Page 78 of The Way I Used to Be
And then nobody really says much to me in school on Monday. Or Tuesday. Or Wednesday. I don’t care if Cameron doesn’t talk to me. I honestly don’t care if Steve doesn’t talk to me. And Mara, it can’t rightfully be said that she’s ignoring me, she just doesn’t seem particularly happy that I exist.
“All right, so why is everyone being weird?” I finally ask Mara in the hall by her locker on Thursday.
“What do you mean?” she mumbles, not even glancing up at me.
“Ever since the party no one’s been talking to me.”
“I’m talking to you right now.”
“Yeah, barely.”
“Well, can you really blame them? You were so mean, Edy.”
“Not to you, I wasn’t.”
“No, but you made fun of Cameron.” She pauses, waiting for me to react. “And Steve, you know he actually liked you and you were horrible to him.”
“I was not. Nothorrible.” If he was stupid enough to actually like me, then that’s his problem.
“Edy, you obviously ditched him to go hook up with some other guy. But I guess he’s just a little dork, right? So who cares, anyway?” she says, rolling her eyes.
“Well, when you say it like that, it sounds mean, but that’s not what I meant—that’s not how it happened. Not really.”
She just crosses her arms and shakes her head.
“I was drunk, Mara. I didn’t mean anything by it, you know that.”
“Yeah, exactly.” She inhales sharply. “And I really think you have a problem, Edy.”
“What, a drinking problem? I don’t drink that much—you drink more than I do.”
She slams her locker shut, all exasperated, like it’s such a big project to talk to me. “No, that’s not what I mean. Not a drinking problem, but you have some kind of problem. You didn’t mean anything by it, right?”
“Yeah, that’s what I said,” I snap, getting impatient.
“But you never mean anything.”
“So?” I wish, wish to God, that she would say what she means, instead of having me jump through her psychological hoops.
“So, nothing ever means anything to you. You’re just out there lately, Edy, way out there. It worries me.”
“Out where, what are you talking about?”
“Like—I don’t know—I just feel like you’re about to go over the edge or something.” Her fingers walk an imaginary line through the air, and then she lets her hand plummet downward, like she’s enacting her hand falling off a cliff.
“You’re completely overreacting.”
She shakes her head firmly back and forth. “No, you’re out of control this time. Really. You know, you’re acting crazy—crazy for you, even.”
“Where is this coming from? I drink a little too much and then I’m not perfectly polite to your little boyfriend and now all of a sudden I’m crazy?”
“Edy, just stop. You know what I’m talking about. It’s everything.”
I feel my face contorting into a smirk—that really condescending way Caelin does it that makes me want to punch him in the mouth just to shatter that stupid crooked line of his lips. “Thanks for the concern,” I snarl, “but I can take care of myself just fine.”
“Edy...” The corners of her mouth turn down in that way that means she’s trying not to cry but is going to start any second. “I don’t like you like this.”
“Like what?” I ask, not nicely. It pushes her over the brink.
