Insignificantly important

The last time I wrote with this pain in the pit of my stomach was in tenth grade.

My tenth grade (INSERT FLASHBACK RIPPLE EFFECT)

It was before you could be busted by a text message or snooped upon through Facebook. No, the only way you could find out how someone really felt about you was to get a friend to perform a three-way call with the person in question. You were to remain silent on the line while your friend executed a pre-approved line of questioning worthy of a scene out of CSI Miami (as the characters are terrible at questioning suspects).

Well, one fateful day I was the victim of one of these three-way call interrogations by a good friend trying to get me to bad mouth one of the popular girls. My supposed good friend, from a working poor family, slightly overweight with braces and glasses wanted to be popular more than anything in the world. She befriended the slim, fair-haired, light-eyed whore of the class, but that wasn’t enough. No. She wanted to prove her loyalty to her so she could be accepted, once and for all. So she told her that I was gossiping about her and they concocted a scheme to so I can go on record saying that Ms. Popular was  slutty and dumb.

An obvious fact, but for some reason, she, the popular girl, wanted to hear me say it behind her back and catch me in an, “Aha!” moment. All this to have a “valid” reason not to speak to me. There was an invalid reason, which really was the real reason, but at this point it was just a rumor, vehemently denied by me and without proof. But, everyone was whispering that I was a big gaymo and that was enough.

Okay, so my fat friend called me, but I could tell that this call was different from the start. She didn’t want to know about the science homework and she didn’t call to tell me how she couldn’t get the caramel out of her brackets from all the Twix she ate for dinner. She called with a purpose.

“Hey Mari, wassup? So what do you think about [insert slutty girl’s name]?”

I remained silent for a few seconds. Enough time to hear the slutty girl’s heavy breathing on the line. She was an asthmatic. What idiots.

So I lied. Well, not lied, I just avoided the question. Flipped it back to her. Asked her why she was asking me that and followed it up with a classic, “I thought you didn’t like her? Didn’t you say she was a hooch?”

It didn’t matter at that point. The slutty girl came on the line and said, “Don’t try and change the subject. I know what you think of me and it is on.” Impressed that she put together two sentences I couldn’t be too angry at her. The entire focus of my wrath was on the good friend.

That day I did what I always used to do, I wrote. Growing up with Doogie Howser, M.D. and being a tortured teen, I kept an electronic diary of sorts. I wrote poetry and prose and short stories in code so if someone were to ever read it they would never know that I was betrayed by a fifteen year old only so they could be part of the cool kids club. So I wrote that day, like today, full of hurt over things that don’t mean anything.

I did bad mouth that girl, though. I totally did.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll write about what is really bothering me. Maybe.