Letters From Across The Pond

The rest of lunch was painful.  Jenny was your average prep; short blonde curls that bounced around her face whenever she talked and an unusually high pitched voice.  In a way she resembled a mouse, with her short nose that pointed upward and her abnormally large eyes.  I guess you could call her cute, but I wouldn’t go anywhere past that.  Bryson didn’t seem to think so.  He couldn’t stop talking about her all day.  My ears got a rest during last hour, but as soon as we met up by his car, he was bubbling random spouts of information about her.  Stupid Malorie better hurry up, there’s no way I would be able to stand this for another ten minutes.  Or ten seconds, to be exact.

“Bryson!  I get it!  You like her!  Can you shut up about her now?”  I threw up my hands in surrender.  Right after I said it, I felt guilty.  Normally, I wouldn’t be this mean to him, but I was still ticked off about the Malorie ordeal.  Lucky for me, he has known me long enough to know to shrug it off.  Still, he gave me his best impression of his hurt puppy face.  It’s the face where he opens his bright blue eyes real wide and makes his lips into a quivering frown.  I hate him for making this face.  He knows I’m useless against it.  “Alright, alright, I’m sorry.” I surrendered.  “Go on about… Jenny.  Are you going to ask her out or what?”

“I don’t know,” Bryson admitted sheepishly, “do you think she would say yes?”  For a boy that was able to get any girl in the school, he sure had low self confidence.

“Obviously.  You don’t need me to tell that.”  He gave me a huge grin.  I needed to get off this subject quickly, before it turned mushy and soppy.  There was no way I was going to get all soppy with friendship.  “Where in the world is Malorie?  We’ve been waiting here for ten minutes!  I swear, if she’s with Drew King by the gym, I swear I’m going to…”  I trailed off.  I wasn’t really sure what I was going to do.  But that bitch was going to get something all right.  But of course, she came out that minute and skipped towards our car.

I mean, she literally skipped.

As always, I pushed the front seat foward so she could get in Bryson’s convertible: an old ‘70 buick he had fixed up.  But she didn’t.  Instead, she had a stupid grin plastered on her face.

“I hope you guys don’t mind, but Drew is going to give me a ride home today.”  She giggled.  I gagged.  Making sure she couldn’t see me, I mocked her pathetic romance to Bryson.  He tried hard not to laugh.

“Yeah, yeah, that’s fine.  Run along now.”  Maybe it was just my imagination, but it seemed like Bryson had a tone of annoyance.    I raised my eyebrows, curious.  He shrugged, and Malorie gave an overenthusiastic “Okay!” followed by a fit of giggles.  While she was still standing there, laughing to herself, Bryson and I got in his car and left as soon as we could.

*

I hate coming home when my parents are there.  They always ask the same question.  Everyday.  “How was school?” they would ask.  And I would reply the same monotonous answer every day: “Fine.”  They would keep asking silly questions, to which I gave vague answers.

“What did you do today?”

“Nothing.”

“Meet any new people?”

“Sure.”

“Anything you want to talk about?”

“Nope.  I’m going upstairs.”  I always felt a little guilty for not clueing them in on my life, but I didn’t want them ruining school for me.  School to me is a little sanctuary: I have my own separate life there away from my house and there’s nobody there to bug me about chores.  It’s not like I’m one of those weird kids that loves learning and doing work – no, not at all – I just like the atmosphere schools have and how different I can be there.

*

“Yellow’s a good colour on me, right?” I asked Bryson.

He was standing at the door holding my jacket. He didn’t reply.

“BRYSON!” He was never like this. He was usually so attentive, and hell knows how much I need attention.

He snapped out of his wake-slumber.

“Yes,” he said. It was an automated response. The kind of response you give to a teacher who has caught you napping at the back of World History or when you’ve been scolded by a parent and you haven’t listened to a word they’ve said.

“You never listen to me.” He never did. Anyway, it didn’t matter, I could choose for myself and yellow did look nice on me.

“Hey, Bryson, be a doll and shut the door for me,” I asked, putting on my best 50’s Hollywood voice, “I’m getting changed.”

I slipped on a yellow dress and leggings combination. I’ve always wondered what boys do outside the door while girls change. What do they think about? I bet they fiddle with their fly, or peep through the keyhole. That’s what I’d do. Boys fiddle with their fly, right?

“Done yet?” Bryson called. He was impatient.

“NEARLY,” I yelled. “Is someone dying that I don’t know about?”

He giggled. I smiled. Getting a laugh from Bryson isn’t much to be proud of though, it’s like winning over a very drunk audience with a Shakespeare tragedy. I stepped outside the door. In my head Bryson whistled as I walked out, and all of a sudden he whisked me off in his Buick and I wasn’t Margot anymore, I was Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast At Tiffany’s…

My thoughts trailed off. Bryson didn’t whistle, but he did laugh.

So I changed into some jeans.

The charade didn’t last for long.  Tears were streaming down my face when I got outside.  I ran home as fast as I could, grateful I didn’t wear the dress.  My parents had gone out to dinner tonight, giving me the house to myself.  I was glad; there was no way I would be able to explain this episode to them.

I hated Malorie Lane.  I despised her.  I never wanted to see her slimy face again, or Drew King’s either.

The thing that bothered me most was that she voiced my fear.  I really was the only girl that hadn’t been by the gym with anyone.  But Bryson hadn’t either, and you don’t see me calling him gay.  Bryson had girlfriends though, so he didn’t need to be by the gym with anyone to confirm his sexuality.

I made a mental note to look through magazines and style my hair how the models do.  That would show Malorie.  The stupid, bitch who I once called my ‘friend’.  I hated her.

Changing into sweats and grabbing a tub of ice cream, I turned on the TV and watched a little TV.  The same thing was on every channel.  A teen with two friends who embark on some greak adventure on another.  They never fight.  How unrealistic.

The doorbell rang.

“GO AWAY.”  I shouted.  I was in no mood to see Malorie, who better apologize for being a bitch.  I was secretly hoping that after I left the restaurant, she noticed how bitchy she was being and dumped Drew, running over here to apologize and then we would make up and be friends again.

I’ve been watching too much TV.  The doorbell rang two times more.  And again.  Frantic knocking was heard.

“I’m not deaf,” I was starting to get sick of this.  “I can hear you perfectly fine.  Go away!”

I turned around to get more ice cream when I could hear a voice behind the door.  It wasn’t a high pitched annoying one, either.  It was Bryson.

We stood in silence, staring at eachother. My face was streaked with tears. I don’t actually know if I did, but I think I looked a mess.

Bryson just stared at me. He never once took his eyes from me. So much was said in those few minutes of repose and silence. It was the sort of stuff that friends would never say to eachother. It was the sort of emotion that never passes through human lips, but hovers inside the head.

He put his arms around me and hugged me. I bit my lip, half to stop me from crying, half to stop me from laughing.

“I don’t care why you did it,” Bryson said, softly into my ear, “just as long as you feel better now. As long as it was justified, I’ll forgive you. In fact, don’t even tell me why you did it, I forgive you already.”

I cringed slightly, but smiled all the same. It was a touching gesture.

“So,” he said, letting go, “what do we do now?”

I paused. Thoughts flew around my head, colliding with each other intermittently like drunk frat boys.

“Well, I can’t go back to school can I?” It was half a joke. I swear.

“Oh shut up,” Bryson laughed. I had the feeling he was just relieved to see me crack a joke, or make a wry comment. “I mean, where do we go from here? Are you going to try and patch things up with Malorie?” The name stung. Up until that point I had never fully comprehended why I had been so angry in the first place, but it dawned upon me when Bryson said her name.

She had become everything I hated. Everything we had hated. She had become everything we had talked about loathing and she had become it over such a short space of time that it took my breath away. How could she be so blind? She had become the Regina George of our girl world. What she had done to me today was worse than what those girls did to Carrie. She had crossed the line.

“Margot?” Bryson said, waving a hand in front of my face. I had blanked out.

Whether it was spite or lust, I don’t know, but something at that point had made me want to reach out and kiss Bryson.

I was confused. That was it. Confusion was addling my brain.

“I’m confused, Bryson,” I repeated. My voice wavered as I said it.

“I know, I know,” Bryson soothed. “I can’t say I understand what you’re going through, but I know it must be hard. I mean, you just lost one of the greatest friends you ever had.”

My head snapped up. I thought it was one of those moments in films where a character gives a long speech only to reveal at the end that he doesn’t love her, or he’s leaving. But Bryson qualified it with: “Malorie.”

“Whatever Bryson,” I said, raising my guard. “Just stay with me. Please.”

He walked inside.

It took five periods before I saw Malorie. I wouldn’t say I had been purposefully avoiding her, but I had been carefully choosing my routes and had decided to steer well away from her at lunch.

“Be back in literally five minutes,” I called to Bryson, running into the toilets.

The girls’ bathroom is generally a place of sanctuary. In some schools it’s where bad girls get a chance to smoke. In others it’s a place of make-up application and sneaky bra-stuffing. However, our school bathrooms were generally deserted. The toilets ran over the lids, and the sinks were stuffed full of soggy toilet paper. But when nature calls, you have to brave nature to call it… No, ignore that sentence.

I pushed the door open and carefully tiptoed my way to the stalls. I placed my bag on the only dry patch inside the stall, and locked it. The door of the bathroom swung open. I didn’t see it swing open, but I heard it. And it swung. It definitely swung.

“Margot?” called a voice. It was Malorie. She walked up to the cubicle. We were alone.

“Yes?” The words were barely audible.

“Look,” she began, “I’m really sorry about how I acted yesterday. It was really inappropriate of me. I’ve had some time to think and… well, I was a real bitch. I’m sorry. Forgivesies?”

What a princess. What the hell kind of phrase was forgivisies.

“Really?” My lips trembled. “You mean it?”

She stepped closer. Or, her feet did. I could only see her feet.

“No.” Everything happened in slow motion. I remember seeing one of her feet lift from the ground, and then suddenly the lock snapped open and the door swung in on me.  And then I realised it had not just been her and I in the bathroom, but Drew King was standing there and suddenly they were both shrieking with laughter. And some seniors saw it from the hallway and started laughing, and a couple of kids coming from band practice rushed over to see and soon there was a great swell of mirth at my expense. (Okay, I exaggerate a little). I caught my face in the mirror. I was red as a tin of pickled beets in a spilled can of paint on a bloody crime scene. So, pretty red.

The rest of the day blurs in my head. When I think of it, my emotions streak together and I sort of end up with a blob of angry contententedness. I do remember the end of the day though.

Bryson stopped me getting on the bus. I nearly maced him, but I didn’t have any on me. And he wasn’t a pedofile.

“Come home with me,” Bryson said, trying to hint at a coolness he did not emanate.

I blinked for a second. And then laughed.

“Oh god!” Bryson was just as dumbstruck as I was. He blinked too, and then guffawed.

“NO! Oh god, no!” he blushed. “No, I mean my parents are home late and we have a bunch of Chemistry to do. Plus, we could go into the den in the woods, and just chillax and then I could give you a ride home.”

The den was a major hooking point for me. I considered for a moment. But there was nothing to consider.

“Sure!”

*

The first fallen leaves crunched under our feet. Bryson and I walked slowly, and in silence. I could see his house from the far corner of my eye and a smile danced on my lips. For the first time in two days, I was properly happy. I was blissful. I felt good with Bryson. He made me feel better about things. He was the Michael Cera to my Ellen Page.

The wood was silvery and felt wintry even in summer. It was my favourite place in the whole town, maybe even whole country. The den lay right in the middle of the wood and had been built by Bryson and his dad a couple of years ago. They had had a light installed in it, and at first we had just sat and talked on the bare wooden floor under a continually swinging 30 Watt bulb. But as time carried on, we added chairs and a rug and made it feel like home. It was home.

I made a mental note to run away there one day.

“You feel like talking about it?” Bryson asked, as we settled ourselves down inside.

I shook my head. I wanted to talk about it but I didn’t know what it was and so there was nothing to talk about.

“Thanks for being a friend,” I reassured him.

He shrugged, blushing.  I loved it when he blushed.  His freckled face turned a soft shade of pink at the cheeks.  I threw my arms around him.

“Really, you’ve kept by my side the whole time.  Even when I thought you were going to leave.”  I gave him a squeeze.  “But you never did.  Not once.”  I let go, searching for the blankets we kept in here.  I was suddenly exhausted from the day.  So much had happened, so much I wanted to forget.  Bryson was trying to get a little fire started.  Last winter the three of us – a now painful memory – were freezing inside the little house, so Bryson and his father made a little fireplace.  The den really was like home to us.  Besides no refrigerator (mini ones simply cost too much), it had everything we could possibly need.

“So, let’s hear about your day,” Bryson whipped around, now that a little flame was growing.  He did his best immitation of a therapist.  “How did it make you… feel?”

I laughed.  Bryson had always known how to lighten up the mood.

“Oh doctor,” I exclaimed, using my best acting voice.  “It was simply dreadful!”  I plopped down on the couch, pretending to feel faint.  “I’m not sure how I survived!”

“Ahh, that’s an easy one to answer,”  Bryson said, puffing out his chest.  “You obviously had some ridiculously handsome male to help you through the day.”

“Obviously,” I said, rolling my eyes.  He could be such a dork sometimes.  He laughed, sitting down on the chair adjacent to me.  “So, what will it be… you ‘ridiculously handsome male’… should we conquer chemistry first or english?”

Bryson frowned.  He hadn’t thought of actually doing homework.  It bored him.

“Aww, do we have to start right away?  Let’s just go for a walk in the woods and get our mind off of it.  I don’t feel like doing much today.”  I sighed.  Trying to change Bryson’s mind was like trying to predict the weather; you could come awfully close, but you never quite succeeded.

“Fine,” I groaned.  He grinned, knowing he had won.  “But only because I love the woods so much.”  I loved the woods in autumn.  The usually white trees turned deep shades of every color your could imagine, with leaves covering the ground like a big technicolor blanket.  It always reminded me of a surreal picture that some artist long ago had painted; all the colors were so vivid and out there, it didn’t seem it could be real.  It was like entering a completely new world.  The beginning of the woods were white and ordinary, but the deeper you got in – closer towards the den – the more colorful it got.

“Gosh, I love just love the woods.  It’s so beautiful.”  I drank in the sight around me.  For a moment our hands touched, sending a warm feeling through my stomach.  I must’ve been the only one who felt it though, since Bryson quickly shoved his hands in his coat pocket.  There was probably no mistaking the dissapointment in my voice when I broke the silence:  “I wish the woods by my house were like this.  I wish the whole world was like this, every single day of the year.”

Bryson gazed at me, a perplexed look on his face.  Before I could ask him exactly what was so confusing, he ran off ahead.

“Margot!  Do you remember this tree?” He pointed to a narrow tree, it’s trunk an off-white color.  I didn’t have to be there to know what he was talking about.  I ran up next to him.  His finger was tracing two pairs of initials: ours.  He had carved it into the tree the summer after we officially met.  Our families had been close friends for years and we had seen each other at parties, but it wasn’t really until we were about six years old that we really became best friends.

I smiled at the memory.  “Yeah, and I remember how you cut yourself with the blade when you were trying to carve it, too.”

Bryson pouted his little puppy face.  Maybe it was the beauty around me or maybe it was just how stressful the past couple of days had been, I will never know the reason.  All I know is that moment I wanted to kiss Bryson.  It was a new feeling that overpowered my senses and my thoughts.  Without thinking, I went on my tiptoes and gave him a quick kiss.  On the lips.  Things normal girls do to their boyfriends.  Except Bryson wasn’t my boyfriend, and I was far from what you could call “normal”.

It wasn’t until I couple moments later that I realized how horribly wrong that was.  For god’s sake, this was Bryson.  The boy who had aged awkwardly throughout the years.  The boy who I’d often called my brother because of how close we were.  The boy that knew everything about me and was my best friend… and now I’m going around kissing him?  A deep pit of fear settled in my stomach, wondering if this would end our friendship.  If I had crossed the line.

He froze, shocked.  I couldn’t help it; I started crying.

“I’m sorry Bryson, I couldn’t help it.  I mean, you’ve been such a good person since forever and you’re the only one that’s stayed by me throughout all my troubles and I know I probably wasn’t supposed to and I’m really sorry but I just couldn’t…”  I was stopped by the pressure of his lips against mine.  Was I dreaming?  He was actually returning the kiss?  This moment seemed too real to be true.  Maybe it was.  Yet, I’d give up anything in the world just to relive it again, even if it was only a dream.

But it wasn’t.  It was real.  All of it was real.  This was Bryson.  He wasn’t the awkward, acne plastered voice-cracking boy who could never get a date from a couple years ago.  This was the boy who had to work hard to stop girls from chasing after him.  The boy who had grown muscles underneath his perfectly tanned skin.  The guy who had always been there for me.  Perhaps it was only natural that at some point in my life, I would get a crush on him.  But this felt more than a crush.  This was something that had been gathering at the corner of my heart for years.  Could it be possible that I, Margot Streeter, had fallen in love with my childhood friend Bryson?

“Well,” he said, finally.  “That was… unexpected.”  He grinned, looking the happiest I had ever seen him.  With a quick peck on the cheek, he slid his fingers into mine.  “We should probably head back,” he said, glancing back at the den.  I shrugged, content to just be with him.  Time seemed to had just flown by.   In about an hour or two, my parents would start to wonder where I was.

Homework still didn’t seem like an appealing idea.  I rested my head on Bryson’s shoulder, trying to grasp the moment; stop it from leaving.  I wanted to stay like this forever.

“Well, now that everythings… oh I don’t know, out in the open… I just have something to tell you.”  He said, his eyes never once leaving my face.  “You’re much, much prettier than Malorie will ever be.”

Even though the name stung, I couldn’t help kissing him.  Maybe that’s why I told my parent’s that I was sleeping over at Malorie’s house that night.  Maybe that’s why at nine, instead of getting ready for bed, I was still with Bryson at the den.  Maybe that’s why my clothes thrown carelessly about his floor, and not neatly folded in a drawer back at my house.  Maybe his clothes laid on the ground near mine.  And maybe that’s why the day ended so perfectly.  I would never be able to pick a reason for why it did.  It just… happened.

When I woke, Bryson had gone in. He had left an alarm for me. I thought it sweet, but that’s how he was, so I thought no more than that.

My mind was an ebb and flow of thoughts. Most prominently in my head was my apparent nudity. Second most forthcoming was the walk of shame.

The walk of shame was a trait common to college girls who have one night stands. At this point in time I was that college girl.

If I walked into school with the same clothes on as the day before, people would think something was up. A nest of excuses burst in my head, but before I could properly analyse them Bryson walked in. I pulled the bed linens around me tighter.

“Oh my god!” I squeaked. “Privacy, please?”

He shielded his eyes. He was carrying a bundle of my clothes.

“I have a pile of your clothes in my room, I thought you might need these,” he said. His eyes tightened shut, as he waited for my response.

“Thanks,” I said. There was an awkwardness flowing between the two of us. I didn’t like it. It felt alien. It felt uncomfortable and it felt unknown.

I pulled on the clothes under the sheets. I had never felt nakeder, or dirtier or more unlike myself. I had aged years in a day, and the more I thought about it, the more the lifespan of my maturity ticked by. I thought of the events with Malorie and the events of the night before, and I keeled over. My side was cramping. I ran out of the den and vomited all over the forest floor. Bryson gagged.

“I am so sorry,” I qualified.

Bryson stopped coughing.

“Are you okay? Do you want some water or something?” he asked, maternally. He came forwards and touched me on the shoulder.

“No!” I yelled. His touch was unnerving. I did not like this new formed closeness between us. “Look, I’m really feeling gross, I’m going to walk home. I don’t think I’ll go in today.”

“I can drive you-” he started.

“No,” I snapped, cutting him off, “thank you.” A day away from Bryson would be good.

He flinched backwards and sounded hurt.

“Oh, okay.”

We stood in silence. It would not be the last time we did that. I almost wanted to kiss him again, but the connotations made me want to vomit. I swallowed, grabbed my bag and ran off.

*

When I got home, the house was empty. I crawled into bed, after scribbling a note explaining my presence.

It’s strange how much becomes apparent when one is tucked up in bed with nausea. I felt the whole weight of the world and more, and understood every bit of everything. Of course the knowledge was as fleeting as the feeling in my stomach, and it would fade. That’s the kind of stuff I thought about, and the language I thought it in.

I heard the door to my room click, and I looked up.

It was my Mum.

My mum was an “artist” but she gave up her career as a painter to have me. Though she didn’t always show it, she was the most caring person I knew and however much I resented her at times she was always right in my mind.

“You feeling okay?” she asked. She pushed the hair out of my eyes, and rested her hand against my forehead.

“I threw up outside Br- Malorie’s. On the way out of her house,” I said. I felt ill, but I made myself feel a little bit iller to convince her.

“You vomited?” she asked.

I nodded and then breathed in her face. Her face wrinkled and she recoiled.

“Okay, that’s disgusting Margot,” she half-laughed.

We paused, and enjoyed the hum of the washing mashine.

“Mum?”

“Hm?”

“I did something bad, I think.”

“What did you do?” Her concern grew.

It had been a lapse of judgement. I lied to cover the tracks.

“I cheated in a test yesterday. Nothing major.”

“We all do bad things,” she soothed. I think she saw right through me. “Just as long as it’s qualified, I’m on your side, kay?”

“Kay.” I fell into a deep slumber.

I woke up to the sound of my phone.  Sleepily, I peeked one eye open and checked the time.  It was three o’clock in the afternoon.

“Urgh,” I groaned as I picked it up.  “Hello?”  I mumbled into the phone, still trying to wipe the sleep away from my eyes.

“Margot?  Is that you?”  The anxious voice of Bryson was hard to miss.  “How are you?  Are you feeling better?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine, except you woke me up.”  I was still grumpy from just waking up, but even if I hadn’t been grumpy, I could tell the awkward space between us.  I hated it.

“Oh I’m sorry!  I was just getting worried.”  Poor Bryson sounded so regretful.  I quickly added that it was nothing.  He piped up again, “Do you want me to come over and make you soup?”  This was a tough one.  I wanted to see him again and give him a big hug, but I didn’t want me to feel repulsed by him.  Although, the soup did sound good.  I sighed.

“Yeah, sure, that would be great.  See you in a few?”  At least it would make one of us happy.  He soon hung up and I assumed he jumped right into his car.  I moaned.  This was going to be an exhausting day.  I tried to go back to sleep.

True to his word, Bryson arrived five minutes later.  Calling him from my cell phone, I told him where the open door was so I wouldn’t have to be bothered with opening it.  As he came up the stairs, my heart started to race.  What was I going to say to him?  Should I apologize for vomiting right by him?  I probably looked like a mess, too.  I didn’t even think of that.  I quickly tried to fingercomb my hair, realized it was useless, and dove under the pillow.

He sat down on the bed next to me.  “Margot?”  he whispered.  “You awake?”

I pulled away the pillow and looked up at him.  He looked a lot different than what I had remembered from this morning.  His eyes were full of worry with dark circles underneath that made him look like he hadn’t eaten in days.  A day’s stubble had popped up, giving him the ‘weary’ look.  My motherly instincts took over.

“Oh my god, Bryson!  What happened to you?  You look like you haven’t slept or eaten in days!”  I quickly wrapped my arms around him, as if I could protect him.  No gagging, so far.  This was a good start.

“Don’t worry about it,” he sang into my ear.  “It’s you who we should be worried about.”  He started to go in for a kiss, thought about it, and kissed my forehead instead.  I was relieved.  I don’t know what I would do if he kissed me on the lips. I furrowed my brows.  So was he considered my ‘boyfriend’ now?  The thought gave me a warm feeling and a cold shiver at the same time.  I must be bipolar or something.

I proceded to ask him about school, what I had missed, anything to get us off the topic of last night.  I felt my face glow red with shame everytime I thought about it.  I wasn’t sure why, either.  I mean, I liked Bryson.  It wasn’t like he forced me to do it; if anything, I had forced it upon him.  So why did the thought repulse me now?  Questions collided in my head, and I groaned from the oncoming headache.  Bryson stood up quickly, alarmed.

“Margot, what’s wrong?  Did I do something?”  His happy expression turned sad in a matter of a seconds.  I waved off his accusations away and gave him the excuse saying I was hungry.  He bolted down the stairs to make me some food.

I felt terrible.  Bryson was like a little puppy – someone who would do anything I asked – and instead of spending his time with someone who could appreciate him, he was wasting it with me, who gagged at the thought of him.  What was wrong with me?  Maybe it was just that I was hungover or something.  I don’t remember ever drinking alcohol last night, but I couldn’t be sure.  I took that as my excuse and figured that I was just exhausted.

I was still curious though.  What did Malorie think?  What would she think?  I could imagine her sneering face right now, laughing with her idiot of a boyfriend Drew King.

“Well,” I silently laughed to myself, “now she can’t say I’m a lesbian.”

Bryson re-emerged a couple of minutes later. He was carrying a bowl of soup and a plate of toast. A serviette was tucked into his pocket. He laid them out in front of me. Usually, I would have been thrilled. The soup looked appetizing and the toast was warm and comforting, and just what I needed, but at that moment it churned my stomach just to look at it. It became toxic waste before my eyes. I swallowed hard, and then bit down on my lip.

“What’s the matter?” Bryson queried. “Did you want chicken soup?”

I shook my head. The words refused to come out of my dry, cracked lips. My mouth was parched. I took a slurp of soup, and it was enough to break the damn of the ebb and flow of words.

“Bryson.” I didn’t know quite what I was going to say at that point, so I thought his name was suitable enough to begin with.

“Hey, wait, that’s me!” he joked. I didn’t laugh. His audience was a grimace and a sullen face. His smile inversed.

“It’s about yesterday night.” The cliché was enough to chill me to the bone. I grimaced inwardly.

“Oh.” He stopped. His mouth became perfectly round, and black. I wanted to put a carrot in there. Who knows why, I just did.

“It was special, don’t get me wrong,” I began, “but I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. It’s not that I don’t like you. I like you more than ANYONE. Heck, I’d love to spend all my time with you, but I don’t want you to be led along by someone like me. Bryson, we’re not meant to be that way. We’re Bryson and Margot for bejeesus’ sake and I don’t want anything to spoil that for us. What we had was a special, undeniable friendship and it just feels to me that it was spoiled and dirtied by what happened yesterday. Before you say anything – if you feel the opposite way, I am sorry. Truly, I’m sorry, but I just need you to know. It’s important. For US.”

The awkwardness re-emerged from its shadows. It’s long claws gripped the leg of my bed, as tendrils of silence smoked off of it. It was one of the most unpleasant moments of my life, waiting for Bryson to respond to the atomic sized bombshell I had just revealed to him.

“Oh,” he finally said, breaking the meter thick ice between us, “okay.”

If his heart had been on his face, or on his sleeve for that matter, he would have been drenched in blood. It visibly broke in front of me. His once sparkling eyes, no longer glittered. For an instant I thought I saw hatred in there, but it was suddenly masked by sadness for what once was.

“Bry-?”

“No, Margot,” he laughed, sheepishly, “it’s fine, really. I completely understand. “What a dissembler. It was the biggest lie since Watergate. “I better go, right?”

The question was not if he should leave or not, but if it was the end of the sparks between us. The awkward creature which gripped my bedpost swelled with glee. Its fangs glistened maliciously. I did not want to lie to Bryson. I did not want everything to end, though. It would be too much in such a short period of time. I weighed the options: moral superiority for emotional squalor.

“I think so. I think it would be best.” I reached out for his hand. The soup bowl slid off my knees and off the tray and onto the floor. The contents poured over the rug, staining it and the toast. Bryson recoiled, but I reassured him. I brought his hands to my lips.

He left.

As I faced the demon which had been plaguing Bryson’s visit, I watched it shrink. A new, brighter creature was emerging from inside. It burst outwards, spilling from the pungent, oozing gases of this one. It was pure, brilliant white. It was pious and wonderful and awe-inspiring. Had Keat’s seen what I saw that day, he would have written a thousand sonnets. Relief showed its true form to me. Above the dirt and impurity and darkness and unsolicited behaviour – pure, white relief burst from the shadows and shone above me for a short while. I was whole again. I clasped my hands to my stomach and tears rolled down my cheeks, washing away the last of everything.

Tomorrow would be a new start. I would apologise, and be reborn – a new Margot; a better Margot:

A good Margot.

So why did this good Margot feel so bad about breaking up with her first, potential boyfriend and perhaps ruining the greatest friendship she ever had?

School was not going to be easy.

*

I got there early the next morning, hoping that hearing the early morning chatter would calm my nerves.  Bryson came in at the same time as he usually did, except his hair was all mess up and knotted and he looked like he hadn’t slept in days.

I wonder if that was because of me.  He still looked hot, nonetheless.  I was just about to wave to him when something in me stopped.  Were we still friends?  Would he just back away, forgetting I ever existed?  I didn’t want that to happen.  The new, good Margot was friends with Bryson.  Like the old days.  Maybe she would even be friends with Malorie, no matter how many times that name sent a fear of shivers into the pit of my belly.  I built up my courage and walked up to Bryson, trying to act like everything was normal.

“Hey, are you feeling any better?”  He looked at me with an intense gaze I couldn’t break.  I wanted to tell him I was feeling fine.  I wanted to tell him that I regretted breaking up with him the night before, that I wanted to wrap my arms around him and give him a big kiss.  I wanted to tell him that I didn’t mean anything I said yesterday.  But the words wouldn’t come out.

“Yeah, I guess.  I still feel a little sick, but I’m okay.”  Bryson backed up jokingly, making a face looking like he was scared of me.  I laughed.  We resumed walking, but both of us could feel the space between us.  The awkward feeling that refused to go away.  Or the fact that Bryson still cared for me.  I tried to feel the same way.  It just wasn’t working.

Still trying, he put his arm around me.  Like he had done in the past, when we were just friends.  Now I knew it was because of a different reason.  It took every inch of strength I had left in me to not shrug it off.  I didn’t want to break his heart.  The good Margot wouldn’t do that, would she?

No, I thought sullenly to myself.  She wouldn’t.  So we made our way through the courtyard and into school.  Malorie never came to join us.  Why did it feel like my circle of friends was getting smaller?  Would it soon just be me?

I didn’t want to think about that.

*

The schoolday passed by slowly.  I couldn’t think in any of my classes.  I just thought about the damage I had done to Bryson.

Maybe I was giving myself too much credit, I thought to myself.  Maybe he was just bummed out over Malorie.  That had to be it.

Yet, I had a feeling it was as obvious to everyone as it was to me.  The way he looked at me lovingly.  The way all the other girls stared at him with affection.  The way they stared at me with disgust.  Had it always been this way?  Was I just too blind to notice it before?

I shuddered to think of that thought.

Finally, the final bell rang and I figured it would be best if I went on the bus.  I didn’t want to give Bryson more heartache.  I didn’t want to feel the awkwardness between us.

Of course, he stopped me.  “What are you going on the bus for?”  He smiled, gently pulling me out of line.  “When you have a chauffeur to take you home this fine day?”  I loved it when he did his impressions.  Especially now.  It made everything feel normal.

Until he brought up the idea again.

“Do you want to come over to my house?  I could help you catch up with yesterday’s homework.  C’mon, it would be fun.”  He said this with a carefree tone, as if he hadn’t realized what had happened before.  I felt nausea creeping up my throat.  The good Margot wouldn’t do this!  I kept thinking that phrase over and over.

I shook my head.

“Sorry Bryson,” I said, trying to keep the disgust out of my voice, “I still feel pretty sick.  I don’t want to get sick at your place.”  Again, I thought to myself.

Thinking the same thing I was, he nodded quickly and unconsciously drove faster.  He didn’t want his precious car to become the victim of my next sickness.

The nausea came in waves, and by the time I got to the front door I was feeling better. That’s kind of the way all sicknesses work, though. They never work to your advantage. Ever.

I decided to take a walk. It was fresh, and my lungs needed clearing. I find a walk helps with almost everything. It’s both sensual and sensuous and kind of a kickass thing to do. Plus, when I walk I like to imagine I’m in the opening credits of a movie and there’s a lo-fi guitar song jamming behind me. It’s awesome.

My neighborhood was pretty basic. It was typical suburbia. Stepford wives lingered on every doorstep, and latticed houses shone whiter than the owner’s teeth. It would have been great, except it wasn’t. There was something about it’s cuteness and button-nosiness that was off-putting. It mismatched me, I guess. It certainly mismatched my family.

My stomach suddenly began to heave. I felt a great wave pass through me and surge through my mouth. I vomited onto the road.

A bird cawed in disgust.

“Screw you! At least I don’t crap where I eat!” Definitely. NOT. Delirious.

Something in me drove me to keep on walking. It was probably fate or some crap like that, but I kept walking and didn’t turn round.

I reached the high street, where all the shops converged into a big center of business that only housewives used. I sprinted to the pharmacist on the corner.

The bell jangled as I walked in, and I shut the door as quickly as I could to try and stop the noise. Unfortunately it was one of those doors that won’t move any faster the harder you push them, so I wasted calories for nothing. I walked to the counter. A large black lady was standing behind it. Not that it matters what race she was. I mean, I don’t care about that kind of thing. She could have been BLUE for all I cared. Not that blue is inferior or anything, but – you know what I mean.

“Hi.” I lowered my voice, discretely – despite the empty store. It smelt of pills. The smell of a pharmacist’s is not a pleasant one. It smells of old lady. And sudoku. In fact, the large… lady behind the desk was doing sudoku. I laughed to myself.

“May I help you?” she asked. She didn’t smile. I didn’t like that. It would have been nicer if she’d have smiled.

“Hi-”

“You’ve already said that.”

Of course I’d already said it. You interrupted me the last time, what else was I going to say? How else was I going to introduce myself: “HELLO I HAVE CHRONIC DIARRHEA!” No, I don’t think so.

“Sorry. I’ve been feeling really ill lately, and I’ve been vomiting all the time. I haven’t eaten anything weird, so I’m sure it’s not food poisoning. Do you know what’s wrong?” I made sure my words were perfect. The woman-behind-desk-lady didn’t seem in a good mood.

“I’m not a doctor.”

“Sorry?”

“I said, I’m not a doctor,” repeated woman-behind-desk-lady.

“Oh.” I was a little speechless for a second, but then I found the right words. “Well, do you have anything I can take?”

“Are you sexually active?” she asked. She sounded like she was reciting a speech.

“Sorry?”

“Are you sexually active?” she repeated.

My heart beat drummed in my ears. It was like a gun shot. If I said yes I was a slut. If I said no, I was lying and I would probably end up with the wrong meds. It was a Catch 22 of enormous proportions.

“Yes. Recently though. Very recently.” I said. The words slurred, so it sounded more like: “Yesreecently thovereecently.”

The woman perked up.

“Oh? Really? Who was it?” she asked. How nosy! I didn’t like woman-behind-desk-lady anymore.

I blushed, and she backed off.

“Oh, sorry.  I remember how hard it was coming to terms with my first time. Was it special for you? I hope so, for your sake. I ended up marrying my first time. In fact, it was a couple of weeks before he engaged.”

Was she sixteen when she got engaged? What? The world made no sense.

“I lost it late… Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, sexually active – yes or no?” she repeated.

“Yes.”

“Did you use protection?”

“What?”

“Did you use protection?”

I froze. My eyes twitched.

“Excuse me a second…” I turned away from her and snapped my phone open. I speed-dialled Bryson. He picked up after the second ring.

“Margot? You okay?”

“Bryson. Did you use a… you know?”

“A what?”

I bit my lip. Things like this were not meant to be said by girls my age. It was taboo.

“A…contraceptive? A condom?”

Bryson didn’t reply for a bit. I held my breath.

“Why do you ask?” Bryson asked.

“BECAUSE Bryson. Because. Why do people ask about death and birth? Because it’s important. It just needs to be known.”

“Okay! Okay! Let me think…”

“You need to think about it? You mean you didn’t? Are you serious?”

We paused. Woman-behind-desk lady smiled. I hoped it wasn’t malicious.

“Margot…”

“Yes?”

“I don’t think I did…”

My world collapsed.