Friends!(?)!

Saturday morning, 11:00 a.m. bzzzz
Are you mad at me?

4:20 p.m. bzzzz
You're not texting back. I guess you're mad. Can I ask why?

5:30 p.m. bzzzz
What did I do?

7:30 p.m. bzzzz
Look, if you don't text back and let me know why you're mad, how can I do anything about it?

8:14 p.m. bzzzz
Still mad at me? Can't you talk about it with me?

11:55 p.m. bzzzz
All right, whatever it is, I'm sorry. I can't say more than that, because I don't know why...

She doesn't know why. At gym class I told her to go stuff herself, only those weren't the words I used. I'm really fed up. Roxanne disgusts me, she really does. She never knows when it's time to let go. Just yap-yap-yap and then more yap-yap-yappity-yap.

I'm fed up with all of them, actually. All my friends. But her in particular. Some friend. I thought I'd had it with her last year, when we were still at elementary school. First year of high school and I'm still dragged down by her. My own fault, I guess, for agreeing to let her join my circle. She's known all of them since forever, but she came wheedling and whining to me to let her join us. We all have lunch together, ten of us, two guys and the rest of us girls. Actually they've all known one another since forever, I'm the only new face.

It's been seven months. We usually get along really well. It's just lately that they've been really, really bugging me. Moms says it's because they're jealous of me. She always had that problem at high school, she said. She always says that. I don't have any problems. I don't know if they're jealous. I just know they're bugging me.

Because of Trevor. They all like him, a lot, and he's been part of their group, always has been, so what's the big deal? We discovered, he and I, that we have a lot in common. That's all. End of story. We're not "going out", the way they all claim we are. We're friends, really good friends. I trust him, and I like him, I respect him, he's intelligent and he's a really, really nice person. He says he likes me a whole lot, and for the same reasons. He's my best friend. I think that's really neat. I never thought I'd have a guy for a best friend, but now I do.

That's aside from Erin, of course, she's my best friend too. I've known her the longest. But Erin has her own group of friends at school, people who share her classes and I've got mine. Actually, they're people I introduced her to, to encourage her to feel comfortable with a group of friends at school. Outside of school, we're one another's best friends.

I told them they were driving me crazy, to just let go of it, just drop it. I said they were behaving like second-graders, with their stupid comments, their inane innuendos, their giggling about me and Trevor. We're friends, I keep telling them, friends, can't recognize the word, don't know what it means? They think they're being clever, poking one another in the ribs, breaking up. They're idiots. And Roxanne is the absolute worst.

After our hissing contest at gym I told her I wasn't interested in pursuing the matter any further, and if she continued to bring it up, she could do it to herself, not to me. It's no loss to me if I cross her off my list of friends.

I haven't spoken to anyone else about my argument with Roxanne. It's no one else's business. She's been the instigator of all of this, inciting the other girls to keep bringing it up, so it was to her that I said point blank, give it a rest, a permanent rest. She thought that was hilarious; peculiar sense of humour that just points out how unreasonably stupid she is. That was Friday.

And then those text messages. I didn't feel like responding, there's no point. She knows very well what the problem is, just wants to act the innocent. So on Monday, that's today, she gibble-gabbled to everyone how I was mistreating her. Our mutual friends. At lunch time as soon as I sat down with the group, most of them got up and moved away.

I said you've got to me kidding me. I said to Morgan, what's up? Nothing, she said, just that Blake was sitting there and we wanted to get away from him. No one really likes Blake, but he hangs around, and no one wants to hurt his feelings. He's as nauseating a character as Trevor is brilliant. So, I said to Morgan, how's that new, he's always here, why now move away? She changed the subject.

At lunch time there was me, Trevor and Maryanne. Those are my loyal friends. Although I haven't informed them, either, what the undercurrent problem is whereas you can be sure that Roxanne has told everyone within ear-shot how I've been unfair and nasty to her.

At least, this way, I know who my friends are, don't I?