I saw Amanda in the hall on the way to lunch. Okay, I took a different route to lunch in an attempt to run into her, and it worked.
“Hey, congratulations.” I tried to pretend everything was okay, that she hadn’t ignored eight texts in the past twenty-four hours, which was the maximum number I felt I could send without a reply.
“On what? Coming in third? Yeah, that’s impressive.” She started to walk away.
“Third at regionals is good. And you were MVP.”
“We almost won. If I’d gotten one more hit, we’d have won. Of course, you wouldn’t know that since you weren’t there. But forgive me if I’m not all that excited about this tiny victory.” She walked faster.
“You always congratulated me on my tiny victories.” I tried to keep up with her.
“Yeah, cause that was all you had.”
I stopped, stunned. It had always been unspoken between us that she was more athletically gifted than I was. She was the star. I wasn’t. She was the winner. I was just a player, and a mediocre one at that. I thought of all the times she’d made a big deal when I got a most-improved trophy or made second string. Had she been lying all those times?
“I don’t get why you’re so mad.” I ran to catch up with her. “I went to a party for, like, the first time in high school. I made the plans before I knew about your game.”
“So why lie about it? Why tell me you had a visiting uncle?”
“I guess the same reason you lied when you made a big deal about me making JV and stuff. I didn’t want to hurt your feelings.”
“Well, that worked.”
And she turned and walked away.
I didn’t follow her that time.
15
So that was how we stopped being friends.
I didn’t see Amanda for a week or two. Our schedules were different, and she had a different lunch. And she was avoiding me.
And maybe I was avoiding her too, but only because it felt too bad to see her, like getting my arm cut off with a chainsaw.
Some people, like my mother, want to wallow in bed when they’re upset about something. My mother spent two weeks in pajamas when my dad left. I’m not like that. I like to fill my schedule with so many activities that I don’t have time to think about whatever’s upsetting me. When my dad left, I started playing volleyball at the Y in addition to football at school, and I ran for sophomore class president (which, fortunately, I lost), took a class in stand-up comedy, and briefly considered joining a barbershop harmony group before I remembered, oh yeah, I wasn’t seventy-five years old. I did join Matt’s garage band. Sometimes, I still sang with them. And I spent almost every day at Amanda’s house.
And then I got over it. At least enough to function.
When I lost my best friend, I decided to get over it by making twenty others. I started dating Sydnie, going to all her cheer competitions and driving her to dance classes, and partying with her—now my—friends, who roped me into entering the Mr. Lion King homecoming contest.
A month later, I still wasn’t over it.
Most of Amanda’s friends who had, I thought, been my friends too, sort of looked through me these days. It was like I was their friend’s cousin who they might have met at a birthday party once, but they weren’t sure. That was when Amanda wasn’t around. When Amanda was around, they formed a sort of girl wall around her like they might just lift her up on their shoulders at any second. And once, I heard her friend Callie whisper something like, “Ignore him.”
I felt like I’d become my dad. Amanda and I were divorced, and I got the hot new girlfriend and all of the blame while she got all our friends and righteousness on her side.
Except we weren’t married. I hadn’t cheated on her. We were just friends, and I’d gone to a party. Why was she being like this?
The only one who’d still talk to me was Kendra.
“Hey, I saw that interception,” she said in the parking lot the day after a particularly stellar game. I was throwing myself into football, and it showed in the amount of play I was getting—and the results.
I nodded.
“It was great,” she added. “You’re a star.”
“Yeah. A star.” I saw two girls from my bio class. One of them, the one whose name I didn’t know, leaned over to the other and whispered something ending in “hot.” The other one—her name was Emily—yelled, “Great game, Chris!”
“Thanks,” I yelled back.
“You don’t seem too happy about it,” Kendra said.
“I’m not. I’m a star, and I can’t share it with my best friend. This wasn’t what I wanted.”
“Sometimes, things don’t work out like you think they will. A wise man once said you can’t always get what you want.”
It took me a second to place the line. Then I recognized the lyric from an old song. I said, “Yeah, but he also said if you try sometimes, you get what you need.”