November 17, 2001
Nursing Wounds
My aunt's bathroom offered little comfort. I looked in the mirror not only to see my own pale, empty face, but also a bit of birthday cake between my teeth.
I have just had, quite possibly, one of the most miserable nights in quite a long time. This, this is why I do not venture into public. This is why I remain in my own personal leper colony of anti-socialites, virgins, and good books.
We'll get back to the bathroom and the birthday cake. But I will begin in the most apt of places, the beginning.
So I talk to Mallory today and she informs me that I am coming to the Taylor Talent Show with her as she has already purchased me a ticket. I hadn't planned on going but it didn't bother me too much to do so, it wasn't like I had anything else to do. So she picked me and the bastard brother up at about a quarter to seven. We meet Jenny there.
Jenny who proceeds to rave about Adam Van Hart who invited her repeatedly to the show and asked her to come and otherwise flirts with her. Adam Van Hart who I had the hugest and most obvious crush on last October/November. Adam Van Hart who dicked me over big time and made me think that he hated me. Adam Van Hart who this year told Mallory that he regrets having never gotten to know me better, that it is, in fact, one of his biggest regrets.
Adam Van Hart who claims he is too attracted to me to ever be my friend.
So. Mallory. Jenny. I. Sitting at the show. And at intermission Adam comes and sits on Jenny's lap.
How blunt.
Of course Jenny is thrilled and turns into the lovely totally different Jenny-Around-Boys. I cringe and look away, think of the photograph of my beautiful boy in blue in my purse.
Adam leaves. Show restarts. There was talent aplenty, as it has been in past years. But it is not beyond any of us to realize that it is not Loreley's interpretive dance or J.R.'s tap extravaganza or Colleen and Scott's acoustic set that will win. The cheerleaders take the cake every year, quality performance or no.
At the end of the show the MC's who, while being rather funny and charming, are not part of the show; place third. Surprisingly enough, Colleen does take second. I am thrilled, obviously, as the cycle of hate that perpetuated my loss every year has finally been broken.
But not completely. The office aides and their pathetic if amusing attempts at dancing take first. Funny, yes. First placing? No.
And COlleen's victory only reminds me of the pain I felt every year when I lost. Sophomore year. Alanis Morrisette, a cappella, hidden track on Jagged Little Pill.
Recieved strange looks and a nickname: Ax Grinding Feminazi.
Junior Year. Acoustic set with my guitar, both original songs. Not a flawless performance, but not as though they knew that.
I never expected to place that year. Audience, however, seemed rather surprised that I did not.
Senior Year. Yet another acoustic guitar performance, but both songs of likely better quality than any I have ever written. Was likely the only act to actually quiet the audience.
Did not place. Literally saw shocked/pissed looks from friends.
I felt like crying.
I feel, however, that it must be this way. Fuck Taylor. Arrogance or no, I was too good for them. Sorry I never joined the cheerleading squad.
Outside Taylor. Mallory. Jenny. I. Adam. I trying to goof off and ignore him, Jenny rehearsing lines loud enough so that he can hear her:
"God, I can't wait to go to Canada!"
"Everything's legal in Canada!"
"I can't wait to go! I'm not going to remember any of it but the polaroids!"
I almost threw up. Adam paid her the slightest amount of attention, I ranted about my missing brother, I said as little to him as possible.
They both make me sick right now.
Everyone makes me sick right now.
Mal and I hasten to Wild Mike's, Jenny arrives before we do. Mallory is pissed at Jenny. Jenny is pissed at Mallory. I eat my wings before the disillusion overtakes me.
Adam is using Jenny. Fucking using her to make me jealous. I love Jenny, I understand her to a degree. But Mallory is right, she likes who she is. She likes what she does. And people like me get walked on by people like her, according to Mallory.
Well, apparently I get walked on by people like Mallory, too.
We leave Wild Mike's, I'm quiet. We stop by my cousin's house to pick up my brother. The cops are there.
Great.
Justin comes to the car, he hasn't been drinking (swears he doesn't, not sure if I believe him), he gets in and we drive away. And then Mallory, saint that she is, has to go back to find out how her friend Adam (different Adam) is. He can't go to jail again, she says. They need to have a talk, she says.
Well, she needed to have a talk with Adam and with Brian and with Erin and with Gary and with Ferris and with Jacob. I am at a high school party with drunken punk kids, none of whom I know, which is being held at my Aunt's house who is no longer technically my Aunt as my Uncle divorced her, where it is my cousin's 18th birthday (the same cousin who has not spoken to me for four or so years even though we went to the same school); and she is giving the kids alcohol and they're smoking the weed they brought.
I sat in the car for about fifteen minutes. I get out. Mallory is surrounded by her various skater friends. I stand awkwardly beside her for about ten more minutes, obviously miserable, she says little more than 'hey.'
I get back in the car. Ten minutes. Get out of the car. Sit by self in front of the house watching the cars pass, think about jack ass Adam and nonchalant Ryan and otherwise sour things. Get back in car.
Am dragged inside house by brother. Have cake. Ask Mallory if she could just take me home, then maybe come back.
"O, I'm going to leave in a few minutes. Don't worry about it."
I comply. Wander aimlessly around a house I remember being a child in, stare at my Uncle's Wurlitzer Juke Box that used to play the sweet tunes of early ninetees pop to us as we danced about on the hardwood floor of the foyer.
Twenty minutes, maybe. By now am mad with want to go home, to think of the time I am wasting here being miserable and thinking about being miserable. Ask Mallory again if she can just take me home, please, make it very very obvious (if it were possible to make it any more obvious) that I am not having a good time.
"Sure, sure. Can we leave in nine minutes? I was going to leave at eleven."
I think, "Well, bitch, if only I had known that 'a few minutes' in Mallory land is half of an hour in the rest of the world, I would've called and gotten a ride earlier."
I say, "Sure. That's fine."
Enter the bathroom. I stare miserably into the mirror, wondering where my beauty went. Wondering if I ever had it. Wondering why I even bother, as it is not as though I have anyone to be beautiful for. I certainly don't care.
Exit bathroom. Mallory is sitting on porch talking with Jacob, almost as sickening as Jenny was earlier. I stand close enough to her that she must notice that it's time to go, that I want to go, that I'm miserable and amidst strangers who are either drunk or ignoring me or both.
She talks on for ten more minutes. Ten more minutes than she had originally alotted herself. Finally, at ten after eleven, I walk over to her.
"Mallory. Can we please go." I'm as obviously pissed as I get, seeing as I don't dig confrontations in public and I can't very well get too much on her bad side if I ever want to get home.
She looks up.
"O, okay. We're leaving, we're leaving!"
Finishes sentence. I grab my brother. Stalk to the car.
She gets in all apologetic and I hearken to our earlier conversation of the whole boy above friends thing, but she says she's sorry she's sorry she's sorry.
I don't talk much on the ride home, tell her it's okay, it's not big deal, I don't care, I understand.
Why do I always have to make people feel better? Why can't I just be the bitch who maims without reason, why do I take the blows and content myself with nursing the wounds?
And here I sit at home, not furious but resigned, realizing that this is simply the kind of person I am. I get walked all over and I let it happen. My bones are stronger than theirs. I don't have to be selfish to find sweetness in my dreams at night.
Only now it's turned bitter.
astera at late misery