Conversations

Guess I thought things just couldn’t get any worse. Guess I was kind of kidding myself. Okay, I thought I had everything figured out. All those things happening around me, to me, I was thinking about them all the time. I’d get home from school and begin writing down everything I was thinking of. Kind of like a diary. And I was having these conversations with everyone. Well, not exactly like that. What I was doing was writing conversations at everyone. And having them respond, just exactly in the way I knew they would. Because I’m a keen observer and I’m pretty sure I know who I’m facing off with, you know?

First thing after I settle in, getting home off the school bus is I call my grandmother. My mother’s pretty busy, and I don’t know how much I want to put by her, anyway. Sometimes she listens, sometimes she doesn’t seem to be. She gives me advice, and I don’t actually want her advice. So why do I even bother telling her anything? Same with my grandmother. Guess it’s hard to break out of lifetime routines. She was the one who looked after me for most of my life while my mom was working. Now mom works mostly from home, so that kind of solves that problem. Anyway, I’m almost fourteen so it’s not a problem anymore, anyway.

My grandmother says I’m ‘engaging in introspection’, and my writing everything down is a good habit. She likes it when I write, she says, it’s a good thing to do, almost as good as reading, as far as she’s concerned. But, she said, if I didn’t read I wouldn’t write. That’s her formula. She says it’s therapeutic for me, when I write about things that bother me that get me really, really mad. Cathartic is the word she uses too, actually. I’ve got a pretty good vocabulary myself now because of all my reading, but sometimes she uses words that confuse me. She always tells me “look it up”. She could tell me what they mean, but she won’t. “Look it up” she says. Sometimes I do. Sometimes, after I’ve thought about it, I don’t have to, because I get what she calls the ‘context’ making the word ‘explicable’. That’s my grandma.

She’s irritating beyond belief. But she listens to me. Mostly she listens and she makes pretty good comments. Sometimes, though, I feel like hanging up on her because she starts giving me advice. I don’t need advice. I don’t need someone else’s interpretation of what’s happening to me. I can see what’s going on, they can’t. They have no idea of all the details, all the complicating things. It’s my life, after all. I’m the one who makes the decisions.

I’m too stubborn they say, too fixated on myself, not sympathetic enough to weigh someone else’s point of view. Well, why should I? Do they think about my point of view? Do they care that I’m suffering? As long as they bug the hell out of me, drive me crazy, make me feel bad, I have no intention of caring about them.

It’s not like I don’t care about people. I’m probably a better person that way than most. I have a balanced sense of justice, I always have. I know that because I’ve been told so. Not only because of that, but also because I can see how the other guys just shrug things off that are important, and I give those things some extra thought. We’re talking about euthanasia and capital punishment in class. And we’re supposed to be doing our own special projects addressing those issues. I’ve read some really good books that include both those topics. Jodi Picoult - you ever hear of her? She’s a really, really excellent writer. My grandma agrees, she ordered some of her books for me off the Internet. A good writer, my grandma says - she has found a highly successful formula.

I argued with her about that. I don’t think it’s a formula, it’s her way of bringing readers into the story, and it leaves you thinking you’re not reading a novel, but something really true, something that has happened. That’s how real her writing is. When you read from the perspective of one of her characters you believe what you read, and it seems really real. Know what I mean? You’d have to read her to really know. I’ve read almost all of her books.

Anyway, I like to discuss those things with my grandmother, and we had a really good discussion about euthanasia. It’s one of the projects I’m writing about right now. I get some really good ideas from our discussions, and words that really seem to fit into the discussion, so I use them. That’s why, when I’m speaking with my grandma I’m also usually using my laptop at the same time, getting things down that I think are useful. She hates it when I do that; multitasking. It sure isn’t for creaky old minds, she tells me, but she also says she doesn’t believe that people can separate their thought processes and their physical actions into compartmentalized issues rather than dedicating their attention singly to a particular topic. That’s her words, not mine. See what I mean about my laptop coming in handy? My grandfather bought it for me. While grandma protested that it wasn’t appropriate for someone my age. Hah! Just because she doesn’t like using a laptop doesn’t mean it isn’t usefully appropriate for me.

She also hates it when I use the speaker phone, so I can do other things, while I’m talking. It’s all right for me, she says, but it makes it more difficult for her to hear when I walk away a little distance, or turn my head while I’m doing something else. Because she’s getting a little ‘hard of hearing’, as she calls it. Actually we don't disagree all that often, mostly when I'm staying over with them and she wants to keep taking photographs of me. She gets really, really mad at me when I cover my face and won't let her take pictures. She goes into a meltdown, really. Tells me I'm being selfish, that kind of stuff. Then when I say all right, just one, please, and pose for it, she tells me posed photos are useless, she wants spontaneous ones. Just can't please her for trying.

What? Oh, right. That wasn’t what I started out with. Omigod, why do I do these things? I was talking about my really shitty day, right. You know I’m not best friends with Eden anymore, right? And I’ve got this new best friend Morgan, right? And Leanne, she’s another best friend, kind of. And then there’s this girl Maari, you’ve heard me talk about her before. Anyway, Maari hasn’t got any friends, and I thought it was kind of mean that no one would talk to her. It’s just that no one likes her.

I don’t have anything against her - at least I didn’t - so I thought it would only be decent to include her, kind of. She’s there, in class, after all. So I began talking to her, just about nothing, just being nice, you know? And once she relaxed a little and got used to being included a bit, the other girls began to include her too. She began texting me all the time. It was kind of driving me crazy, but I’d always respond. Well, sometimes I’d overlook responding. I get a lot of text messages all the time. Not in school, because we’re not allowed to have our cellphones in class.

It became pretty obvious to me that Maari thought of me as her best friend. Well, I’m not her best friend. I’m having enough problems with best friends, as it is. Eden is hanging out with the other Lliane now, and I hate her. Not Eden, Lliane. She really, truly bugs me. And even though I’m not best friends with Eden anymore, Eden keeps texting me too, telling me how much she misses our being best friends. Well, that’s a long story and I’m not going into it. There’s no way I can be best friends with Eden again. I don’t trust her anymore, and that’s that.

So Maari was sending me these text messages telling me that Eden was saying really awful things about me. I asked Eden why she was talking about me, but Eden said whatever she said about me was true, so what’s wrong with that? Knowing what Maari said Eden said about me, made me really mad, when Eden wouldn’t deny it, but kind of defended herself, instead of apologizing.

I’m getting along just fine with Morgan and Lliane, and I don’t need another best friend, I told Maari. It’s like she didn’t hear me. I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings but she was driving me crazy. Anyway, on Tuesday, a couple of the girls told me that they knew that Maari was lying about Eden. Eden wasn’t saying any of those awful things about me. I went over to Eden and asked her right to her face if she’d said those things and she said no, why would she?

I knew then that Maari was lying, and I was so mad you wouldn’t believe it. I starting shouting at Maari, and Mrs. Blenheim overheard it, she was just walking into the classroom. Maari started bawling, and when Mrs. Blenheim asked what was going on, Maari just started whining and crying even more, so Mrs. Blenheim sent her to the office, to compose herself, she said. Then she got me and Eden together and asked what was happening, and though I really hate telling her anything personal, I said that Maari had been lying and saying awful things about Eden to me about Eden saying awful things to her about me. Got that?

Mrs. Blenheim has been at me for at least a month to restore my friendship with Eden. I just kind of ignore her, let her say whatever she wants, because it’s like whatever, know what I mean? But she has no business interfering with me and anyone else, our relationship is personal and she isn’t a part of it. She thinks she has the right answers to everything but she doesn’t have, and I wish she would just restrict her activities with us to teaching. Trouble is she’s not even good at that.

I went home steaming, let me tell you. Mad at myself for believing anything that Maari ever said to me. I don’t know why I did, why I even would, since I never have thought all that much of her. She’s always been a nuisance more or less, it bugged me that she was always hanging around, and texting me forever. So now that problem’s solved, anyway.

When I told my grandmother about what’d happened she said that I owe Eden an apology. Me, owe Eden an apology? No way! No, I told her, I certainly don’t, and had no intention of apologizing to Eden again. I’ve done it before and it hasn’t done any good, made any difference, she just turned around and began talking about me again.

I hate it when people tell me what they think I should do. I’m perfectly capable of figuring out for myself how I should respond to any situation. And it’s my life, isn’t it? I’m responsible for what I do, and I’ll do what I feel responsible for.

Anyway, next time I spoke with my grandmother I told her I’d apologized to Eden. I had decided to, after engaging in a little bit of what she calls introspection. We spoke back and forth, texting, for the next hour, me and Eden, I told her. “Bet that made you feel good”, my grandma said. It did, I told her. I feel a bit of a weight lifted. Don’t feel as nasty as I’ve been feeling for months, actually.

But I’m still mad as all hell at Maari for putting me through all that. And just because she didn’t want me to reconcile with Eden, she kept telling me about all the rude comments Eden was making about me. Actually going beyond rude to downright horrible. I thought that’s what you get for being a solid, good and reliable friend with someone for all those years, that’s your reward. I was so hurt, you wouldn’t believe it. I felt completely betrayed. And I wanted nothing further to do with Eden.

So how was I supposed to know that this was all Maari manipulating the situation, after Eden and I had become estranged because of … well, because of another, entirely different situation that is too ugly to go into, because I really don’t want to discuss It. With anyone, actually. Sorry about that. And when Eden told me she was cutting herself that scared the hell out of me. She even showed me the cuts, kind of like long scratches on her arms, crusted over and horrid looking. Some of them looked fresh, and it was horrible. I told her she was crazy.

You need professional help, I said to her. I know she’s been through a whole lot, my mom has discussed it with me. But I can’t stand it that she would do something like that to herself. It’s awful, it’s disgusting. And I don’t feel I can do anything to help her, despite what my mom said. I can’t even stand the thought of it, it drives me crazy that she would do something like that. I know she’s getting professional help, she has regular appointments with a psychologist. I just hope it helps her enough so she stops. I can’t understand how anyone could do something like that to themselves. Honestly.

As for Maari, I’m furious with her. She wasn’t at school the next day. I knew she wouldn’t be. Scared to face me. Ms. Blenheim asked who would greet her and be kind to her if she came to school the following day. I was the first to respond. I said I had no interest whatever in speaking with her, and wouldn’t. When I said that, the rest of the girls agreed. I guess Ms. Blenheim had been speaking with Maari’s mother, or something, and probably said she would try to see that Maari had a quiet reception back at school when she returned.

When I told my grandmother about this, she was silent on the other end of the line for a while. Then she said it, just like I knew she would. “You need to forgive her.” “She’s all alone, and vulnerable, friendless and it’s horribly uncompassionate to leave her in that lonely place. Please forget what she’s done, and accept her.”

Like I would.