Chloe Seager - Friendship Fails of Emma Nash

‘Gracie,’ I said. ‘People don’t have to have a love interest to lead a worthwhile and satisfying life.’

‘I know,’ she said.

Silence.

‘People don’t. You do,’ she added.

And for some reason, even though it’s completely a comment I would usually expect from Gracie, it sort of stung me out of nowhere. I’d foolishly let my guard down, because I think somehow I thought our relationship had just… I don’t know… magically transformed over the holidays. But no, here we were, just the same people as we were last term.

After she said that she went back to the laptop, as if nothing had happened, and I sat back feeling grumpy and childish. I decided to ignore her until she noticed and then go to lessons. But, clearly too enthralled by genital piercing mishaps, she didn’t notice me ignoring her… And during this time, I had time to cool off and assess my options. I thought…

1) I can carry on ignoring her

2) I can snipe back at her

3) I could actually say something

1 and 2 are definitely how I’ve spent my entire life with Gracie, up until now. I took a deep breath. I so badly wanted to walk off and scribble ‘Gracie is a butt’ over my work all afternoon (it’s very therapeutic). But I thought about my resolutions. If I wanted things to change, I was going to have to change them.

‘Gracie.’ I broke my silence (that she hadn’t yet noticed). ‘I feel like we need to chat.’

She looked up from her screen. My heart started thudding.

‘About what?’

‘Um, important relationship stuff.’

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘All right…’

She leaned back in her chair, looking at me expectantly.

I continued. ‘It’s just… Er.’ Oh God, this was hard. I swallowed. ‘I know we’re all good now and that’s great, but I feel like we can’t have a fight, clear the air and then just move on. I feel like maybe we need to talk about how we’re going to change our relationship, otherwise we’re just going to fight again. And clear the air. And fight again. And it will be an endless cycle of fighting and air-clearing until we have no air left to clear. Our friendship will be trapped in an airless room and die.’

‘Uh huh,’ she said, looking at me like I’d just put on a hat in the shape of a pineapple.

‘Right.’ I ploughed on regardless.‘So I’ll go first, then. I feel like…sometimes you unnecessarily make me feel like I’m being weird. Like just then. And it’s mean.’

‘Ooookay,’ she said.

‘There!’ I shouted. ‘You’re doing it again! Talking about our relationship is not a weird thing to be doing!’

She sighed. I waited.

‘All right,’ she relented. ‘I don’t think you’re weird, but this makes me feel…uncomfortable. I don’t really like talking about this. So maybe it’s a defence or something, I don’t know.’

‘GOOD!’ I yelled, doing a little dance. ‘Progress! Get it all out in the open, Gracie!’

She paused.

‘But then sometimes I do think you’re weird.’

‘Point taken. Your turn.’

‘All right, um, hmm. OK. I feel like sometimes I can’t say stuff around you because you make everything into a joke. It makes me feel like everything I say is being mocked. You never take me seriously.’

Just as she said the word ‘ seriously ’ she looked all pouty and I reflexively pouted back at her. She huffed and crossed her arms.

‘Oh, I see, this is one-way criticism.’

‘No, no, I’m sorry!’ I yelped. ‘It was my facial muscles. They just do silly things on their own. I do take you seriously!!’

She nodded.

‘All right, you go.’

I took a breath.

‘OK. I feel like…whenever something bad happens to me, you react in a way that makes the whole thing seem worse. Like, OH MY GOD THAT’S AWFUL , and then I feel ten times worse…like you’re rubbing it in, or something.’

She paused.

‘I feel like, that’s actually me being genuinely sympathetic. Because if half the things that happened to you last term had happened to me, I’d be mortified .’ She shuddered.

I know I found my mum’s Tinder profile, had a date where literally the only five words spoken were ‘Do you want a Minstrel?’ and accidentally went out with a thirteen-year-old, but really, does she need to shudder ?

‘See! You just did it, just then!’ I shouted.

She sighed. ‘It looks like we’re set in our ways.’

‘No, come on, we can do this. Um… Maybe we could make a signal? So, you know, whenever I don’t take you seriously, or you make me feel unnecessarily weird, we could, erm…hoot like an owl?’

She looked at me with a raised eyebrow.

I hooted like an owl.

‘Our signal is not going to be an owl!’ she whined.

I kept hooting.

‘Stop it! What about…looking at our phone?’

‘Bit confusing. What if I genuinely need to look at my phone?’

‘OK. Blink three times?’

‘That’ll do, I guess,’ I conceded.

Silence.

‘… I still preferred the owl, though.’

Evidence: Friendships take just as much work as romantic relationships.

Anyway, I feel like this was an important moment for us. For me. Instead of going away feeling like I’d chewed on Crazy Holly’s snack bag of lemons all afternoon, we’re actually ok. It just takes…effort?

Maybe I should start making an effort with more things…Like, contouring my face. Or eating super foods.

Then again, slow and steady and all that.

posted by EditingEmma 16.39

Damnit!

Aghhh. I’m SO annoyed at myself. I said that I wasn’t going to let Leon… I mean, Oh Nameless One…affect me. But here I am, the first after-school designing session for the fashion show, and what is he doing?

Affecting me.

I came in to start working on a shirt (blue/green silk, buttonless, flowing) and, lo and behold, he was in the room. We made eye contact as I came in and he immediately left.

His friend Charlie came in a minute later.

‘Hey, have you seen Leon?’ he asked.

‘He left.’

Charlie frowned. ‘Oh. I’m sure we said to meet here. Hey, amazing material, by the way.’

‘Thank you,’ I said absently.

And I shouldn’t have let it, I know, but it kind of bugged me. Because then all those familiar thoughts started creeping back in. What’s he thinking? Why did he leave the room? Was it because of me?

How is it fair that as soon as I’ve managed to kick stalking him online, he starts getting constantly shoved in front of me IRL?

Well, I refuse to dwell on this any longer. Maybe he left the room because it was too awkward. Maybe he left the room because he wanted a sandwich. It makes no difference to me.

Friday, 14 November

posted by EditingEmma 11.15

The ‘Race’ (That Apparently I’m In Without Even Entering)Was just sitting around with Gracie when she suddenly said, ‘I guess Steph’s going to win, then.’

‘Win what?’ I asked. Had she entered some kind of competition I didn’t know about?

‘You know,’ said Gracie.

‘No, I really don’t.’

‘ You know .’ S he raised her eyebrows.

When I didn’t respond she sighed, and said, ‘She’s going to lose her virginity.’

‘I…what? How is that winning ?!’

‘Well, she’s going to be the first one.’

I paused, stupefied.

‘… Do you mean winning against all the rest of us?’

She looked at me like I was really, really dumb.

I blinked three times.

‘I’m sorry, I just refuse to believe you haven’t thought it.’