Stereotype (4 page)

I am still seething when the bell goes. What I really don’t need is another dose of band fever. I might end up saying something I’d regret. I don’t want that to happen either.

I’m in luck. Sarah is waiting outside the classroom for me when we’re finally let out (after yet another reminder of the importance of good study habits, which is
completely
relevant to Transition-Year students) with a please-don’t-hate-me look on her face.

“Shane wants me to go over to his house today, so I’ll be walking back there with Fiona,” she says in a rush.

I shrug. “Have a good time.”

“You don’t mind, do you?”

“It’s ten minutes. I’ll cope.” I smile.

She beams. “See you tomorrow.”

And it’s another Alanis-accompanied walk home for Abi. When you think about it, it makes sense. Angry-girl music for angry-girl Abigail. Call me the stereotype, then, but what you don’t know is that there’s more to me than meets the eye. I can be reasonable-girl. I can be reliable-girl. I can be contented-girl, even. I refuse to fit into any set category, so don’t even
try
to stick a label on me because it’ll never fully describe who I am.

You might have noticed that I have a slight problem with conformity.

But anyway. I arrive home. Turn on TV. Check phone. My life is so mundane. One message. From Graham. Cue shudder from me.

You know, before I explain about Graham I’d like to state for the record that we were never a couple.
Never.
Because a lot of people seem to be under the impression that he’s my ex, and that’s why I can’t stand him.

Sorry. I’m still a little uptight about the situation. Possibly because he told everyone we
were
going out. Possibly because people believed him. Possibly because before he turned into such an asshole, he was actually a really good friend.

I first started hanging out with Sarah, Fiona and Karen the summer after Second Year. Actually, Karen wasn’t around much that summer, between the Gaeltacht and her month in America, but when she was, she was part of the group. Anyway, it was then that we got to know Graham and a couple of his friends, Kieran being one of them. Sarah and Kieran became SarahKieran as the summer drew to a close, and feeling rather sorry for myself now that she was spending all of her time with
him
, I ended up turning to Graham for, if not comfort, then companionship.

Fast forward to the following summer. The SarahKieran unit has been permanently shattered, Sarah celebrating with a night out and Kieran “mourning” with a new girl. Graham has become a very good friend to Abi, although Abi doesn’t realise that she only thinks of him as a good friend because he knows when to compliment her and make her feel validated as a worthwhile human being. The other half of the time he is using her as an unpaid therapist/devoted listener to trivial problems (let’s put it this way, if he’d been born a girl he’d be the type that would bemoan the fact that they’d broken a nail) and subtly eroding her self-esteem.

Seriously. He’d make some snide comment, but me, being the emotional mess that I am, wouldn’t get angry with him for it. Instead I’d feel like a bad person, a worthless person. Then he’d say something nice about me, so I’d be completely grateful to him for cheering me up and being such a good friend.

It’s a dangerous trap to fall into, letting someone else control how you feel about yourself. Why do you do it? Simple. It’s for the moments when they make you feel
better
.

Anyway. Summer post-Junior-Cert-trauma, everything’s going wonderfully wrong. Abi feels like crap and takes up recreational arm-slicing. (She always meant to have another hobby.) Sarah fails to notice. Graham possibly does, but doesn’t say anything. Actually, thinking about it, he probably didn’t, because otherwise he wouldn’t have wanted to go out with me. He’s not good with people with problems. Complaining about his own, sure, but scars would have scared him off.

It was one day at the end of July or the start of August that he told me he loved me. I kid you not, he actually used those words. And if they hadn’t been coming out of the mouth of someone I was beginning to hate, I probably would have been flattered, at the very least.

Instead I just stared blankly at him and then said, “OK.”

“I’m serious,” he said.

“So . . . what do you want me to say?” I glared at him. I was pissed off with him. He’d put me in an awkward situation, and I didn’t like it.

“Forget it,” he snapped.

And I thought that was the end of it, I really did. And when I say “it”, I don’t just mean the love part, I mean our entire friendship. I was
hoping
it was.

But of course it wasn’t.
Then
came the stalker-like phone calls and unexpected visits to the house. And although you’ve probably come to the conclusion that I’m a cold-hearted bitch, I’m actually hopeless at being mean to people if they’re being friendly towards me. I mean, Graham was getting on my nerves with his fake “I really value our friendship” line, but I couldn’t yell at him for it. I just couldn’t.

I suspect his text message says something along those lines. Let’s see . . . oh, I was right.
Abi, I miss having u 2 talk 2, ur such a good friend. Call r txt soon. Graham.

I consider it, and scroll down through the options. Reply. Forward. Ah, there we go.

Delete.

You can probably understand why Graham isn’t exactly my favourite person in the world. After I reluctantly agreed to be friends with him again, he took this to mean that I reciprocated his feelings.

And thought it would be appropriate to declare to all of his friends, and mine, that we were together.

Even people who weren’t technically “friends” knew about it, like Leanne and Hannah and that crowd. And since Graham isn’t exactly . . . the most
desirable
boy around, they found it pretty funny. You know how it goes. The biggest loser you know turns out to have a girlfriend. It makes for great gossip. Especially when the girl is that weird ex-friend of yours.

The one good thing about it was that people tended to be more surprised about
him
going out with someone than
me
going out with someone. I was, apparently, the lesser loser of the two of us.

To make matters worse, at the time the word was spreading, I was in Tyrone for a long weekend, staying with my cousin Sharon. By the time I got back, everybody knew.

I ran into Leanne in the newsagent’s. “I heard about your new boyfriend,” she said, grinning. To be fair, she was being friendly as opposed to bitchy that day.

“What?” I asked, confused, having just arrived back the night before.

“Graham, is that his name? Paul told me. He said the guy never shuts up about you.”

“I’m not going out with him,” I said, in complete and utter shock. I was
hoping
Paul had gotten it wrong, but at the same time it seemed like a very Graham-like thing to do.

Leanne seemed surprised. “He’s been telling everyone. I always thought he was your boyfriend, he always seems to be with you.”

“He’s my stalker,” I muttered. “I don’t even like him as a friend anymore.”

“Know the feeling,” she said. “See ya, Abi.”

“See ya,” I echoed.

Now, before you get all “Oh, Leanne seems like such a nice person, Abi has it all wrong about her”, let me say that she clearly didn’t believe me, because she never said
anything
to contradict the rumour, and still continues to refer to him as “that Graham guy, you know, Abi’s ex-boyfriend”. I’m not
completely
irrational.

After my encounter with Leanne I went over to Sarah’s.

“Abi, what’s the story? Graham’s been going on about how he’s madly in love with you and how great it is now that he’s with you. I thought you hated him.”

“I
do
. He made it up,” I said quietly.

“What? Seriously? He just . . . made it up?”

I nodded. “All I told him was that I was OK with us being friends again. But apparently he, being the
freak
that he is, decided that
that
meant it was OK to lie and tell everyone we’re going out.”

The more I thought about it, the angrier I got, and Sarah was backing me up one hundred percent.

“What a complete
shithead!”
she raged. “I mean, what’s his
problem
, anyway? First he practically
stalks
you, then he
completely
insults you by telling everyone you’re with him! Like anyone would actually
lower
themselves to his standard.”

Never mind the fact that three months previously I had gushed to her about how
nice
, how
considerate
Graham was. She was kind enough not to mention it. Selective memory should be exercised among friends. Just like me conveniently forgetting about how she’d raved about Kieran a few months before when she was ranting about how awful he was.

The next day was Confrontation Day. It should have been pretty simple. I was in the right, wasn’t I? I would confront him, he had no other option but to admit to being in the wrong, I would yell for a while and then leave, still angry but minus one lying bastard in my life.

Things didn’t exactly go as planned. It was more like, I confront him; he acts puzzled and confused, denying any knowledge of these events; he then makes some stupid comment like “Why are you always so hostile?”; he follows this by accusing me of treating him badly even though he has always been there for me.
What the . . . ?

He starts actually
listing off
occasions when I have apparently not been a good enough friend to him. I am so taken back by this that I don’t know what to say. I don’t argue with him.

When he finally takes a breath I mention the fact that he makes me feel worthless. He demands examples.

Gosh, Graham, unlike you, I don’t have an encyclopaedic mind which stores every single sentence ever uttered. And I certainly can’t think of one offhand when you’re yelling at me even though you’re the liar here, you’re the bad guy.

He smirks. He is triumphant. He believes himself to be the hero.

He is completely twisted.

He calls me two weeks later and says that he is willing to forgive me. I slam down the phone, but he is such a master of manipulation that I actually feel
bad
about doing it.

I hate him. More than Leanne, more than the Bleach Brigade. More than me, even.

Dinner in the Evans’ house.

Greg: “Football. Football football. Football?”

Mom: (nodding and being an interested, involved parent)

Dad: (reads newspaper. He is the involved parent on Thursdays and Saturdays. Now he wants to catch up on the day’s events.)

Greg: “Football football football.”

Jess: (rolling eyes) “Shut up about your stupid football!”

Mom: (on automatic pilot) “Don’t say ‘shut up’ to your brother.”

Jess: (assuming the role of rebellious teen, since Abi is too busy rebelling by
not
being a rebel) “But he’s boring. I don’t know why you bother listening to him.”

Mom: “Eat your dinner.”

Jess: “You never listen to me. It’s always
him
. You hate me.”

Mom: “Eat your dinner.”

Jess: “See? You’re not even
listening
to me!”

Dad: (rolls eyes behind his newspaper)

Abi: “She can’t help it. She’s a middle child.”

Jess: “Shut
up!
You think you know everything.”

Abi: “I know more than
you
do, anyway.”

Mom: “Girls, stop fighting and eat your dinner.”

Abi: (wonders if her mother’s preoccupation with getting them to eat their dinner is masking something deeper)

Greg: “Can I
say
something now?”

Mom: (sighing) “Go ahead.”

Greg: “Football football football . . .”

I spend Tuesday evening online. Four new emails. One from Sarah replying to a “fill this out about me and send back” survey I sent her. Two chain-letter-type emails from Sharon. And one from Graham. He seems to be on a roll today.

I open it. It says pretty much the same thing as the text message, only with more waffling and more of a “you should feel sorry for me because my life is so horrible” vibe.

Like the text message, it gets deleted. What does he expect me to say?

Oh, yes, Graham, I’d love to be friends with you again even though you’re a horrible person who enjoys manipulating other people. Interesting how, although you told me what a bad friend I was, you still cling to the idea of us being friends. By the way, I’m in a crappy mood right now and don’t feel like listening to you whine about your life. I’m too self-absorbed to care about anyone but myself at the moment. Still want me to call you?

I contemplate emailing him with that message, but refrain. I’d regret it later. Graham would take it as an invitation to start ringing me regularly again.

I end up taking a bunch of online screening tests for depression. All of them say the same thing: your answers indicate you may be suffering from depression, please contact your local physician to discuss this, blah blah blah. One of them actually tells me that I am at risk for harming myself (gosh, you
think?)
and should seek immediate treatment.

I wonder if they’re right. I wonder if I’m just a self-indulgent child with delusions of pain and no reason to complain.

What’s so awful about my life, anyway? Everything’s fine. Good family, good home, good school, good friends.

And then the things that don’t fit in:

Suicidal thoughts. (Not thinking “I want to die”. Just thinking about how to do it.)

Loss of appetite. (Sometimes due to earlier gorging with chocolate, but sometimes inexplicable.)

Self harm. (Most likely to get attention.)

Lack of energy. (And excessive tiredness – even though I get plenty of sleep.)

Loss of interest in once enjoyable activities. (Shopping. Phone calls to friends. Sometimes, even reading, which is quite frustrating.)

Feelings of worthlessness. (Well, I’m sixteen. It’s a given.)

Maybe I’m just a neurotic teenager, and there’s really nothing wrong except for the fact that I think too much. Less thinking, and more doing, is the solution.

Now, if only it didn’t require so much
effort . . .