Not My Problem

by Ciara Smyth

  It did not look normal.

  Ms. Devlin was still talking with Meabh, and they looked up at us, confused, when Holly burst into the hall, throwing open both doors like she was a celebrity arriving at a party.

  “Ms. Devlin,” Holly said in an oddly formal voice. The anxiety was making me feel nauseous. I took a few steps to the side, toward the back of the room. I didn’t even know what I was anxious about yet. It was like a primal threat response. Something bad was about to happen.

  “Holly?” Ms. Devlin asked, squeezing why are you behaving in this dramatic fashion into one word.

  Holly smiled and I saw her eyes flicker to Meabh. From the way her shoulders tensed, she was expecting something bad too. They stared each other down.

  “I would like to run for president.”

  I hurried to keep up with Holly as she headed in the direction of her next class. Ms. Devlin had been thrilled to have a new candidate. I couldn’t figure out whether she didn’t notice that Meabh had been struck speechless for the first time in her life or that Holly had been possessed by a demon, giving her red demon eyes when she spoke. Maybe Ms. D mistook that look for enthusiasm, but I knew it was homicidal rage. Perhaps Ms. Devlin enjoyed the prospect of the drama a real rivalry would bring to the occasion. What’s an election without a little hair pulling and back biting and literal stabbings in the playground?

  “Holly, slow down. My legs are half the length of yours.”

  She relaxed her pace and seemed to shake herself out of her thoughts. “Sorry. I was thinking about what I should do.”

  “So you think you might not run?”

  “No. I am definitely running. She’s not getting away with that stupid policy. No, I was thinking about how to win. I’m gonna debate her. Ms. Devlin will love it if I suggest a debate. And I’m going to make posters. I’m going to knock on people’s doors if I have to.” She clenched her jaw and then added, “Not that I think I will have to because hello, everyone hates her. But I’m going to make sure that people vote and I’m going to make sure that they all vote for me so that when she loses, she knows that she lost because I made it happen.”

  When did you turn into such an asshole?

  That wasn’t fair. She was angry. She was venting to her best friend. I shouldn’t be so judgmental.

  “Come on,” I wheedled. “That sounds like a lot of work. Can you really be arsed?”

  She stopped dead in the hallway, causing a mini pileup of students behind her. She ignored them as they sidestepped and gave us dirty looks.

  “Yes, I can. I’m sick of her taking everything and acting like she deserves it. The only reason she would win otherwise is because no one else bothered running. I’m sick of her telling everyone what to do.”

  “Okay. I get it. But maybe there’s another way to get her to change her mind about the paper. I mean, do you really want to be school council president? Or do you just want to beat Meabh?”

  “I want to beat Meabh,” Holly said like she didn’t get my point.

  How do you argue with that?

  “It looks like so much work.”

  “She makes it so much work.” Holly waved me off and started walking again. “It doesn’t have to be like that. You hand in a couple of proposals, you do some student-staff consultations, you argue for your stupid ideas, they say no, you put it all down on your CV or something. It’ll look good when I apply for Oxbridge and Trinity.”

  “You have the paper to look good,” I pointed out. “You don’t need this.”

  “I won’t have the paper if it goes digital,” she snapped.

  “You will. It’ll just be . . . online,” I said meekly, not really seeing the massive problem.

  “One of the reasons the paper is so popular is because it’s in print. We can hand it out. We leave it in common areas. People pick it up and look through it and articles or photos catch their eye.” Holly was explaining this in a tone that implied I was really stupid and she was really patient. “But if you’re sitting on your phone, you’re not going to go to the school website and look it up. Not when you can watch scenes from musicals performed by a cast of old mops on TikTok.”

  I couldn’t argue with that. I had an overpowering urge to see The Sound of Music with Captain von Trapp played by a Swiffer. And all the von Trapp kids could be dustpans with googly eyes.

  Holly narrowed her eyes and a sudden coldness startled me out of contemplating how I could monetize Evan Hansen the feather duster for Flubberygiblets.

  “Why do you care if I want to be student council president or not?” Holly asked. “When did you become Meabh’s little helper and start fighting her battles for her?”

  That was a bit close for comfort.

  “I’m not her helper,” I protested. “It’s just seems like you’re getting into a fight that isn’t worth it.”

  “It’s worth it to me. You know that. You know how I feel about her and if you had any loyalty you’d have my back. If you hated someone, I’d hate them too. That’s part of being someone’s best friend.”

  Not if it’s based on petty bullshit.

  No, that wasn’t fair either. She was only asking for loyalty, wasn’t she? Maybe I was the one being a bad friend.

  “I do—” I said. I meant to finish the sentence and say I do hate her, but the memory of her hurt expression when she saw me roll my eyes at her in English class cut me off. Holly didn’t seem to notice. We’d reached her classroom door, and she paused.

  “Stop trying to undermine me, then, and support me instead.”

  I didn’t have a chance to reply. She entered her class and left me behind, looking at the door. Why was I always upsetting her? Holly had been my best friend my whole life and I couldn’t even get on her side. Was she right? Was I betraying her? But when I thought of Meabh, she didn’t seem like the person we’d hated all these years. That person was a myth we’d built up around her. Holly would never see that. My guts churned and I tried to fight back tears. It didn’t work. I locked myself in the nearest bathroom and let them come for exactly two minutes. Then I washed my face and went to French.

  When I entered, Miss Sullivan rounded on me.

  “The class started ten minutes ago,” she snapped, and pointed me back toward the door. Six, but whatever. Miss Sullivan wasn’t like Ms. Devlin. She wouldn’t brush off my cheek. She was more the type who’d scream me into a puddle and then scrape me off the floor and into a bucket.

  Sighing, I turned around and waited outside the room for a minute as I heard Miss Sullivan tell the class to read the newspaper article and find examples of le conditionel.

  “Miss Cleary,” she said in clipped tones, when she’d followed me out and closed the door behind her.

  “Yes, miss?” I said, trying to look abashed when what I really felt was tired and fed up.

  “Your behavior is becoming untenable.”

  I gave her a blank look.

  “You’re often late. When you turn up, that is. You don’t put any effort in to your homework. Your Junior Cert results were very poor. You hand in your written work on what appears to be a whim. It’s not good enough.”

  “I’m sorry, miss.”

  She heaved a sigh. “I’m sure. But if I don’t see a major improvement this term, I’m going to have to take disciplinary action. I want every. Single. Assignment.”

  The only good part of the rest of the day was catching up with Laura after lunch. Sure, I’d had to answer some embarrassing questions at the chemist.

  “Have you had unprotected sex in the last seventy-two hours?”

  “Yep. With a boy. And his bare penis. My bad.”

  But that was fine.

  I saw her standing picking her nails and biting her lip by the prefab building, waiting for me. I sidled up to her as quickly as possible and spoke in my best old-timey gangster voice.

  “I got the goods, mugsy.”

  She jumped out of her skin and screamed.

  When she calmed down and I stopped laughing
I passed off the pill in a covert handshake. I insisted on that part. It was silly but when she squeezed my hand and thanked me I felt all warm and fuzzy. I could fix things. It was so easy to make her happy.

  The rest of the day lived up to the beginning. My history teacher gave me extra homework for failing the last quiz. I burned my scones in home economics. I couldn’t concentrate because I couldn’t stop thinking about Holly. Actually, thinking wasn’t the right word. I didn’t have thoughts, just a heavy, thick layer of grimy self-loathing that everything else got stuck in. Of course I failed the test. I was stupid. Of course I burned the scones, I was useless. Of course I was a bad friend.

  I barely noticed how I got home. I was thinking about ways I could make it up to her. How I could show her I was on her side. Always. Part of me thought the best thing I could do would be to stop talking to Meabh. But I kept searching for other ideas. After all, Holly didn’t know I was talking to Meabh, so how would that help?

  When I reached the flat, still running on autopilot, I shouted hi to my mother and went straight to my room. I badly needed a nap. Or a shower. Or a lobotomy. Something to shake the day off.

  “Aideen, would you come in here, please?” Mam called out.

  Had Mam noticed my mood from one “hi”? I rubbed my face and thought that actually maybe I could talk to her. She knew Holly almost as well as I did. Maybe she could help. We could have a cup of tea and I would tell her the whole story. Oh, all right, not the whole story. Just the “Holly is mad at me what do I do” part. I slunk into the kitchen, hoping she’d break out the biscuits if she saw how bad things were.

  “Hello, love.”

  I wanted to turn around and walk out again.

  “Hi, Dad.”

  14.

  He sat on our sofa with a stupid smile on his stupid face and his fancy stupid shoes on our footrest. The footrest was one million years old and manky as fuck but I still felt the heat of fury rise up in me when I noticed. Who the fuck was he to be putting his dirty shoes on our stuff? Dickhead.

  “Mind getting your shoes off the fucking furniture?” I said coldly.

  “Aideen!”

  Mam sounded shocked at my language, which was entirely for his benefit as every second word out of her mouth usually had asterisks in it. She was standing holding the kettle over three mugs. Did she really think we were all going to sit down and have a cup of tea?

  Dad stood up. “I should go.”

  “Aidan, no.” She looked at me, pleading. “Aideen.”

  A whole storm raged inside me. Everything about him made me sick. There had been a time when I was little when I didn’t feel that way, but it was because I didn’t really understand what was going on. I didn’t think it was strange that my dad only came round now and then. Or that he would disappear for months on end. I knew kids whose parents were divorced and I knew that sometimes dads didn’t live with you. That wasn’t strange. I didn’t think it was weird that sometimes I saw them kissing either. I understood that when he went away, Mam was sad and that made her drink.

  From overheard smoky conversations that my mam had in the kitchen with her friends I gradually put the past together. Dad had married this woman, Sarah, a year or two before he met Mam. Dad had an affair with Mam and then I arrived. At some point he asked Mam to marry him, even though he was still with Sarah. She waited for him to leave for years, but he never did. For some reason there was this part of Mam that wanted to believe he would so badly that she just couldn’t give up hope. Sometimes he’d come back to her and he’d claim that she was the one he really loved. Sometimes he’d disappear and I’d see pictures of him celebrating an anniversary or a new baby online. He had four kids with Sarah now. One of them was older than me.

  He didn’t know I followed him. I’d friended him with a random picture of a hot woman and figured he’d accept. Thankfully he’d never slid into my DMs. I knew Mam must see those pictures too, although if she was friends with him it was also under a fake profile.

  A couple of years after I figured all this out something else occurred to me and I rang the records office. I asked about my birth certificate. There was no father listed.

  No trail. I wondered sometimes if Mam named me after him to make a point. You can’t pretend she’s not yours. But from what I’d seen she was just that obsessed with him.

  She looked so happy every time he came around. And so devastated every time he left. Was it worth it? The moments of joy paid for with days when she couldn’t even get out of bed? If I made it worse for her, was I taking away the only thing that made her smile? Was being happy for a little while better than never being happy? It didn’t feel like that. It felt like ruining your life for the same scrap of affection over and over because you didn’t think you deserved any more than that.

  “Sorry,” I said, trying my best to squash the bitterness in my voice. Mam smiled, a real smile, and I saw how her eyes lit up when she handed him a cup of tea and he said, “Thanks, love.” For a second I thought I was right to let her have this moment. But he never had the same spark when he looked at her.

  I forced myself to sip on my tea. I sat at the table though, and not on the sofa near them. Dad had to turn around and crane his neck to look at me.

  “How’s school going?” he asked.

  Don’t you get a report? You pay for it, after all. Or do you not bother to open it?

  The fees for my school were not huge and they were meant to be a “voluntary donation” but I know they helped me get in because my entrance exam was abysmal. I was dying to go to St. Louise’s because it was where Holly was going. I felt like I’d compromised myself by accepting his money. I should have told him to shove it up his arse and gone to St. Rose’s instead, which was closer to where I lived and not as obsessed with exams. But there was no Holly there. I sold myself out for her.

  “It’s grand,” I said.

  “You still knocking about with that wee girl with the red hair?”

  I have one friend and you can’t even remember her name. Classic. Can you remember the names of Rachel’s, Thomas’s, Christopher’s, and James’s friends?

  “Yeah.”

  Mam gave me a meaningful look over her mug.

  What’s happened that you’re here again? Fight with Sarah? A lull in the relationship? Is she not in the mood lately? Did you fancy fucking someone different and knew you wouldn’t have to make any effort with Mam?

  “How’s work or whatever?”

  Dad perked up. Of course he did, it was about him. He launched into a full explanation about what was going on at his company and I didn’t even pretend to listen. Imagine being so up your own hole that you don’t realize when someone is only asking a question to be polite and instead you think a sixteen-year-old girl is actually interested in your shite company.

  “Cool,” I said when he finally stopped talking. “I have loads of homework.”

  Have I done my penance?

  Mam nodded to let me go and I resisted the urge to slam my door behind me.

  My bag was full of books when I kicked and it hurt my toe but it reminded me that I really did have to do homework. I put my earbuds in and opened the French file and tried to focus. I held my pen in my hand over a pad of paper and tried to ignore the pounding in my head. I played the same few lines over and over again but the meaning didn’t come. I knew some of the words, but there were too many that didn’t mean anything to me. A few loud laughs penetrated past the deep voice of the French fella in my head and it made me tense up. How could she sit in there laughing with him? The paper in front of me became blurry and a tear dropped out and splashed on the page. I blinked really fast so no more could get out and I opened up my messages.

  AIDEEN

  He’s back.

  HOLLY

  Come over.

  I threw a big hoodie on and slipped out the front door. Mam didn’t notice and I suspected she wouldn’t for some time. I walked to the bus stop and waited. It was two buses to get to Holly’s and b
y the time I got to the first changeover I thought I’d calmed down. The whole of my Sad Ladies of the Nineties playlist had played through and smushed down the churny awful thoughts of Mam and Dad. Or Aidan rather. Why did I even still call him Dad? He didn’t deserve it. He didn’t want it! I was just another unfortunate consequence of his “complicated” relationship status. He liked to swoop in, wreak havoc, and then disappear with no thought for what was left behind. I wondered if he thought about us when he wasn’t here. Did we cease to exist for him when he wasn’t looking directly at us?

  Holly was waiting for me at the bus stop. She had a tea in a to-go mug, which she held out to me.

  “You didn’t have to meet me here,” I said.

  “Come here,” she said, and she held her arms wide. I sank into them and cried into the soft fluffy collar of her coat.

  15.

  I stayed at Holly’s that night even though her mam made one of those sucking-lemon faces. I heard her and Holly whispering in strained voices outside her room. Holly’s mam did not like me. She thought I was bad news. But I’d rather look at her sour puss over breakfast than go home and have to face Dad spending the night. There weren’t songs loud enough to drown out the trauma of hearing your mam getting the ride.

  I set my alarm for six but put it on vibrate under my pillow so it wouldn’t wake Holly up. We’d been up late talking and it had been really nice. Like old times. She told me about the time Jason Keyes asked her to rub him on the butt and she said no. We laughed about that for a while. She played footsie with my bare feet under the covers.

  When the alarm went off, all I wanted to do was put the pillow over my face, but I still had that homework and ignoring it was not an option. As I rummaged through my bag, trying my best to be quiet, Holly startled me.

  “What are you doing?” she groaned.

  “I have to do this homework or I’m going to legit be expelled,” I said. “Go back to sleep.”

  She rolled over and looked at her phone. “It’s six a.m.”

  “I know, that’s why I said go back to sleep.”