Not My Problem

I left school deflated and pissed off. Meabh hadn’t done herself any favors in that debate, and she didn’t even realize it. She was going to lose. I barely remembered getting home I was so lost in mulling over the debate. I tried in my mind to soften Meabh, manipulate the memories to convince myself it wasn’t so bad. I knew I was lying to myself though. I thought about how much work she’d put in. I’d watched her writing and rewriting policies, sweating over them in the PE balcony, and I knew that was only a fraction of what she’d really done. And she’d never played dirty with Holly. She wanted to beat her on the issues.

I knew Holly had done horrible things, but when had she become a person who could justify those actions just because she didn’t like someone? Then again, I’d listened to her say terrible things about Meabh for years. Their stupid rivalry was this thing that had always been there in the background. The two of them endlessly competing or sniping at each other. And I’d been there too. I’d been just as bad. I’d been the kind of person who thought it was okay to let my best friend say whatever she wanted about Meabh, even when it was mean or unfair, because you hate the people your best friend hates. That’s the rule.

But if I hadn’t noticed my part in this problem, maybe Holly hadn’t realized how bad she’d gotten either.

I caught myself. I was doing it again.

Somehow my mind always jumped to making excuses for her. I still wanted to find a way that it wasn’t her fault. As I walked home I tried to figure out why I did that. Why did I always want to see the best in her and ignore the worst?

Then the voice came, like it always did, when I least wanted to hear it.

If you accept that there’s a problem, then you have to do something about it.

I was almost home but I turned instead and headed in the opposite direction, sending a text and not waiting for a reply.

Holly came downstairs already changed into sweatpants and a T-shirt. She looked soft and happy and she beamed when she saw me.

“Come upstairs,” she said. Wordlessly I followed her up to her room. It was so familiar and yet strange at the same time. I’d spent so many nights here and this was the first time I felt out of place.

She curled up on her bed with her feet underneath her.

“Are you okay?” she asked, seeing my face. She sounded worried. She wriggled over and patted the space beside her. It made me want to cry. There was a part of me that wanted to cuddle up with her. Put on a movie and play footsie and pretend like nothing had happened. I sat on the end of the bed instead.

“What’s going on?” she said, and I saw her realize that something was off with me.

“I’m going to vote for Meabh.”

She wasn’t expecting that.

“Why?” She looked genuinely hurt. I felt tears well up and my throat burn. This was so sad and it was so horrible and I didn’t want to do it.

“I think she deserves it,” I said. “And it’s awful of me to only tell you that now. And it’s a horrible way for me to tell you that I can’t be your friend anymore.”

I hoped she’d shout at me. I’d betrayed her, after all. I’d slept with the enemy, so to speak.

“Why?” was all she said again, in a small voice like a little girl.

“You know why.” I blinked back tears. “You don’t like me. You talk to me like I’m stupid. I know I’m stupid but you talk to me like I am and it hurts. You don’t want to be around me anymore and I am sick of feeling like I’m a burden to you. I feel like you’re only friends with me because you think you have to be.”

“That’s not true,” Holly protested. She scrambled toward me and took my hands. “I know I can be a dick sometimes, but that’s not true. You’re my best friend.”

I took my hands out of hers and folded my arms, leaving her hands lying limply in her lap.

“You don’t treat me like I am. You talk down to me. You leave me out of things. You don’t even notice when I’m not around.” Tears were streaming down my face and I was acutely aware of how everything I was saying was so embarrassingly needy and childish.

Holly reached out and wiped some of my tears away with the back of her hand. I wanted to grab it and press it against my heart but I didn’t.

“I’m sorry I haven’t been a good friend,” she said, a pleading note in her voice. “I swear I’ll be better. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“It’s too late for that.”

“I can be nice to Meabh. I know you like her. I can learn to like her too.” She offered the words up like a last hope.

I shook my head. “I know you put that video up. And I know about the article you told Jill to write.”

She blinked. “How do you know?”

She didn’t deny it. I appreciated that. Maybe she knew there was no point. Maybe she saw that I had no time left for pretense.

“As soon as I heard about it, I knew it was you.” I hadn’t wanted to admit it then but when I got that note from Dylan, I stopped lying to myself.

She at least looked ashamed, her cheeks turning pink. She couldn’t quite look at me.

“I didn’t know it would be so popular. I took it down when I saw the comments were getting bad.”

“I know.” I sometimes thought Holly did things without really thinking about the consequences. I hoped that seeing the consequences had made her think. That wasn’t enough though. “How did you know about Meabh? About her ankle?”

“I heard her ask you,” she admitted. “I came back inside to fill my water bottle and I heard you two talking. The hall was empty. I didn’t mean to listen but it wasn’t hard to overhear. When I saw that boy Kavi coming I hid in the store downstairs.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I don’t know,” she said, and it felt like she really didn’t know. She struggled to figure it out. “I guess I wanted you to tell me. And then you didn’t and I was annoyed that you didn’t. I don’t know. It was stupid.” She looked at her hands and then she started crying too.

“I was the one who took it down. Jill didn’t know.” I didn’t want to drop Jill in it. Her friendship with Holly was her own thing to work out.

“I figured you called in a favor somehow. I realized then that you liked her. I don’t know how I didn’t see it before.”

“Please don’t publish it after . . . ,” I said. After the election. After she was president.

Holly nodded. “I told her to keep you out of it, you know. Jill, I mean. In the article.” She twisted her hands and paused. “Doesn’t that count for something?”

“I don’t know.”

She wiped her eyes and took a deep breath. “Is there anything I can do to fix things between us?”

I wanted to say yes. I thought the answer was no.

“I don’t know,” I said. But I let her hold my hand for a while.

I left Holly, heartbroken and confused. I thought I would feel better after I spoke to her. That it would be a release. I didn’t. It wasn’t. Things felt more messy than ever. Could someone treat you badly and still love you? Someone could treat you badly and you could still love them, so maybe the reverse was true too. But just because you loved someone it didn’t mean you had to give them another chance. Or maybe that’s exactly what it meant. I thought about it the whole way home. I didn’t come up with an answer. Exhausted, even though it wasn’t even five p.m., I trudged up the stairs, weighed down by my heavy heart.

Mam was asleep on the sofa.

She hadn’t hidden the bottle of wine this time.

Maybe she’d hidden the first one, the second one even.

I put a blanket over her and kissed her forehead.