1. Heart-stopping nausea at the sight of the figure $120. I’ve had this knee-jerk reaction to large monetary values for as long as I can remember.
2. Disbelief that Danny would offer to pay.
3. Cautious gratitude.
4. Temptation to take him up on the offer.
5. Remembrance that Danny is in love with me.
6. Guilt.
7. Disconcerting feeling that he’s still trying to buy my affection.
8. Anger that he’s wielding his power as a wealthy middle-class dude to manipulate my emotions.
9. Concern that I’m thinking too much into it.
It just feels, yet again, like he has an ulterior motive. Up until super recently Danny never bought me a thing, and I liked it that way. It made me feel like we were equal. He never intentionally drew attention to the disparity in our situations. And now he highlights it regularly, buying me milkshakes and sweaters and flowers and Coldplay tickets and offering to fork out an eye-watering sum of money in order for me to advance my career.
Is it because he wants me to feel like I owe him something? Or is that too harsh a criticism?
He looks at my life and sees I don’t have much money, and he exploits that predicament to manipulate my emotions. Did he learn that from watching his dad buy his mom’s affection instead of earning it? The Lake Michigan lakehouse was bought right after the news of Mr Wells’ affair came out, back when Danny and I were still in grade school. I was too young to fully grasp what was going on, but looking back it seems like Danny’s dad used money to fix a grave mistake, rather than actually repairing the emotional damage.
I remember his comment back when he found out Vaughan liked me. ?What’s he trying to pull, asking a girl like you out.
A Girl Like Me. What does he even mean by that? He’s never made me feel like I’m any different, not once in our thirteen years of friendship. Until now.
Cautiously, for fear of angering the beast, I type out what I consider to be a diplomatic response.
Thanks for thinking of me! This sounds like a cool opportunity, but I’d never take money from you. I don’t want to feel like some kind of charity case, you know?
The three dots showing he’s typing a response appear almost immediately.
Wow, bitter much? You’re making me feel like a dick for offering to do a nice thing for you. I can’t win with you, can I?
Whoa. I’m about to start composing an anti-inflammatory answer when he sends another message:
You spend your whole life complaining about how unfair the movie industry is, how disadvantaged kids with no connections can’t get a foot in the door. And now you’re turning on me for offering to help? Like I say. Can’t win.
Why is this escalating so quickly? I know he’s dealing with some confusing feelings toward me, but man, this is too much.
Taking a deep, steadying breath, I reply.
When I complain about how the movie industry prices poor people out, it doesn’t mean I want a rich person to buy me in. It means I wish the barrier to entry didn’t exist at all.
Two seconds later . . .
You’re exhausting.
I want to scream in frustration. He’s so damn transparent. He offered me money so that when I cried with gratitude and told him he was amazing, it’d massage his ego and make him feel good for helping a Girl Like Me.
It didn’t cost him anything, not really. His parents are rich. That money means nothing to him. But he knows it means everything to me, and he’s manipulating that imbalance with no shame.
I get why he’s lashing out. As a privileged white dude, he’s used to being able to buy whatever he wants. He lives in a country where even the presidency can be bought.
But he can’t buy my love. And that frustrates the hell out of him.
11.07 p.m.
Texting Carson. You know, an actual decent guy, who is nice to me at all times and has never once tried to bribe me into having sex with him. What a revelation!
He messages me first, which is nice, because although I don’t subscribe to the sexist notion that girls should wait for potential suitors to make the first move in a heterosexual relationship, it’s always nice to feel wanted.
Watching a documentary on the Fritzls. Inspired by you, obviously. This is so effed up.
I grin as I reply.
I don’t think they made a documentary about the Fritzls yet. Are you sure it’s not Keeping Up with the Kardashians?? I’ve never watched it, but understand they have a very similar dynamic.
Lol. You’re literally funnier than every guy on the basketball team combined.
That is best compliment I could hope to receive at this point. I was about to cave into temptation and check the online response to my nudes for the millionth time today, but this is enough to distract me for another minute or two.
Well, that isn’t hard. Unlike every guy on the basketball team, who are hard at all times. You know, due to raging hormones and constant exposure to each other’s penises.
He doesn’t reply to this for around half an hour, and I actually start to freak out that I’ve offended him.
I refresh my emails several times – still nothing from the competition judges. I just want to know if I’m on the shortlist, damn it! And if I do not receive word within the next forty-eight seconds I am at very real risk of causing a Chernobyl-like nuclear disaster through sheer nervous energy alone.
But then Carson:
Hey, is your friend Ajita single? One of my firm-penised teammates wants to ask her out.
Oh, Ajita, you daaaaawwwwg. I mean, I’m not surprised she’s in demand because she’s a beautiful goddess and all-round hilarious human being, but still. Always nice to hear my homegirl getting the attention she deserves.
She is indeed single! However, I am not sure firm penises are her jam. I mean, neither are flaccid ones. Like, I just don’t think penises are her preferred genitalia. But your pal should ask away, for I am not her spokesperson!
I then ping off a text about this new development to the queen herself, and promptly fall asleep with the most absurd of smiles on my face, dreaming of pizza with Carson Manning in the not too distant future.
Monday 3 October
10.13 a.m.
Things that have happened since arriving at school this morning:
1. Danny ignored me in homeroom. Sigh. This animosity is highly inconvenient because I need him to fix my laptop for me. It just will not connect to Wi-Fi no matter how many sacrifices I make to the technology gods, including but not limited to my firstborn child.
2. Ajita is off sick. She has stomach flu from consuming week-old pepperoni pizza, even though she’s supposed to be vegetarian. I texted her to tell her that she is an extremely selfish and inconsiderate individual, but she just told me that she hopes I contract the norovirus in the next few hours so I can join her on the sofa for a Comedy Central binge. That doesn’t sound awful in all honesty.
3. All the usual jeers and whispers and general assholery. It is quite baffling to me that people are still interested in my nudes, because as a solid 6/10 I’m painfully middle of the road. This is why I have developed a sense of humor to compensate, so I’m totally okay with my ranking as “above average but only just”. However, I am totally not okay with the fifteen-year-old Japanese boy who follows me around everywhere asking me to sign the iPhone case he’s had made out of my leaked photo.
4. I flunked math. Shock of all shocks, quadratic equations and/or the ancient wanker that is Pythagoras are not top of my list of things I currently give a crap about.