The Way I Used to Be

“YOU’LL NEVER GUESS WHAT I did last night!” Mara says as I get in the passenger side and buckle up. Face-to-face with her, right now, I’m angrier than I thought I would be. Angrier than I thought I was. She’s practically erupting with giddiness, so I know the thing she did last night must involve Cameron. She backs out of my driveway, then shifts into drive. “Well . . . we did it.” She glances over at me, so excited.

“That’s great.” She had sex with her boyfriend, and I almost stole a cat. “Really great,” I repeat.

“What, I thought you’d be happy for me? Excited?”

“Congratulations.” I slowly clap my hands together twice.

Her smile inverts itself as she slows to the stop sign. “What’s your problem?”

“My problem is you left me all alone last night!”

“What are you talking about?”

“Think, Mara. What was yesterday?”

“I don’t know, Thursday?”

“You know what, just forget it, it doesn’t even matter.”

“Fine,” she says shortly. She floors the gas as we pull out onto the main road.

We don’t say anything the rest of the way to school. The air in the car is stuffy, filled with all kinds of sour unspoken words and the things we’ve been stifling for too long. The pressure is enough to crack the windshield. When we finally park in the student lot, I throw my seat belt off and just as I’m about to open the door, the valve that will keep us from exploding in here—

“Wait, Edy,” Mara says. I stop. “I wasn’t going to tell you this, but . . . well, I am now.” She takes a deep breath and exhales. “You’re really hard to be around lately. It’s really, really hard to be around you. It seems like ever since I started going out with Cameron, you’ve been such a—” She pauses, searching for a diplomatic word.

“What, such a bitch?” I laugh as I say it—very bitchy indeed.

“Yes,” she slowly agrees.

“Well, ever since you’ve been going out with Cameron, you’ve been a shitty friend. And it’s been really hard to be around you too, because you’re so completely self-centered and oblivious to anything and anyone else outside of yourself! And no one is forcing you to be around me, Mara, so if you have better things to do, then please, don’t let me get in your way—” I only stop because I have to catch my breath.

“Wow. Are you really that jealous?” she accuses.

“Jealous? That’s a laugh!”

“You just can’t stand to see me happy, can you?” she asks, as if I’m supposed to answer a question that’s that hurtful. “Well, I’m not going to stay miserable just because you are, and if you were really my friend, you wouldn’t want me to—you would be happy for me!”

“I’m not miserable. And I don’t want you to be miserable either—God, I can’t believe you would even say that to me!”

“Yes, you are, and you always need to drag everybody else right down with you. I’m not going to do it anymore—I’m out, all right? Go ahead and be unhappy if you want, but leave me out of it from now on, okay? I’m in love with Cameron and I’m finally happy and you act like that’s a bad thing, like you think I’m an idiot or something!”

“Yeah, well, maybe you are. Maybe it’s pathetic to let some guy totally control your life!” I shout, my blood racing into every cell in my body.

“And maybe you’re the pathetic one! I’d rather have someone in my life who really cares about me than—” But she stops herself before she says what she really wants to say, what she’s been wanting to say to me for a long time.

“Hey, finish now, Mara—you’re almost there!”

“Face it,” she says, her words hard, “all you have to do to get over a guy is take a shower—that’s pathetic!”

I’m out of there before my brain even processes, slamming the door so hard, I feel something rip in my shoulder.

We don’t talk or even look at each other for the rest of the day. And then Saturday goes by with nothing. She calls on Sunday. I let it go straight to voice mail but listen to it immediately:

“Hi. It’s me. Look, I’m really sorry I forgot your birthday. Maybe I have been a shitty friend. I’m sorry about what I said to you. I mean, I’m sorry about the way I said it. I was serious though, Edy. And I think we should probably talk about it. So, just call me back when you get this. Okay, bye.”