Stereotype (12 page)

Friday morning. Last day of school before the Easter holidays. I think about Graham. And Shane.

In my mind, Graham and I are dancing, really close, and I can see Shane looking hurt. Jealous. And I like it.

This is why I’m a horrible person. I want to make Shane jealous. But I
do
like Graham. I really do. I like being around him.

Oh, this is just a big mess. One colossal mess. I want to turn back time. I want to snap my fingers and zap both of them out of my life completely. I want to go home and sleep for the next two weeks or so.

I concentrate on other things. Like what I’m going to wear tomorrow. I am Typical Teenage Girl, wondering what to wear to impress her –

Not boyfriend. Almost-boyfriend.

Do I want him to be my boyfriend?

I hate being indecisive. I want to slap myself. I would, if I wasn’t sitting in class right now. I’d probably get strange looks. Wait, don’t I get those already? Stranger looks, then.

I stare at my watch, counting down the minutes to home time, when I can escape from school, if not my thoughts.

I can’t believe they gave us homework. Homework. In Fourth Year. Over the Easter holidays. This is truly evil.

I am bored on Friday night. I cut. Not badly. Just scraping the skin. It won’t even leave scars. Why am I still doing this? I don’t know.

I sit cross-legged on my bed. Nothing to do. I don’t feel like doing the homework. I don’t want to write. I glance at the Sylvia Plath journals and am too intimidated by the size to even attempt to read.

I daydream about Shane.

Yes
, I am a horrible person.
Yes
, I am just using Graham.
Yes,
I deserve to feel guilty.

And I don’t. I don’t feel guilty. I don’t feel anything at all in the way of remorse. It bothers me. I should feel guilty, right?

Why can’t I feel guilty? Why can’t my mind let me accept the fact that I have done something wrong and immoral and blatantly
stupid
and feel bad about it? Why do I just keep thinking about Shane?

Shane who is not interested in me. Because he could never be interested in me. Because I’m boring, and ugly, and self-indulgent (come on, you know you were thinking it), and stupid. And I wallow in self-pity. Look at me, wallowing!

He
could
like me. He
might
. And it’s that little spark of hope that keeps me going, keeps me daydreaming and sighing happily and feeling giddy at the thought of him. I’m crazy about him. I really am.

“Last night . . . really didn’t go as planned,” I tell Emily on Sunday morning.

She nods. “Yeah. I know how you feel.” Gulps down aspirin. “I’m never drinking again.”

“Really?”

“No.” She laughs.

I grin.

“Abi?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m sorry about . . . last night.”

I shrug. “It’s no big deal.”

“No, seriously. I know I kinda freaked you out, and I’m sorry for the awkwardness and everything.”

“It’s fine. Seriously.”

“Please keep in mind that I was very, very drunk and promise to never kiss you ever again.”

I smile. “That’s very considerate, thank you.”

She smiles back. “That’s me.”

As you may have guessed, Saturday night was . . . somewhat eventful.

The drama began before we even left. We were all meeting up before going into town. Shane and Hugh had already been drinking. Graham looked disapproving and kept muttering things to me about them. How pathetic it was that they needed to drink before even going out. This was complete hypocrisy on Graham’s part, by the way. He’s done it himself many times. I think he was just feeling insecure. Compared to the other guys he seemed immature, a sulky brat. He even looked younger. I mean, there’s only a year’s difference between their ages, but they seemed almost grown-up, and he seemed still very much a child.

Of course I was trying not to think about this, because Graham had his arm around me and we were acting like a couple (which we were, I suppose, in a way) and it wouldn’t have been the best time to mention that I was sort of madly in love with Shane. Besides, he’d asked me, the moment he saw me, how I was, how I felt, whether I was OK.

And yes, I’m a sucker for concern, OK?

We got into the club no problem. I couldn’t help but smirk a little when I saw Leanne, Hannah and a couple of others being turned away while we got in.

Alcohol was ordered by all. I didn’t intend on drinking, but when Graham handed me a drink I decided to just go along with it. It wasn’t peer pressure. Really. (Sure, Abi, keep telling yourself that . . .)

We danced. I object to dancing. I’m terrible at it. However, after a few drinks, I was wonderful. At least,
I
thought I was. And that’s the important thing, right?

Graham clung to me like a leech. Oh, that sounds too harsh. Wait, no, it isn’t, as you will soon learn. He wrapped his arms around me, pressed himself against me.

The others were still dancing in a group at this stage, along with a couple of other friends from school. I noticed that Hugh and Emily weren’t acting terribly couple-ish, not that I’d ever really seen them act that way before, but it surprised me that they barely seemed to even look at one another. I mean, at Sarah’s party they hadn’t been one of those sickeningly-cute permanently-glued-to-one-another couples, but they hadn’t avoided each other, either.

Slow songs. Ah, what clears a dance floor faster than a slow song? I was permanently attached to Graham, of course, so there was no question of me going to join the others and commiserate about our terrible love lives and the depressing nature of slow songs.

Now that I think about it, most of the others wouldn’t have been commiserating. I was swaying slightly with Graham as I watched Hugh pull Fiona over to dance. The strangeness of it jolted me. I looked away –

– and found myself staring at Shane with some girl. He had his hands cupping her face. I couldn’t see her properly. But I knew who it was. Of course I knew who it was.

Don’t stare, Abi, they might notice
, I told myself.

So instead I just buried my face in Graham’s shoulder and tried not to cry. Gulp, gulp. Hold back the tears. Don’t let yourself cry. Not now. You can’t hurt Graham by crying on his shoulder over another guy.

The song didn’t help. It was – oh, I remember now. It was
Iris
. And it hurt.

I don’t think I’ve ever been so relieved to hear a song end. After that, I just threw myself into the music, dancing away frantically.

Look at me now, Shane, look at me enjoying myself. Watch me move to the music. Wish you could have me? Jealous of Graham? I don’t need you. I can have fun without you.

Of course, if he’d come over to me at that moment and declared his undying love for me, I would have fallen at his feet. But he didn’t. So I kept dancing.

With Graham.

I’d glance over at Shane and then look away in case he saw me looking. But I always knew where he was. By that stage our group had broken apart into fragments, individuals and couples floating around, and I’d lost track of everyone else. Except him.

And, because she was with him, Sarah. Naturally.

Sarah who’s so pretty and kind and wonderful and talented and of
course
he likes her. Who wouldn’t?

We were supposed to be leaving at two. I came up with many innovative ways to look at my watch without it seeming like I was actually looking at my watch. Finally I told Graham that I needed fresh (fresh? In Dublin?) air, and that since it was half-one, I probably wouldn’t bother coming back in.

He offered to come with me. Of course he did. That’s what a good boyfriend-type-figure does.

I accepted, because I doubted that anything short of a severe blow to the head would prevent him from following me.

We left, me breathing in the gloriously polluted air, him stroking my back.

It was at that point that he started whining. Why couldn’t I just have stayed inside for another while? We’d been having a great time dancing. Why had I bothered inviting him if I wasn’t going to enjoy myself?

I stared at him, and I had an epiphany. I saw him, really
saw
him, for the first time since I’d seen him on the bus that day. I saw the whiny self-righteous brat, the manipulative asshole, the boy that had hurt me and was now doing it again, by making me feel horribly bad over something as silly as leaving a club early.

I had been using him. And he’d been using me. We both wanted someone to listen to us, to make us feel special. He didn’t really care about me, which suited me just fine because I didn’t really care about him.

“Graham,” I said hesitantly, “I think we need to talk.”

He didn’t take it well.

Well, of course he didn’t take it well. We are talking about
Graham,
after all. And in typical Graham-like fashion, he got angry at me.

He accused me of being incredibly screwed up and of using him. He said I’d taken advantage of his feelings for me. He told me I’d led him on.

And I said nothing. Only it wasn’t because I couldn’t think of anything to say. It was because he was completely and utterly right.

He stormed off, and I was left in tears on the street alone. Well, not alone as such. There were several drunken people there as well. I choose not to count them because I didn’t know them and because most of them were barely conscious.

I took out my phone to call Sarah, only I realised I really didn’t want to speak to her at the moment. I called Fiona, but she didn’t answer. Shockingly enough, it can be quite difficult to hear a mobile phone ring when music is blaring out of giant speakers.

I was drying my eyes when Emily walked out. “Abi! What happened?”

I sniffed. “Graham and I broke up.”

“Oh, honey,” she said sympathetically, hugging me. I almost didn’t want to let go. It felt like she was the only person who cared about me at that moment, the only person in the entire world that thought that I mattered.

“It’s OK,” I told her. “I mean, I wasn’t interested in him at all – I hate him, in fact – it’s just that he has a tendency to yell at people when he’s angry. It’s not exactly fun.”

“I bet. I hate people like that.”

“You going back inside?” I asked.

She looked at her watch. “Nah, not going to bother. You want to go get a taxi home?”

In the taxi, I took out my phone to text Sarah.

“Who’re you texting?” Emily asked.

“Sarah. I’m supposed to be sleeping over at her house tonight . . . but I don’t think that’s going to happen.” I sounded just a
tad
bitter when I said that, I guess.

“You like Shane, huh?”

I nodded. “Yep.”

“If it makes a difference . . . it seemed to me like he was only with Sarah tonight because he wanted to make you jealous. Which I suppose makes him an asshole for using Sarah like that . . . but I don’t think he would have gone near her if you hadn’t been with Graham tonight.”

I sighed. “And I didn’t even want to be with Graham tonight. This is messy. Very, very messy.”

“So I see.”

“What about you and Hugh? What happened there?”

She shrugged. “I have absolutely no idea. Well, I do, in a way. We all started dancing and I could tell he liked Fiona. He kept looking over at her, and she was in that little low-cut top and looked absolutely wonderful and all that, and I just got fed up of it and told him that if he wanted her, he should just go for it.”

“Seriously?”

“What else could I say? I didn’t want him to be with me because he felt he
had
to be. If he likes her, good for her. I hope they’re very happy together.”

“No, you don’t.”

“No, I don’t,” she agreed. “I hope they’re absolutely miserable together, but that’s beside the point.”

“It could be just a one-night thing, though. I mean, people do crazy things when they’re drunk.”

“They weren’t that drunk, though.”

“I know. I was trying to make you feel better,” I smiled.

She laughed. “I appreciate the effort.”

“If you want to stay over at my house, you can,” she said.

“You sure?”

“Yeah, sure. I’ll find you a t-shirt or something to sleep in. We can paint each other’s nails.”

I laugh. “OK.”

Well, it was either that or go home. And I was sobering up and feeling wide awake, and the thought of going home didn’t really appeal to me. Besides, I could tell she was upset over Hugh, and I didn’t want to leave her alone.

The sobriety became a moot point when we got back to Emily’s and decided to finish off a bottle of wine that had been left in the fridge. And by finish off, I mean – well, start. And then move onto another bottle.

So there we were, in her bedroom, sitting on the floor, bitching about the general evilness of guys, and why they’re so cruel and manipulative and completely not worth it, when she giggled and said, “See, what I
need
is a girlfriend.”

“Ahhh,” I said.

“I’m serious! I’m fed up with guys. They just screw you around – I’m so sick of it. But with girls – they’re more gentle. Softer. They’re
pretty
.”

I still wasn’t quite sure what to say here. While I was feeling quite bitter towards mankind at that moment, part of the bitterness was due to the fact that I still liked Shane, despite it all.

She turned to me. “I mean, look at you.”

(Oh, let’s not look at me. We don’t need to look at me at all. Really.)

She stared at me for a moment. “You’re . . . just fabulous. You’re so beautiful. I don’t think you even realise how beautiful you are.”

Her hands were in my hair and her mouth was on mine before I knew it. We stayed like that for a few moments before I pulled away.

Emily looked at me, and hid her face in her hands. “Oh, God. Tell me I didn’t just do that.”

“You didn’t just do that,” I obliged.

“Abi, I’m sorry . . . I didn’t mean to. Can we just forget this ever happened, completely ignore the fact that I’ve just made a fool out of myself?”

“It’s forgotten,” I reassured her, while my mind was still wondering,
What just happened?

Well, I knew what had just happened. Emily had kissed me. Which, because it was Emily, was flattering in a way, but at the same time, a little weird. It wasn’t just because she was a girl. At least, I don’t think it was. It was just unexpected. It’s always strange to be kissed by someone you’re not attracted to, even if they are as fabulously cool as Emily.

We fell asleep soon after that, and woke up in the morning with lovely hangovers. Oh, the joys of being a teenager.