2I can see it now. I sit on the floor, my back to the brick wall, looking out the window. The weather seems hopeful, like me. It's a Saturday in late October. The sky is that deep azure people who aren't from here can only dream about, and there are those white clouds, so soft and blazing white that they seem to glow from inside with some sort of holy illumination. There's a slight breeze every now and then, tugging and the yellow and brown leaves and tossing them down. There are birds calling to each other, and there are even butterflies. It's another warm fall. The sun is up, too high for me to see it through the glass door, but I can see the shade transforming the backyard into a magical glade. It looks so hopeful, so utterly peaceful, and I'm getting that feeling I get whenever I'm in school. I want to be out there. Because out there, everything is perfect. In here, it's the exact opposite.
There are three doors, all closed. The windows are closed, though the blinds are open to let light in. We've turned the television off so we can concentrate on the task at hand. The reason we're here, the reason I called them here.
Seven of us are in the room. In no particular order: myself, Charity, Sabrina, Claudia, Clara, Nola, and Ella. Opposite myself, there is a long couch, large enough for four people. Three if you want to be especially comfortable. The couch is country blue, and the cushions are soft and cool.
Claudia and Clara are sitting next to each other, Claudia on the end and holding a pillow. She's turned slightly to us, though she looks more at Clara than anyone else. She sits up straight, her feet on the floor and spread apart. Clara is sitting next to her, facing her, also hugging a pillow. Her legs are crossed, feet on the table, and she's practically lying down.
Ella is on the other end, the one closer to the other couch. Her legs are crossed gaily, and she's surprising comfortable, more so than the rest of us, really. She's relaxed and prepared, leaning forward slightly to listen to Nola, even laughing about something quietly with her. Nola's sitting on the faded yellow couch which sits at a ninety degree angle to Big Blue. Nola also has her feet on the table, legs straight, not caring who else or what else might be in the way of her feet. She's leaning back, relaxing in the concrete cushions and playing with her keychain.
Charity and Sabrina are sitting next to her, Sabrina in the middle, and they keep giving each other disgusted looks. I know what it's about, and everyone else is about to find out, if they've been wondering. Sabrina is playing with her nails and hair, fidgety as always, and her feet are always moving. Usually, her arms are crossed, but it's hard to fidget without freedom of movement. Charity looks angry and bored with everything, sitting as close as she can get to the edge with her elbow on the arm of the couch, propping her head up with the hand that has her set of keys in it. Everyone wants it to be over and done with as soon as possible.
"So are we called to order?" Claudia asks, grinning.
"Uh, right," I say, standing. I rub my hands together. I'm not enjoying this at all. "So this is the deal. We've fallen on hard times; we all have. I want us to talk everything out. If it goes well, great. We can go to the hay-ride tonight. If not, well, it's too bad, and at least we got it out of the way."
Nobody says anything. They just look at each other.
I've thought it out until this point. I want an argument, something to get me, to get us, going, something to start on. But who am I kidding? These are my friends; we don't argue. I could start an argument, but I hate being the instigator of a fight with them. It's one of those fears lodged deep within me that I can never figure out. I falter, and in that moment, ask, "What's wrong with me?"
"You're crazy," Claudia said simply. No one else thinks it's funny. We all look at her. She looks at everyone else and grins to show she was only joking.
"You're kind of selfish, sometimes," Ella said hesitantly.
I nod. I had already been told that. I wait for something else. Nothing comes. I swallow, sit down, turning to Claudia. "I hate how you treat people," I tell her.
"What do you mean? I joke around," she responds.
"To you it might be joking, but some of the stuff can really hurt," I say. "You think it's funny, but I personally think that they're awful things to say, and I don't see how anyone can like you after you say such things." Everyone looks at me now, eyes large, mouths open. I shrug. I had told them that this would be blunt honesty. I hadn't meant to say the last part, but it could work for the best. Yes, it might hurt, but I was hoping that it would help us, make our friendships stronger.
I had also hoped that Charity and Sabrina would back me up, but they don't.
I turn to them next. "I hate how you complain so much," I say. "I mean, yes, it's important to listen to people, but I think you carry it a bit too far. I'm sick of hearing about the same troubles all the time. You're upset because Alex drove Claudia to the fair instead of you, Charity. I know you like him, but you never told him that, did you? And Sabrina, you never told Damian you liked him."
"Excuse me?" Ella, Damian's girlfriend, interrupts.
"And I don't think it's right that you should hate Ella and accuse her of stealing him from you. He's got a mind of his own, Sabrina. Did you ever think of that? He chose her. He never knew you liked him. Maybe if you had told him, he would have chosen differently. But instead you don't tell him and then you complain day in and day out."
Nola is next. I don't know for sure if she's the culprit or not so I look at other people a bit too. "And furthermore, I'm sick of the rumors about Clara and Logan. I mean, what have they ever done to us? Nothing! And then there are all these rumors about them, which we know aren't true, and we don't do anything!"
"Shut up," Sabrina tells me slowly.
I look at her. I haven't expected any less, but I am still surprised.
"What do you think gives you the right?" she asks.
"You and Charity were complaining," I begin, unsure and soft. "You were complaining about how we aren't friends anymore, and-"
"So?" she interrupts. "That stuff was secret. Nobody else was supposed to know."
"Well, I know, but-" I can't bear to look at them anymore; they're all looking at me. "But I thought it would help, you know, if we were more open with each other."
"Well, what you think isn't always the right thing," Clara says.
Her rebuke silences me, and I sit there alone on the floor, staring at the table stonily with my hands in my lap. I can feel my eyes stinging. There aren't any bees outside; there ought to be. I can't look outside though, because if I do that, I have to look up, and that will show that my eyes are too glassy, reflecting too much of the light and standing out like two smooth crystals, letting them all know.
"You like Damian?" Ella asks Sabrina.
"No," Sabrina replies, in the same tone that implies it's obvious. Ella mulls over this as Clara says to me, "I don't mean to be mean or anything, it's just that... this isn't really helping, you know?"
I nod meekly, but my ears are following the dialogue between Ella and Sabrina. Please, I pray. Say something. My ears get bored following the overpowering wisps of silence.
Nola stands. "Well, this sucks," she says simply. Sabrina and Charity add their agreement. Clara looks sorry to have said anything. Claudia is digging into Big Blue with her shoulders, her arms crossed. She doesn't say anything; not even her eyes respond. The only thing that moves is a bump in her neck that comes and goes quickly and steadily.
They give me pitiful or hateful glances on the way out.
Five minutes later, I am in the room, alone. I don't move. Eventually, though, I have to. I get up and go to the bathroom, where I sit on the floor, where I belong. It's where people have placed me; it's where I have now placed myself. And there, alone in a small room with light-bulbs which are never bright enough to make the room look like day no matter how hard I try, I cry silently. Sobs wrack my body and freeze my throat. I ask God why I'm like this, what I did wrong. Was I wrong all along? There's something unresolved here. So many things are wrong, how can I blame one thing.
Later, so much later that my eyes are now dry, I walk into the same room. My mom is laying on Big Blue, ankles crossed on the far end of the couch. She turns off the portable phone and looks at me, the sort of look that tells me once again I spoke out. Mom frowns on speaking out. You can speak out for views, there's nothing wrong with that. But you shouldn't speak about things that have to deal with you. She's been speaking to someone, doubtless one of their mothers.
She sees me, looks me over in long moments of silence. A car drives past our house; the windows are down, music blaring. Three girls in the car are smiling and singing along, joking. One seat is left; no one looks at it.
"Maybe it's ignorance," Mom says decisively. Having figured this was the cause of it all, she turns back to her magazine, satisfied.
I leave the room and go into my room again, staring out the window at sunset, setting the sky ablaze with flaming reds and golds. There will be no hay-ride with friends tonight. As far as I am concerned, there won't be a hay-ride at all.
For now, though, on a cheerless Thursday afternoon, I am left facing a computer screen. A blank monitor as I see images of my friends flicker in my mind. Our friendships flicker much the same way, waning into oblivion. Saturday is a few days away still, yet there will be no hay-ride, no meeting. I want a meeting. It hurts not to have a meeting, to see our relationships ebb slowly. I feel as if I have cancer; I want someone to shoot me to put me out of my misery, so I can move on into a different, perhaps better, life, and yet it will not happen, for there will be no meeting Saturday. It will be just another perfect day, with me sitting, staring outside or at a monitor reflecting distorted images. With me in my place.
There will be no meeting Saturday.