Stereotype (10 page)

Wednesday afternoon. Cooking. Caroline and I are making some kind of spicy stir-fry thing. She keeps sneaking in extra ingredients, usually for the purpose of making the dish even spicier than it is. I think we should bring it to the staff-room and offer it round to the teachers. Might be interesting to watch them spontaneously combust. Evacuate the (rare) nice teachers beforehand, though. The ones who treat you like actual human beings. I think we have about three in the entire school, which is probably above the national average. We should feel so privileged.

And in fairness, very few of the staff are actively evil.

My right sleeve is pushed up past my elbow; my left sleeve is only pushed up a little. Must hide those nasty marks, after all.

If she saw them – what would she say? Would I make an excuse, or would I smile enigmatically and say “What do you
think
happened?” in a semi-regretful tone. You know, a we-all-have-problems-this-is-my-way-of-dealing-what-can-you-do? sort of voice. Act like it’s not a big deal, while she worries and realises that you are in fact a Troubled Adolescent.

Maybe she’d even go to a teacher and tell them. Or the guidance counsellor. That’d be interesting, actually. Then there’d be a big confrontation scene. Well, not big. But dramatic. Quietly dramatic.

“Abigail, I want to talk to you.” Serious face.

I smile. “Sure, what is it?” Helpful-student face.

Teacher finds it hard to believe that this lovely girl could have hurt herself.

“I’ve been talking to another student, who was concerned about you. She thinks you’re cutting yourself.”

I say nothing. This is my admission.

Or maybe I say something. I am, after all, in helpful-student mode, acting as positive and upbeat as Rebecca The Annoying Optimist.

Yes, I think I’ll speak.

“What? Who told you that?” I ask, looking innocent and confused.

“Abigail, I’m going to have to ask you to show me your arms.”

“Excuse me? This is ridiculous! I’m not –”

Teacher grabs sleeve, rolls it up, to reveal wounded arm.

I am silent.

Teacher is silent. Stares at arm.

“Can I go now?” I finally ask, pulling my sleeve down. Doing the whole I-can-cope-leave-me-alone routine.

Teacher doesn’t know what to say. I am discussed in the staff room. Everyone is distressed, preferably bringing up the fact that they don’t understand how such a smart, mature girl could be doing this to herself. Add “pretty” to the list, even, if you want.

Of course, if that actually happened, they’d call in my parents. I assume. If they would even care that a student is engaging in self-destructive behaviours. And then they’d
know.

And despite various brief fantasies in which I wave my cuts in front of their faces in a demand to be taken seriously, I don’t want them to know.

They’d be disappointed in me, or disgusted with me, or something. They wouldn’t understand me. And it’s not like they understand me now, but they
think
they do. They think I’m a normal human being, someone they can connect with. Someone like
them
, someone who just gets on with life instead of whining about her feelings.

And if they knew the real me, they wouldn’t love her.

Wednesday evening and I’m hanging out at Sarah’s house with her and Fiona. Why am I not at home being my usual introverted self, reading a book or organising my CDs into alphabetical order or fantasising about being on
Oprah
after I win a Pulitzer? Because Shane is coming over and she wants us there so that it’s not too intimate and possibly embarrassing. I think it’s ridiculous. She’s been with him alone before, but I suppose now that she likes him and thinks he likes her, it’s a little awkward.

I’m glad Fiona’s here too, because at least then I’m not Third Wheel Girl.

And I’m really hoping that Sarah was being truthful when she said that they weren’t going to talk shop, that they’re just hanging out. Because if they start discussing the band, I’m leaving. Diving out the window, if I have to.

The Wonder Boy arrives. Says hi to us all. He still looks cute. If only I was pretty. If only I didn’t have this overwhelming urge to lock myself away from the rest of the world to protect them from my hideousness.

We watch TV for a while, but once
The Simpsons
is over, there’s nothing good on. I jokingly suggest that we play Scrabble. Shane says, “Actually – that might be fun.”

I smile. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah. I love Scrabble.”

I’m still not sure if he’s just making fun of me or not, but we wind up getting it out and playing the game. Scrabble. These are my wild teenage years. And I am playing Scrabble.

I’m competitive at first and trying to impress Shane with my extensive vocabulary, and he’s coming up with all these big long words that Sarah insists on checking in the dictionary to make sure they’re real.

“And it’s neck and neck between Abi and Shane as they battle for the title of Champion Scrabble Player!” Fiona says dramatically.

“Shane’s going to win,” Shane informs her.

“Shane’s not going to win.” I smile sweetly.

He narrows his eyes. “You think you can beat me?”

“I’m going to try,” I reply, equally solemnly.

He grins. (I swoon. Well, not quite, but I am gradually transformed from cynical dedicated Scrabble player to weak-at-the-knees infatuated groupie.)

Neither of us win. Sarah and Fiona, who are trailing behind, and who are fed up with the game at this stage, decide that cheating is the way to go.

“There you go!” Sarah says triumphantly after she’s placed ten letters on the board.

Fiona is sorting through the rest of the letters, looking for an M.

“Here, have mine,” Shane offers. And thus endeth the game as an actual game, if you follow me. Which is good because this way no one wins, and anyway I was in the lead before it started becoming a joke.

Not that it matters, of course.

Just to me.

And the best part of the whole night? Apart from feeling comfortable around Shane? And seeing him smile?

He didn’t act
too
interested in Sarah. Maybe there’s still hope . . .

I find myself listening to mushy love songs and/or stalker anthems. Bob Geldof’s
Crazy
. The Police’s
Every Breath You Take
. U2’s
With or Without You
. The Goo Goo Dolls’s
Iris
. Oasis’s
Wonderwall.
Cyndi Lauper’s
Time After Time
. Savage Garden’s
Truly Madly Deeply.
A whole collection of songs that remind me of love, that make me sigh happily.

Watch me be a ditzy teenage girl in love. Wait, not love. I’m not that deluded yet. It’s just a crush. But crushes are fun. They’re giddy and silly and melodramatic. You keep replaying moments in your mind. Like him smiling at me. There’s this little spark of hope that he likes me, and it’s enough to make me go around grinning like an idiot.

It’s like someone’s turned on the light and illuminated everyone’s good points. Because on Thursday, my class don’t bother me. At all. I’ve been too harsh. They’re lovely, really.

Of course I know that my semi-ecstatic state has been brought about purely by Shane, and that everyone hasn’t suddenly become much friendlier and interesting, but since I prefer being in a good mood, I’m not going to complain.

Chapter Forty-Eight

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

For every day spent being deliriously happily because you think you have a chance with someone, there must be a day spent feeling far too hideous to ever be seen as attractive.

I feel ugly. More than that, though – I feel boring. Uninteresting.

I’m out of my league, a little girl pretending to be grown-up. Sarah fits in perfectly with Shane and his crowd. I don’t. I’m
dull
. I spend too much time watching TV and reading and writing unreadable poetry. They’re out living life,
doing
something, and I’m watching from the sidelines.

I don’t even have an interesting past. No childhood traumas lurking in my life, and it’s not like I
want
to have them, but I feel less – valid for having a moderately happy upbringing. Like I’m a spoiled brat with no idea about pain or problems or anything that people in the “real” world have to face, like I’ve been sheltered and therefore have no right to feel anything, like I’m naïve and stupid and completely, utterly self-indulgent if I dare to feel depressed.

It’s like you need proof, otherwise you’re just being melodramatic. Of course, even when you get the proof, you still feel like you’re an attention-seeker. Only, an attention-seeker who doesn’t
get
any attention. An attention-seeker who’s so reluctant to be seen as an attention-seeker than she doesn’t seek it at all, but still wants it.

Everyone else with problems has
real
problems. Sarah’s parents split up. Fiona took an overdose when she was thirteen. I want those problems. I want to have an eating disorder. I want to be diagnosed as having a chemical imbalance in my brain. I want to be told that I matter, that I’m not completely irrelevant.

I want Shane to cradle me in his arms and to be my protector and/or therapist. I want him to stroke my hair and I want him to dry away my tears.

You know that Sarah’s the only one who’s ever seen me cry? Not even my parents. I always hid from them when I was crying, racing up to my room before they could see tears fall. I couldn’t let them see. It was too personal, too private.

Maybe it’s the way our culture views crying as a sign of weakness. Maybe I’m nothing more than a product of media-and-family-imprinted messages.
Never cry keep it all bottled up don’t bother anyone else with your problems because no one wants to hear it.

Maybe it’s just that I’m genetically doomed to be weird. I was born, and my parents knew I was different, but were in denial about it, because they were secretly hoping that it was just a horrible mistake and that I’d really turn out to be a normal, well-adjusted child. One who follows trends or one who plays sports. Not one who mopes about and spends far too much time dwelling on her life, which is a completely worthless endeavour, unless you’re trying to depress yourself further, in which case it usually works.

Right. Quit moping. Think happy thoughts, like chocolate ice-cream and the fact that
Frasier
is on tonight.

Saturday morning, I feel like shopping. My mom’s going into town, so she agrees to give me a lift in.

I don’t call Sarah or Fiona. I just want to go and buy books and CDs and then go home and enjoy them. Going into town with your friends means going for cups of coffee, chatting, hanging around. It’s a day-long activity.

All I want to do is slink around the shops quietly and leave when I’m finished.

Of course, you know what they say about the best-laid plans of mice and men.

Actually, I
don’t
know what they say. No one ever finishes off that quote. But I assume that it’s something about the aforementioned plans being horribly derailed.

Anyway. Shane is in town. I see him in HMV just as I’m about to leave and he smiles at me. I go and say hi.

“What’re you looking at?” I enquire, hoping it’s not something too obscure.

He holds up Jeff Buckley’s
Grace.

“Buy it,” I tell him.

He grins. “Is that an order?”

“Yes,” I smile. “No CD collection is complete without it.”

“That’s what everyone seems to be telling me,” he says.

“You should listen to them. Forget about individuality. Be a sheep! Buy it!”

He laughs. “OK, I’ll follow the crowd. Just once.” Pause. “Are you meeting up with someone now, or do you want to go get coffee or something?”

“Coffee sounds good,” I smile.

(Yeah, you bet it does.)

So much for me being anti-social. I silence the part of me that still wants to go home and curl up with a book, and listen to the part that’s telling me that this is my chance with Shane.

If he’s even worth the effort. If any of this is worth the effort. If it isn’t just easier to hide.

We go to one of those places with about a hundred different types of coffee on the menu, so many that it makes you dizzy just thinking about it. In the end I order tea, and he gets coffee. Plain, black coffee. It seems to confuse the waitress.

“So,” he says, patting his HMV bag, “this is good, yeah?”

I nod. “Yep. Brilliant. He’s got an incredible voice. Well, had.”

“Such a tragedy he died so young,” he intones solemnly. “Although I’m sure it did wonders for the record sales.”

I grin. “Probably, yeah. The tragic-hero thing always goes down well. But it
is
actually good music.”

“What did you buy?” he asks.

I hold up the CDs.
Boys For Pele
by Tori Amos,
Disintegration
by the Cure,
Boy
by U2.

“I approve,” he smiles. “Especially the U2 one.”

“Surprise, surprise.”

Our tea and coffee are brought over. Shane watches, fascinated, as I pour the whole jug of milk into my cup.

“Have you ever thought about just getting milk?” he asks innocently.

“Oh, shut up.”

“Aren’t we very defensive about our tea-drinking habits?” he teases.

“Yes. I take my tea very seriously,” I inform him.

“I can see that.”

Pause.

Ask him does he like Sarah. Go on. You know you want to. Or tell him that you heard he likes someone in your school. Or get onto the subject of who he’s interested in somehow. Without it looking incredibly obvious.

Why can’t I just do this? Why can’t I just ask him, and find out, without making a big deal of it? Why do I feel so completely irrelevant around him? Maybe not even irrelevant, but just –

Not cool enough. That’s it. So much for all my be-yourself-and-forget-about-what-anyone-else-thinks philosophy. When it comes down to it, I still think everyone else is superior to me and that I’m never going to be good enough.

This realisation annoys me. A lot.

“Do you like Sarah?” I ask him, my frustration at my own inferiority complex fuelling me.

He looks surprised. “Why do you ask?”

I shrug. “Just wondering. You seem to.”

“She’s great,” he says. “She’s fantastic, she’s a really good friend and all, but . . . I don’t know. I never really thought about her in that way.”

“Fair enough,” I nod.

Stay calm, stay calm, try not to give into the urge to leap out of your chair and scream ‘I still have a chance!’