I thought about something today from when I was 11, about these two girls at my church in Texas.  Shea and Emily.  They decided to stop being my friends without telling me.

One time, Shea’s mom asked if I wanted to go swimming with them next Sunday and I said yes and Shea gave her mom a “Are you crazy?!” look and her mom did that subtle stern face parents get when you’re being rude in public.

The next Sunday, I brought my best friend Becca to church with me.

Shea probably, to this day, thinks it was my way of showing her I didn’t care what she thought.  Her mom probably thinks that too.  But you want to know the lame truth?

I just forgot.

I freely admit I might have repressed it, but school was busy that week and when things are hectic I forget everything I haven’t written down.  I didn’t remember about the swimming until after church when I saw Shea and Emily getting into the same car, and it all came rushing back.  I told Becca, but I didn’t feel angry or upset, just resigned and relieved that I’d accidentally saved face.  I definitely hadn’t wanted to go, not if Shea didn’t want me there.

I had a friend in high school (she cut contact with everyone after graduating) who assumed that if most people would be upset about something and you aren’t, you’re just hiding it.

Like when I got kicked out of our prom limo.  My friend dropped out because she couldn’t afford it and the other girls flayed into her.  So I was too scared to leave and I’d committed myself (my mom’s big on not going back on your word), and then they called and said they’d thought I was a package deal with my friend and they had another couple that wouldn’t come without a second couple.  Long story short, I wanted out anyway and they gave me the perfect opportunity.  My friend examined me subtly for days trying to decide if I was hiding my pain.

Honestly?  I was glad to get out in a way that didn’t make me the bad guy. Suddenly these girls who’d been so furious with my friend were too self-conscious to even look in our direction.  It let us both off the hook, and I didn’t care if they were right or wrong, rude or polite.  It was convenient and I wasn’t going to pick at it.

It was like me forgetting about the swimming.  I could have been mad, but my main emotion was “Whew, I escaped.” And with little to no effort on my part!

Another time, I blogged (entire thing got lost in a server data crash) about a party one of the girls from the limo had.  I thought it was a good idea, she hadn’t invited me or my friends, so I invited my friends over to my house and blogged about how it could be seen as a competition but wasn’t (of course, one of her friends got defensive and left a rude anonymous post).  I was annoyed by the poster because I’d been honest and introspective — I could have been one of those girls who gets offended when she’s not invited to things.  But I openly admitted I stole her idea because it was a good one and enjoyed myself.  A lot of people say “I didn’t want to go anyway” in defense to lessen the pain of rejection.  When I say it . . . I’m being honest.  We weren’t friends, so I didn’t expect to be included and I didn’t mind when I wasn’t.

I’d thought about being friends with the girl running the other party once.  Then she threw a bag of chips at me, made bitter comments about her ex who was a friend of mine, and . . . just seemed overall grouchy.  The thing that influenced me most about her personality was her reaction when another ex accidentally kicked her in the back of the head jumping over bus seats.  I’d been two rows behind her and saw his face — and hers.  She insisted he did it on purpose.  I knew better.  If you think you’ve hit someone, even if you intend to say it was accidental, you glance back to check.  Always.  It’s reflex.  And he didn’t.  His posture stayed completely relaxed, and he even started chatting casually with someone before her friend told him what he’d done.  I watched his face fall, watched her refuse to give him the benefit of the doubt, and saw how she stayed furious with him all day despite his fervent apologies.  He practically groveled, but she turned her nose up at him every time.

It was little things like that, over time, that built up to culminate in a great big Don’t Care about whether or not I got invited to her party.  It might have flattered her ego to let whoever replied to my post accuse me of jealousy, but the unflattering truth is that she could hold nothing to Shea and Emily.  Getting kicked out of a prom limo I didn’t want to be in, not getting an invitation to a party I would have avoided going to, getting a bag of chips thrown at my knee the very week I started to think we could get to know each other (okay, that did hurt a little), listening to her negativity . . .   Shea and Emily were my friends once.  Friends who turn on you are a lot more painful than people you don’t particularly like being not particularly likable.

Shea and Emily ditched me and another girl in the bathrooms of the mall to hit on the church boys.  I didn’t remember until my dad mentioned it years later (the youth minister told him), and I have no idea why I forgot. It was a nice day other than that — the other girl and I just stuck together and got ice cream and window shopped.

I embarrassed myself for Shea and Emily.  I ignored other, nicer, girls at church while I tried to get back in their lives.  They hurt me, made me confused and self-doubting.

So when I say I want to succeed in my writing and rub it in certain people’s faces . . .

My high school friend, the one who assumed things bothered me more than I let on, would probably think I have people she knows on that list, like the girl who kicked me out of the limo and didn’t invite me to her party.

I don’t.  No one from any school I attended is on it except for two NOCCA writing teachers, R & G.

My list is filled with those who made it personal, who fire-branded my soul, who convinced me of who I need to be and who I need to not be. I’m not stupid enough to think they’ll even notice my career when it starts, but sometimes for a moment I’ll imagine one of them approaching me at a book signing and all the ways I’ll tell them off in front of a crowd, shaming them for life.

Shea and Emily top the list.  A list of five people.  Four are just for me.  One is for my dad.

But it’s just a dream.  It’s a reason to try harder and I use it that way.  The girls who rejected me, the teachers who hated me, the man who spread lies about my father.  To be honest, I think I’d just punch that last one if I ever saw him again.  Forget clever words.  A fist to the face would be enough.