Foes & Cons

by Carrie Aarons

  Oh well, hopefully, Nate is right and this pays off when it comes to college acceptance letters.

  “Hey, what happened the other night?” Nate’s voice is meant to sound naive, but I know he’s playing at something.

  “What do you mean?” I ask, faking just as much innocence.

  He’s not making eye contact, and so I know he’s trying to suss out my feelings on the situation without coming out and saying it.

  “Sawyer drove you home? I couldn’t get over to you and Laura to stop it before it just happened.”

  I glue a piece of ribbon to the ballot box. Some senior girl is going to be homecoming queen, her name picked out of this box, but it’s not going to be me.

  “Yeah.” I don’t elaborate, and I know I won’t get off that easy, but it’s worth a shot.

  “Oh, come on, you have to give me more than that.” He gives me a stern look.

  Sighing, I roll my eyes. “He drove me home because Laur got drunk, and because she weirdly pushed me into it. Then … well, I think he wanted to prove some point or something. I’m not sure either of us did, though, but we came out of that car ride despising each other just as much as always.”

  Nate cocks his head to the side, weighing my response.

  “Is there a reason the kid keeps coming for you? Do I need to just blow him or something? Do you need to blow him? He’s messing with our class cabinet decisions now, and honey, I’m not saying no if I got him in a dark room—”

  My hands go flying up. “Oh my God, no! No one is bribing anyone with sexual favors. We are not those kinds of politicians, Nate. No one needs a blue dress floating around.”

  He chuckles at my reference. “Fine, but you do know I think Bill Clinton was a fox back in the day. Hell, he’s kind of a fox now.”

  “And that would be a felony, my friend.” I bop him on the nose with a pipe cleaner.

  We’re both silent for a second, gluing and cutting, before Nate speaks again.

  “I didn’t know you back then like I do now. But I remember the fallout being epic. It’s all anyone around here talked about for months. So what the hell did he do?”

  Funny, that most people think Sawyer and I hating each other had been his fault. I guess it’s easy to assume, since he’s the king of the popular crowd now and I’m just a nerdy plebeian.

  “Actually, it was me. I blew up our friendship,” I say quietly.

  Nate sounds surprised. “You? Why?”

  I explain the seven minutes in heaven story, because maybe he hadn’t gotten all the details. I assumed everyone in school knew what happened in that basement.

  “Yeah, I kind of knew all of that. But why did you do it?” my friend asks after I finish.

  My stomach twists into a knot. I’ve never revealed this secret to anyone except for Laura. I’m not sure how Nate will respond, and the more people who know, even if I trust them, the bigger this whole shit storm could get.

  But Nate is sitting there assessing me, and I really do want to talk to someone about this. It feels like it’s coming to a head, this thing between Sawyer and I, and I need direction on how to proceed.

  “A couple of days before that party, I was in Sawyer’s room waiting for him while he did something. Showered, maybe? Or maybe his mom had asked him to do something. I can’t remember what it was now. Anyway, I was snooping, I guess. And I found a list. A pros and cons list. About whether or not he should give dating me a shot.”

  The pair of scissors Nate is holding go clattering to the ground. “Um, what? What! You found a pros and cons list, about yourself, in that boy’s desk? I mean, it must have been bad if you two hate each other this much.”

  My heart stings just thinking about his scrawled handwriting on that three-ring notebook paper. “You could say that. It was extremely honest, to say the least. Calling out my looks, my popularity, and how it would affect him. Called me rude. It was all surface-level shit, and that almost hurt more. Because we had been so close.”

  Nate glances down at his shoes. “Shit, Blair, I’m sorry. That sounds terrible. What a dick. Honestly, if he even needed a list, he never understood what a fucking spectacular person you are.”

  Gulping down the emotion in my throat, I choked out,

  “Thanks, boo.” I try to cover up the sadness by blowing him a kiss.

  “Wait, but you never said anything to him about it?”

  I shake my head, a little embarrassed. Nate and I may be seventeen, but we don’t typically act like it. Out of the entire senior class, I’d say we’re the two most likely to take over the world before we’re twenty. We have the maturity and intellect to do it, and my move after I found Sawyer’s list is probably my most childish and dramatic reaction ever.

  “What was I supposed to say? That I was rustling around his drawers and happened upon this list that pretty much tore me apart. Obviously, he never wanted me to see it. But, he clearly had those feelings. I couldn’t go on with our friendship after that.”

  Nate’s expression is growing more concerned, more suspicious. “But Sawyer has no idea why you’re really furious at him? He hasn’t all this time? So you just bulldozed him at that party sophomore year and all of this back and forth pissing contest has been because he has no clue why you murdered your friendship?”

  Guilt burns my veins up, because I know what Nate is getting at. It’s something I think about a lot, too. I can blame Sawyer all I want for writing those ugly things about me, but at the end of the day, I’m the one who cast the first stone. I’m the one who was snooping around, the one who became irrational and hurt after reading that list, and never even gave Sawyer the chance to explain himself. I was just as at fault as he was in the wreckage of our friendship.

  “Did you guys hear?” Laura rushes into the room as if the school is on fire and we’re not aware.

  “Hear what?” I ask, jumping on the chance to get away from this conversation.

  Nate glances at me like he knows exactly what I’m trying to do.

  “Sawyer and Matt just got into a fight in the cafeteria, and they were pulled off each other bleeding!”

  Her words register, but they don’t fully dent my brain. They can’t, because that sentence, that sequence of events, would never happen.

  “Nice try.” I laugh, not believing her in the slightest.

  “I’m not kidding! There are pictures and video all over everyone’s Instagram story. You have to go look.” She pulls her hot pink-cased iPhone out of her backpack.

  Nate is frantically trying to pull up his own app, his silence completely fueled by the need to witness some good gossip.

  Before I can even pull up social media, my phone starts to buzz in my hand with an incoming phone call.

  Great, I inwardly groan as I see who is calling. As if this last half hour hasn’t had enough turmoil.

  My mother would be calling me in the middle of a school day, because how dare she have to remember that her teenage daughter is trying to get an education?

  I duck out of the room and into a nearby bathroom without a word to my two best friends, hoping no teacher passes and hears me, and then click to connect the call.

  “Hello?” I ask, because for all I know, this could be a butt dial.

  “Baby!” My mom’s raspy, toxic positivity voice booms through the other end of the call.

  I resist the urge to roll my eyes, get my hopes up, or react in any way. Even if I’m in a bathroom all by lonesome, I’ve come to learn that I need to guard and coach myself when it comes to my mother. Our interactions need to be strategically run from my end, to protect every fragile piece of my heart I have put back together numerous times on her account.

  “I’m at school.” My lack of excitement is blatant.

  “I just had to call because I’m at this gorgeous retreat in Arizona, and we’re being put up in the most beautiful yurt village. This morning, I saw a cloud shaped like a heart, and I thought immediately of you. I’ll put it on my Instagram so you can see it.” She c
ompletely ignores that she’s disturbing me in the middle of a day of learning.

  My blood pressure seems to be rising, but I tamp it down, because this is how she gets me. I haven’t heard from her in months, probably about four to be exact. She missed my birthday, my last first day of school, and every milestone leading up to this point. And the first thing she does when she calls me is talk about herself and her retreat. Her biggest means of communication with her own daughter is social media. If there were ever a case study on narcissism, my mother would be patient zero.

  She left my father to pursue her own dreams and had no qualms about leaving her little girl behind either. I don’t even remember a time when she was a real staple in my life, or when I depended on her for anything more than the validation and self-loathing a little girl takes on after being abandoned by a parent.

  “Great. I have to go.” I want to hurl my phone against the brick bathroom wall I’m looking at.

  “But wait, baby, I want to hear about school. How are your college applications going? You still thinking about going into political science?”

  And this is how she really gets me. Because just when I’m convinced the only person she cares about is herself, she whips out some piece of knowledge about me to reel me right back in. I think she knows she does it, her manipulation gene is so strong. But she’s my mother, and I want so badly for her to love me, that I break like the straw on that damn camel’s back.

  Cautiously, I dip one toe in. “I’ve actually been looking more into colleges, refining my essay. I think it’s definitely going to be political science, maybe with a marketing minor because that might help on some kind of campaign, and—”

  “Wait, what’s that?” I can tell she’s talking to someone other than me, someone there with her in person. “Oh, Blair, I have to go. We’re getting mud baths and massages for the next three hours. Can you even imagine how beautiful my skin is going to look?”

  “Oh, well—” I want to interject that I haven’t even told her anything about senior year as my heart stutters, then plummets.

  “We’ll talk soon, okay, sweetie? Love you, ciao!”

  And with that, the line goes dead.

  “God dammit,” I say to the empty bathroom.

  She got me again. I was strong, my heart was steel, and then she got past my defenses. I crumbled like a fool, and it made me feel even more shame than I had going into the conversation. It’s unnatural for a child not to crave their mother’s love. But it’s even more unnatural for a mother not to want to know every intimate detail about their child. Or at least that’s how I thought about it.

  Maybe that’s why I still harbor this lingering affection for Sawyer in my heart. Because for as badly as he hurt me, as much as he taunted me and made a mockery of me to all of our peers, I still hold this tiny flame of hope inside that we’ll mend our friendship.

  My mother conditioned me to be a punching bag, to see or hope for the best in people, even when they downright don’t deserve it. But she also conditioned me to, at the same time, be guarded and wary of everyone around me, even if they’ve never shown me an ounce of malice. The effect is dizzying.

  One thing is for certain, though. I am always going to keep allowing these people to hurt me, unless I once and for all make peace that I don’t need their validation and love in my life.

  10

  Blair

  The other bad thing about hating the guy who used to be like family?

  That his family still kind of is your surrogate family.

  I walk the hallway of the Roarke home to their dining room, a walk I’ve done about a hundred thousand times in my life. This home is as about as familiar as mine; I know every picture on the wall, every secret spot for childhood games of hide and seek, and all of the creaky stairs leading up to the second floor.

  I’m also extremely close with the woman who put this house together, and the reason why I’m here today.

  Mallory Roarke is like the mother I never had. While my dad gives me enough love and support for two parents, there are still things he just isn’t equipped to handle.

  Like the time my boobs seemingly grew in overnight in sixth grade, and my nipples began to show through my shirts. Mallory was the one who took me to the mall and helped me shop for my first bra.

  Or the time I got my period for the first time, the morning of seventh grade picture day. I was freaking out so much about putting a tampon in, until Mallory came over and showed me exactly how to do it.

  Over the years, she has been my trusted source on all things female, and helped in the area Dad never could: boys and broken hearts. My father handled the birds and the bees talk, somewhat awkwardly, but Sawyer’s mom had been the one to talk about emotional connection. About respecting my body and my heart when I chose to fall in love.

  If only she knew that I was basically head over heels for her son … but that wasn’t something I was ever going to disclose.

  And thankfully, she hasn’t let our bond diminish since Sawyer and I had our falling out. She also hasn’t pressed for the details or tried to make me forgive or apologize to her son. That just proves how much she cares about me; she’s willing to piss off her own child to keep a relationship with a girl who isn’t her own blood.

  So it was no question that Dad and I would be invited to her small birthday celebration the weekend after Sawyer allegedly punched Matt during their lunch period. And as much as I loathe her son, I would never not show up for Mallory. She’s always shown up for me. Plus, Dad is their closest friend, it would be strange if he didn’t attend.

  Which is how I find myself on my enemy’s home turf, literally, about to sit down to enjoy dessert while he glares at me across the table.

  “Blair, can you help me get the serving utensils?” Sawyer’s mom asks, smiling warmly at me.

  I’d never say no to her. “Of course.”

  I follow her into their cozy kitchen, the one that Thomas custom built for his wife. It has the stone walls she wanted all those years ago when he designed the house, and they always remind me of some quaint Tuscan villa. The counters are dotted with miniature pig figurines, collector items that Mallory’s husband and son have brought home for her throughout the years.

  “You look so grown up, I still can’t believe it.” She shakes her head at me, ducking her eyes as if she’s seeing something unreal before them.

  I shrug. “Still just the same old boring me.”

  “Blair Oden, there is nothing boring about you.” She clucks, pulling silver spoons and pie-servers out of a drawer.

  Mallory is obsessed with pies, they’re her favorite thing in the world. For her birthday, her husband went to her favorite bakery and bought six different pies … and there are only ten people total here. It’s Dad and me, the three Roarkes, another couple that our parents went to college with, Krista and Dean, and then Mallory’s two sisters and her one friend from work. And because Sawyer and I are the only people under the age of forty, we’re seated across from each other. Where he has promptly glowered at me the entire meal.

  I open another drawer, ready to get some chafing dishes for the pies to be put on when they’re brought to the table. And stumbled upon thick sheets of designer paper, etchings done in pencil covering them all.

  My mouth falls open as I study them, and Sawyer’s mom must say something to me, because I don’t answer and then I feel her presence.

  “Oh, you found his new drawings. Aren’t they beautiful?” Mallory comes up behind me, setting her hands on my shoulders and squeezing lovingly like I’m her own child.

  I nod, distracted. “They really are.”

  Sawyer has sketched a view from one of the hiking trails in the mountains on the outskirts of town. I can practically feel what it’s like to stand right there, atop the grass and stone, that’s how vivid this drawing is. I’ve always known how talented he is when it comes to sketching, but since we barely like to look at each other, I haven’t seen his sketches in a very long time. So
mething in me loosens as I look at this, maybe it’s because someone who could draw something so beautiful could never hold so much malice in their heart.

  “He’s so talented. Sometimes, it scares me.” Her voice is low.

  “Why?” I glance up at her.

  Her face grows sad. “Because sometimes I think that another firm, a larger, more flashier one, is going to up and steal him away. I want that for him, but I also want my baby close.”

  At this moment, I think I hear my heart audibly crack down the middle. If only my mother wished the same about me.

  Whisking away the sadness, because it’s Mallory’s birthday and I won’t break down here, I smile. “You’re the best mom ever.”

  She squeezes my shoulder again. “That’s because both of my kids are so wonderful.”

  I don’t miss the way she lumps me into part of her family.

  We rejoin the group, and everyone begins cutting into the pie. It’s another hour or so of Sawyer not even uttering a word to me, and me trying to get in on the adult conversation. One, because I’m bored, but two, because I’ve always related to people way older than me rather than people my own age.

  As everyone winds down with the eating, and coffee and tea cups empty, I can feel the night coming to a close.

  “All right, you know the drill. Kids do the dishes.” Thomas claps a hand over his stomach.

  It’s an age old tradition in the Roarke house, but one that hasn’t been implemented since Sawyer and I became distant. Maybe Thomas forgot that his son and I despise each other. Maybe he just doesn’t care anymore. Or maybe this is a plot. With the way Mallory’s eyes are twinkling in my direction, I’d say it’s the latter.