This is something different. She knows it and I know it.
Alison and Jemma are not the hot, popular, bullying girls. And I’m not a loser or a druggie or a slut or a cheerleader at the top of the social pyramid. This is two nice, boring, borderline nerdy girls feeling pissed that their former friend got a little bit cuter last summer.
And this is Mrs. Drake taking their side.
Jemma says she’s sad about how quickly things changed, and maybe that’s true, but being sad doesn’t give you permission to, you know, be a bitch.
Except Mrs. Drake thinks it maybe does.
Never mind that I’m the humiliated one on the corduroy love seat in the cramped cubby-office.
“It seems like maybe you’re choosing boys over your girl friends,” Mrs. Drake says after a bit of a pause. I’m about to scream. “All this flirting and carrying on and wearing those tiny skirts and all that makeup . . . it’s alienating your friends, and it’s making your classmates see you in a very particular light. I’m worried about you. You’ve changed so much, and whenever I see that kind of drastic shift, I wonder what else is going on.”
And with that last bit, she’s also managed to maybe-sort-of accuse my parents of being bad parents, on top of everything else.
You know what I’m really starting to hate? How superfast my feelings change. How impossible it is to hang on to the okay feeling. Like some bouncy puppy, I have it in my hands and it’s totally great and then all of a sudden it wriggles right out and runs around and I can’t catch it again.
“Well,” I say. But I can’t think of a snappy retort. The high from kissing Joe on Assignment has stopped banging around in my body. And I’m left on this stupid couch, blushing. “Well . . . ,” I say, much more quietly this time. I’m hyperaware of the length of my dress and my huge boobs and my ridiculous mascara.
It’s a nearly intolerable amount of discomfort. There are floor-length floral curtains in Mrs. Drake’s office, and I would do anything to hide behind them right now. For a good long while.
“So do you understand?” Mrs. Drake asks. She doesn’t look concerned, even though I know I’m sweating a little and my eyes are going watery to match my shaky, quiet voice.
“Um, I guess,” I say, hating myself for the slump in my shoulders, my rounding back.
“Those are sweet girls who have expressed concern. Those are lovely girls looking out for you, and you should be very grateful.”
Implied but not said: Tabitha, you are not a nice girl anymore.
“I just wanna say,” I start in a small voice, “this isn’t right.”
“Mm-hmm?”
“I don’t know why they’re telling you that stuff? But the bigger problem is basically that they stopped liking me.”
“Sometimes things seems very simple, but they’re actually very complicated,” Mrs. Drake says, taking her time with the words.
“No, but in this case I think it was more sort of simple. They were sort of terrible and I was totally surprised and that’s basically it.”
“Ah,” Mrs. Drake says. “And what about changes you’ve made? What about your role?” This is not a real question. There is a right answer, and a wrong one.
“I don’t exactly need to, like, have therapy about this or anything,” I start. I move some of the pillows around on the love seat. I’m sure she will find some way to use that against me too. “But they were my best friends and then we went to a dance and they literally said they were disappointed in me. As a person. And that I wasn’t who they thought I was. And that they weren’t sure we should be friends anymore. I mean, it’d been building a little. They’d made some comments for a few months, I guess. But they basically decided to give up on me one day. So, like, I don’t know why they’re feeling all sad and angsty about it. Because they obviously chose to do it.” I don’t know why I’m telling her this, because she’s on their side. Maybe it’s the calm vanilla candle flickering on the windowsill or the vague watercolor paintings hanging up on the wall or the simple fact that I am in the guidance counselor’s office and I am giving in to the implied rules of being here.
“It seems like it’s still upsetting to you. And I’m here to tell you that it’s still upsetting to them, too,” Mrs. Drake says. In her eyes the whole world is a balanced, even thing, with my upset on one side and Jemma and Alison’s equally valid, very important feelings on the other.
And that’s all lovely and Vermont-y and yoga-y. But it’s not the reality.