Her daughter was my friend and part of the “you should’ve been the bigger man and stood up to your friends and forced them to stop harassing people” group. I agree, I should’ve done that. I should’ve done a lot of things that I never did, and I can’t take it back.
I can’t rewind time, and guess who has to live with all of this for the rest of their life?
Me.
It’s my shit to bear.
And no matter which way people paint me, I’m still the lesser man. For ratting out my friends. Or for not convincing them to do the right thing.
“Hey,” I say back, dropping my hood. I hang my head though, and my hair brushes my eyelashes.
“It was really nice of Loren to let you at his house.”
“Yep,” I agree. I would’ve never forgiven myself for what I’d done like he forgave me, but I’m not going to tell her that.
“You should find time to thank him tonight.”
I see that she means well, but her coarse delivery rubs me wrong. I force a grating smile and say, “Yeah, I’ll get on that.” Why do I say these things?
“You’re lucky you’re not where your friends are, and frankly, the majority of this neighborhood thinks you should be there.”
She wants me to express deep remorse, break down and maybe shed some tears, but I just—I just can’t do that in front of her, in front of all these people. At this party. I can’t. I know I probably should, but my defenses keep rising and rising. I don’t know how to knock them down.
“Awesome,” I say. “I’ll be sure to pen that in my dairy tonight.” I can’t even look at Willow, but I sense her hesitation towards the entire situation.
I hate that my shit is making her more nervous.
So before Mrs. Nash can scold me some more, I add, “Is that all? Honestly, I don’t have anything else to say about this.”
“I’m so glad Hannah is no longer friends with you.” Ouch. I just nod, and she focuses on someone else. “Willow, right?”
I sit straighter, lifting my head up because I don’t want Mrs. Nash to attack her because of me.
“Yeah. I’m Willow.”
I wait.
Mrs. Nash says, “Don’t let him fool you. He’s harassed your cousin Loren and his wife Lily for longer than he’s probably told you. Just keep that in mind as he tries to make a friend out of you.”
The sad part: it’s all pretty much true.
Though I’m not fooling Willow. I’m not trying to, but she said that Loren told her everything that happened in the neighborhood. I never asked her to clarify which incidents, to tally off and see if he truly did recount everything to her. I didn’t want to bring up my bad history.
Just as Mrs. Nash turns to leave, Willow speaks up. “He’s a good person.”
It gets to me. Like emotionally—it gets to me. I stay still, and I just intake that phrase that no one has ever really spoken about me.
He’s a good person.
She said it so quietly that Mrs. Nash never heard. But I did. I watch Hannah’s mom direct her son towards the table of food.
“Sorry,” I apologize to Willow for that entire shitty conversation.
“She was rude.”
“So was I,” I say.
“Yeah, but…” She shrugs. “You see that you were. She doesn’t see that she was. And I know it doesn’t make it better, but it still matters in a way. I think, at least.”
“Yeah…maybe.” I’d like to believe that too.
She picks up one of the sugar cookies I gave her and takes a bite.
I feel my lips lift again. “So you finished the fifth season of Supernatural just last night and you didn’t message me? I told you I wanted the play-by-play of your reactions. In gif form.” She did it for season two, and honestly, it was the cutest thing anyone has ever sent me links to.
Most of my Tumblr posts are TV shows and movie gif sets I made, daily sarcasm, relating everyday events to pizza, and reblogs.
Her Tumblr posts are questionnaires, fan edits, fandom-related posts, and reactionary gifs as she live-updates watching episodes of TV. It bogs down my feed like crazy—and if you asked me my opinion about it before I met her, I’d say it’s dumb.
It’s not dumb. I hate that I thought it was dumb. It’s really entertaining, especially when I’ve seen the show.
She swallows her cookie and tries to contain a wider smile. “It was 4 a.m.”
I don’t have the best sleep pattern, but I was actually asleep last night at that time. “Finishing the best season of Supernatural is the only good reason to wake me up at 4 a.m. Did we agree that the internet is the best form of communication?”
“We did, but our other option was two tin cans.”
“Right.” I smile at the memory. “What are your thoughts on a cellphone?”