told everyone we were going out. Possibly because people believed him. Possibly because before he turned into such an asshole, he was actually a really good friend.
I first started hanging out with Sarah, Fiona and Karen the summer after Second Year. Actually, Karen wasn’t around much that summer, between the Gaeltacht and her month in America, but when she was, she was part of the group. Anyway, it was then that we got to know Graham and a couple of his friends, Kieran being one of them. Sarah and Kieran became SarahKieran as the summer drew to a close, and feeling rather sorry for myself now that she was spending all of her time with him, I ended up turning to Graham for, if not comfort, then companionship.
Fast forward to the following summer. The SarahKieran unit has been permanently shattered, Sarah celebrating with a night out and Kieran “mourning” with a new girl. Graham has become a very good friend to Abi, although Abi doesn’t realise that she only thinks of him as a good friend because he knows when to compliment her and make her feel validated as a worthwhile human being. The other half of the time he is using her as an unpaid therapist/devoted listener to trivial problems (let’s put it this way, if he’d been born a girl he’d be the type that would bemoan the
fact that they’d broken a nail) and subtly eroding her self-esteem.
Seriously. He’d make some snide comment, but me, being the emotional mess that I am, wouldn’t get angry with him for it. Instead I’d feel like a bad person, a worthless person. Then he’d say something nice about me, so I’d be completely grateful to him for cheering me up and being such a good friend.
It’s a dangerous trap to fall into, letting someone else control how you feel about yourself. Why do you do it? Simple. It’s for the moments when they make you feel better.
Anyway. Summer post-Junior-Cert-trauma, everything’s going wonderfully wrong. Abi feels like crap and takes up recreational arm-slicing. (She always meant to have another hobby.) Sarah fails to notice. Graham possibly does, but doesn’t say anything. Actually, thinking about it, he probably didn’t, because otherwise he wouldn’t have wanted to go out with me. He’s not good with people with problems. Complaining about his own, sure, but scars would have scared him off.
It was one day at the end of July or the start of August that he told me he loved me. I kid you not, he actually used those words. And if they hadn’t been coming out of the mouth of someone I was beginning to hate, I probably would have been flattered, at the very least.
Instead I just stared blankly at him and then said, “OK.”
“I’m serious,” he said.
“So . . . what do you want me to say?” I glared at him. I was pissed off with him. He’d put me in an awkward situation, and I didn’t like it.
“Forget it,” he snapped.
And I thought that was the end of it, I really did. And when I say “it”, I don’t just mean the love part, I mean our entire friendship. I was hoping it was.
But of course it wasn’t. Then came the stalker-like phone calls and unexpected visits to the house. And although you’ve probably come to the conclusion that I’m a cold-hearted bitch, I’m actually hopeless at being mean to people if they’re being friendly towards me. I mean, Graham was getting on my nerves with his fake “I really value our friendship” line, but I couldn’t yell at him for it. I just couldn’t.
I suspect his text message says something along those lines. Let’s see . . . oh, I was right. Abi, I miss having u 2 talk 2, ur such a good friend. Call r txt soon. Graham.
I consider it, and scroll down through the options. Reply. Forward. Ah, there we go.
Delete.
Chapter Sixteen
You can probably understand why Graham isn’t exactly my favourite person in the world. After I reluctantly agreed to be friends with him again, he took this to mean that I reciprocated his feelings.
And thought it would be appropriate to declare to all of his friends, and mine, that we were together.
Even people who weren’t technically “friends” knew about it, like Leanne and Hannah and that crowd. And since Graham isn’t exactly . . . the most desirable boy around, they found it pretty funny. You know how it goes. The biggest loser you know turns out to have a girlfriend. It makes for great gossip. Especially when the girl is that weird ex-friend of yours.
The one good thing about it was that people tended to be more surprised about him going out with someone than me going out with someone. I was, apparently, the lesser loser of the two of us.
To make matters worse, at the time the word was spreading, I was in Tyrone for a long weekend, staying with my cousin Sharon. By the time I got back, everybody knew.
I ran into Leanne in the newsagent’s. “I heard about your new boyfriend,” she said, grinning. To be fair, she was being friendly as opposed to bitchy that day.
“What?” I asked, confused, having just arrived back the night before.
“Graham, is that his name? Paul told me. He said the guy never shuts up about you.”
“I’m not going out with him,” I said, in complete and utter shock. I was hoping Paul had gotten it wrong, but at the same time it seemed like a very Graham-like thing to do.
Leanne seemed surprised. “He’s been telling everyone. I always thought he was your boyfriend, he always seems to be with you.”
“He’s my stalker,” I muttered. “I don’t even like him as a friend anymore.”
“Know the feeling,” she said. “See ya, Abi.”
“See ya,” I echoed.
Now, before you get all “Oh, Leanne seems like such a nice person, Abi has it all wrong about her”, let me say that she clearly didn’t believe me, because she never said anything to contradict the rumour, and still continues to refer to him as “that Graham guy, you know, Abi’s ex-boyfriend”. I’m not completely irrational.
After my encounter with Leanne I went over to Sarah’s.
“Abi, what’s the story? Graham’s been going on about how he’s madly in love with you and how great it is now that he’s with you. I thought you hated him.”
“I do. He made it up,” I said quietly.
“What? Seriously? He just . . . made it up?”
I nodded. “All I told him was that I was OK with us being friends again. But apparently he, being the freak that he is, decided that that meant it was OK to lie and tell everyone we’re going out.”
The more I thought about it, the angrier I got, and Sarah was backing me up one hundred percent.
“What a complete shithead!” she raged. “I mean, what’s his problem, anyway? First he practically stalks you, then he completely insults you by telling everyone you’re with him! Like anyone would actually lower themselves to his standard.”
Never mind the fact that three months previously I had gushed to her about how nice, how considerate Graham was. She was kind enough not to mention it. Selective memory should be exercised among friends. Just like me conveniently forgetting about how she’d raved about Kieran a few months before when she was ranting about how awful he was.
The next day was Confrontation Day. It should have been pretty simple. I was in the right, wasn’t I? I would confront him, he had no other option but to admit to being in the wrong, I would yell for a while and then leave, still angry but minus one lying bastard in my life.
Things didn’t exactly go as planned. It was more like, I confront him; he acts puzzled and confused, denying any knowledge of these events; he then makes some stupid comment like “Why are you always so hostile?”; he follows this by accusing me of treating him badly even though he has always been there for me. What the . . . ?
He starts actually listing off occasions when I have apparently not been a good enough friend to him. I am so taken back by this that I don’t know what to say. I don’t argue with him.
When he finally takes a breath I mention the fact that he makes me feel worthless. He demands examples.
Gosh, Graham, unlike you, I don’t have an encyclopaedic mind which stores every single sentence ever uttered. And I certainly can’t think of one offhand when you’re yelling at me even though you’re the liar here, you’re the bad guy.
He smirks. He is triumphant. He believes himself to be the hero.
He is completely twisted.
He calls me two weeks later and says that he is willing to forgive me. I slam down the phone, but he is such a master of manipulation that I actually feel bad about doing it.
I hate him. More than Leanne, more than the Bleach Brigade. More than me, even.
Chapter Seventeen
Dinner in the Evans’ house.
Greg: “Football. Football football. Football?”
Mom: (nodding and being an interested, involved parent)
Dad: (reads newspaper. He is the involved parent on Thursdays and Saturdays. Now he wants to catch up on the day’s events.)
Greg: “Football football football.”
Jess: (rolling eyes) “Shut up about your stupid football!”
Mom: (on automatic pilot) “Don’t say ‘shut up’ to your brother.”
Jess: (assuming the role of rebellious teen, since Abi is too busy rebelling by not being a rebel) “But he’s boring. I don’t know why you bother listening to him.”
>
Mom: “Eat your dinner.”
Jess: “You never listen to me. It’s always him. You hate me.”
Mom: “Eat your dinner.”
Jess: “See? You’re not even listening to me!”
Dad: (rolls eyes behind his newspaper)
Abi: “She can’t help it. She’s a middle child.”
Jess: “Shut up! You think you know everything.”
Abi: “I know more than you do, anyway.”
Mom: “Girls, stop fighting and eat your dinner.”
Abi: (wonders if her mother’s preoccupation with getting them to eat their dinner is masking something deeper)
Greg: “Can I say something now?”
Mom: (sighing) “Go ahead.”
Greg: “Football football football . . .”
Chapter Eighteen
I spend Tuesday evening online. Four new emails. One from Sarah replying to a “fill this out about me and send back” survey I sent her. Two chain-letter-type emails from Sharon. And one from Graham. He seems to be on a roll today.
I open it. It says pretty much the same thing as the text message, only with more waffling and more of a “you should feel sorry for me because my life is so horrible” vibe.
Like the text message, it gets deleted. What does he expect me to say?
Oh, yes, Graham, I’d love to be friends with you again even though you’re a horrible person who enjoys manipulating other people. Interesting how, although you told me what a bad friend I was, you still cling to the idea of us being friends. By the way, I’m in a crappy mood right now and don’t feel like listening to you whine about your life. I’m too self-absorbed to care about anyone but myself at the moment. Still want me to call you?
I contemplate emailing him with that message, but refrain. I’d regret it later. Graham would take it as an invitation to start ringing me regularly again.
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