As I got older, it became easier to know what would add weight to my heart. When I did things that were unselfish, I felt light. Whereas if I hurt another person, I felt guilty — and guilt was heavy. It was like having a stone placed on your chest — and the worse the action, the heavier the stone. I liked the concept of the Weighing of the Heart because it made me stay vigilant about kindness.
But now? Since Adriana came home? I felt terrified at the prospect of a post-death heart weigh-in. Because mine is choked up with envy and confusion and guilt — emotions that weigh a ton and are exhausting to carry around.
If my heart was placed on that scale right now, it would drop like a stone.
25
EMILY
When my phone rings on Sunday afternoon and I see it’s Theo, I assume he’s had a brainwave for the assignment.
‘Hey, you know what I find hilarious about The Inferno?’ I say. ‘That Dante’s put his real-life enemies into the story. There’s no better revenge than sending the people you hate to hell, right?’
Theo laughs. ‘I think it’s fair to say that Dante had a pretty ironic sense of humour. Still, if I could have a party and invite a bunch of guests from history, he’d be one of my first choices.’
‘Emily and Theo host a historical party.’ I giggle. ‘So Dante, Dali, Leonardo da Vinci?’
‘Stellar line-up already, huh? By the way, Titian’s still peeved at Michelangelo for the whole “Titian can’t draw” taunt, so we need to choose between them. Michelangelo isn’t all that talkative — we should probably go with Titian.’
‘You do realise we’re going to be the dull ones at this soiree,’ I say.
‘Well, there’s always that one couple.’ Theo’s voice is playful, but then he pauses. When he speaks again, his voice is quieter. I hold my phone closer to my ear so I can hear what he’s saying better. ‘Hey, you know that conversation we had where you thought I was going to ask Ade to the formal on Friday night — did you tell her about it?’
I’m glad he can’t see my face because it’s burning with embarrassment.
‘I know I shouldn’t have,’ I say in a rush. ‘It’s just she was worried you weren’t going to ask, and I knew you were going to eventually.’
‘Okay.’ He sounds disappointed.
It’s the first time he’s been unhappy with me, and I hate it. He’s bummed I’ve ruined the surprise.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I don’t normally spill things I know are private.’
‘I’m not mad, I’m …’ He sighs. ‘Never mind. Anyway, a few minutes ago she messaged to ask me to be her date for the formal, and I guess I … well, I wanted to check if you’re okay with it before I say yes.’
He wants my blessing. It’s a testament to our friendship that he cares about whether I think he’s good enough for her.
‘Are you kidding? Why would I be bothered about my two favourite people going to the formal together?’
Why does this conversation hurt so much when I’ve known since Friday that their going together is a certainty?
‘I’m one of your favourite people?’ Theo asks.
The words slipped out while I was trying my best to sound super-okay about him and Ade.
I groan. ‘I said that out loud. Okay, I know it probably sounds odd because we’ve known each other such a short time. Are you weirded out now? Please don’t be weirded out.’
‘Em, chill,’ he says. ‘I feel the same. Instant connections, remember?’
He sounds depressed instead of happy, which is weird. Both of us go quiet.
‘So you should give Ade a call to start making plans,’ I tell him brightly.
I give him her number, say a cheerful goodbye, and then lie on my floorboards looking up at the ceiling. My best friend has her dream date. All is right in her world, and that means I can deal with all not being right in mine.
This feeling can’t last forever, can it?
I keep expecting Ade to call me. Theo must have spoken to her by now. I know she’s still mad at me for showing up unannounced on Friday and catching her unawares. I get that I’ve made a dumb mistake, but I never would have thought she could be so worried about how she looks. She’s stunning without makeup, and Friday night was no exception. I kept looking over at her in awe. It was like I’d forgotten how extraordinarily striking she is after not seeing her all week. I’ve never felt my own plainness as starkly as I did that night. Theo, sitting there between us, would have to be blind not to look from her to me and notice the sliding scale of attractiveness.
So Ade stressing out about her hair and pyjamas seems so silly. I assumed she would realise that too, but she still hasn’t called. How long is she going to be mad at me for? She even sounded angry about me not getting Instagram, which shocked me.
Thinking of that, I head up to my room and flop on my bed with the iPad. If I add an account, it might be a peace offering.
I set up an account and then look for Ade. When I find her profile, I see there’s a bunch of photos, presumably from the pool party. I scroll to the bottom and start looking through them one by one. It makes me feel depressed because every photo is like something from a photo shoot. This is the land of #offthescale — the Tens are Tens always, and I might just make a Five, with perfect lighting and a good filter.
I guess what gets to me the most is seeing Ade having that much fun without me. When I scroll to the top of the page and see photos of her sitting on a deckchair with her arm slung round Chanel, I’m hurt.
Don’t be silly. She’s not deliberately excluding you because you’re not in the picture.
I tap on the photo to look at it more closely and realise there’s no party in the background. I look at the posted date. Four hours ago.
I flick back to the main page and tap on another shot. Ade and the Tens are standing in the shallows of her pool, hands on hips and pouting. It’s captioned #squadgoals — post time, five hours ago. She must be posting photos from last week, although I can’t remember her saying she hung out with the Tens after school.
I click on @chanel_chanel and go to her account. There’s a shot of her from behind in Ade’s pool, posted three hours ago. Pool hangs at my girl’s house today @adrianaandersson. I think of Ade saying she didn’t want to see anyone today. ‘Anyone’ obviously means me.
I have a lump in my throat as I put down my iPad. Looking at Adriana’s life on Instagram, you’d never know I exist.
I don’t hear from Adriana at all over the weekend, which is a shock. Theo asking her to the formal is major and I would have thought it would overcome any resentment she feels towards me. I guess because the Tens were there to share in her excitement, she can hold out on sharing the news with me.
On Monday during first break, I sit at our usual spot, trying not to stress about whether she’ll still come and sit with me.
I’m looking down at my shoes when I hear her approach.
‘So, do you want to go formal-dress shopping this weekend?’ Her voice sounds less warm than usual. ‘I have a date now.’
I let out a squeal like I haven’t yet heard the news, because to act any other way will take all the fun out of what should be a big moment for us. I don’t say anything about the weekend or joining Instagram. When I go back to her page later, she’s removed the photos from Sunday. She obviously doesn’t want to hurt my feelings. For some reason, her pretending it didn’t happen makes me feel more uneasy than discovering the photos.
We’ve always been able to talk about things, even if they’re painful or messy. But now we’re sweeping things under the carpet, like we don’t trust the other to understand what we’re going through.
I’m back to dancing with Dylan on Monday afternoon (turns out he was at the dentist last time), and now Ade’s returned, she and Theo are in the spot next to us. I hear her exclaiming about how well he picked up the waltz while she was away.
‘Well, I hope I can do you proud at the formal,’ Theo says as they swing by.
Dylan whips his head round to look at them. ‘She’s actually going with him?’
‘You have to accept it,’ I tell him.
We turn in the dance, and I look at Theo and Ade. He’s looking over her shoulder at me, and as our eyes meet I think of Dante glancing at Beatrice on the bridge, and how she would have had no idea how that one moment affected him so profoundly, and he had no clue that was the last time he’d glance on her in his lifetime. Theo looks at me like he knows what I’m thinking, holding my eyes for fifteen heartbeats — I know, because I feel them pulsing against my neck — and then Adriana says something to him and he looks back at her.
I feel the same sadness as when he let go of my hand at the end of last week’s class.
You have to accept it, I tell my heart.
‘This is the one,’ Ade says, racing up to a dress.
It’s red and incredibly sexy, with a split high on the thigh and a low back. Ade’s always wanted to wear a white dress to the formal, something romantic. She’s got to be making a joke to see my reaction, or testing me to see if I really know her.
‘Ade, that doesn’t look like a “you” dress.’
‘I don’t want to look like me.’
She’s serious, I realise as I follow her to the change rooms.
‘Okay, coming out,’ she announces, pulling back the curtain. She looks incredible, but miles away from how I imagined she would on our formal night. ‘I love it as much as the first time I tried it on.’
‘You tried it on already?’
I know it’s silly, but I’m hurt. When Mum and I were at the mall last week we saw a bunch of formal dresses in shop windows, and though I dragged her by to look and she got excited too and asked me if I wanted to go in, I said no, because it didn’t seem fair to Ade if I fell in love with a dress and she wasn’t the one who found it with me.
Guilt comes over her face. ‘I was here after school the other day and I couldn’t resist. I feel like this is the type of dress that might actually make his jaw drop.’
‘I’ll make sure I take a picture of Theo’s face,’ I say, standing next to her in the mirror. She’s a whole head taller than me now, I realise, and at least two sizes smaller. ‘So you have it on record that you, Adriana Andersson, are jaw-dropping.’
I thought our formal-dress search would be a day-long thing, that we’d try on a bunch of different gowns, have lunch and then try on a bunch more. Instead it’s just me trying on one dress after another, and none look right. Maybe it’s because Ade’s set the dress standard so high so early on; nothing I put on seems to compare.
I keep telling myself, You’ll never look like that. You can look cute or maybe pretty, but never that level of incredible. That’s only for goddesses like her. But it won’t sink in. I want to feel beautiful, and that’s the problem.
The ball gowns make me look too big. I don’t feel comfortable in the slinky ones because they highlight parts of my body I’m not happy with. And my small boobs make strapless dresses a joke.
‘Argghh!’ I come out of the fifth store’s change rooms shaking my head. ‘Why won’t any of them work?’
‘That last one was nice,’ she says, looking pained.
I don’t blame her, it’s nearly three o’clock.
‘Ade, I don’t want nice. Would you?’
‘We’ll find something,’ she says, but I can tell she’s losing focus because the next time I come out of a change room, she’s scrolling through Instagram with an intent look on her face.
‘What do you think of this?’ I ask.
She glances up, but then her phone buzzes and she laughs at whatever’s popped up on her screen. She looks back at me. ‘I like it.’
I tell myself that anyone would be fading by this point, but when I come out in the next dress and she types on her phone instead of giving an opinion, it gets to me.
‘Am I that boring?’ I say.
‘Sorry, what?’ She glances up from the phone.
‘I need your help. It’s not as easy for me as it is for you.’
I tear off the dress, put my own clothes back on and head for the store’s exit. I’m so frustrated I’m blinking back tears. What I mean is, I don’t look like you, but I don’t want to say it out loud, because what can she say back?
I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m making too big a deal out of this. It’s just one night. It’s not everything.
Finally, in the last store, I spot something I’m excited to try on. Like my butterfly caftan, it’s Grecian-style, only it’s white and strappy and the skirt falls all the way to the floor.
Please let this look okay. Please, I beg the dress.
Amazingly, it does. The ties at the waist are long, and I can tie them round the front or the back, making the dress as tight or as loose as I like. It’s not something I have to mould myself into; it moulds to me, draping my body perfectly.
I step out to show Ade, and this time she puts her phone down and runs over to hug me. ‘You’ve found The One!’
I buy the dress, and we head out of the mall and collapse onto a park bench to wait for Daniel to pick us up. Ade has her Instagram open, and I lean over to look at the shot she’s posted, a selfie from one of the change rooms. I notice the comment from @chanel_chanel: Did you get the dress? You’re going to put everyone on our table to shame. We shouldn’t have asked you ;-)
‘Why is Chanel talking about you being on her table?’ I ask.
Adriana jumps, she was so engrossed she didn’t notice me looking over her shoulder.
‘The Tens asked me,’ she says. ‘Or really, asked us. They’ve reserved a spot for me and you and Theo.’
‘And you’ve already said yes?’
She seriously wants to sit with them?
‘No, of course not,’ she says in a voice that means the exact opposite.
‘I thought we’d be sitting together.’
‘We will.’ She looks confused.
‘If we’re sitting with them, it doesn’t matter if we’re next to each other. Because they make everything about them and I wanted this to be about you and me.’
I can deal with Ade taking a date, but I didn’t expect to lose her to the Tens as well. The Tens stare right through me every day at lunch. Sometimes they start a whole different conversation with Ade when I’m clearly in the middle of one with her already. What their voices and expressions say to me every day is, You don’t matter. I don’t want to feel like that on formal night.
‘Why are we sitting with them?’
‘Because they’re my friends, and I want to sit with my friends, you included.’
‘I don’t understand how you can be friends with them when you’re friends with me. You used to hate them. You know what they were like to you back then.’
‘That was Tatiana,’ Ade says, looking angry.
‘It was all of them,’ I splutter.
She stands up. ‘Why can’t you be happy for me? You always wanted me to be more confident, to talk to people. Now I’m doing it, and I have friends.’
‘You had friends before they decided you fit the Ten mould.’
I want to stop, I know what I’m saying is mean. I sound like a six-year-old who won’t share her best friend.
‘I had a friend,’ Ade says, like having one friend is something to be embarrassed about.
It hurts to hear her say that.
‘Well, that was enough for me,’ I say. I think of the first day I asked her to join me painting my mural. ‘What’s going on with you? You used to be …’
I pause. I was about to say You used to be smarter than this, but I don’t mean she’s stupid. I mean I’m worried she can’t see that the people she’s hanging out with are the people we always swore we’d never be.
‘I don’t want to talk about who I used to be.’ She kicks her heels against the back of the bench causing a metallic clang. ‘Let me be who I am now.’
‘You know, it’s not just your formal, it’s my formal too.’ I feel like I want to
cry.
Right then, Daniel pulls up, and Adriana stalks to the car, slamming the door behind her. I follow, feeling as angry as she looks.
I wish the formal would just come around already so the whole thing can be over with and people can start talking about something else.
Adriana doesn’t apologise, and I don’t either, so we spend another Sunday not speaking. When I look at her Instagram, I see that she’s with Chanel, presumably at the mall, because her location is Wanted Shoes. She has friends. She’s not sitting at home on the weekend with only paints for company.
When I see her again on Monday, she says she’s sorry, but she doesn’t offer to switch from the Tens’ formal table. Instead she tells me that she’s turned down getting ready at Lana’s with the other Tens so we can get ready together at mine.
The other girls complain about it of course.
‘No, you have to get ready with us. We’ve made a playlist.’ Chanel pouts.
‘We’re getting the best makeup artist in Jefferson,’ Ally says. ‘Lana booked her at the start of the year.’
‘Emily can come too,’ Lana flicks her eyes over to me momentarily, ‘if she can put in her two hundred and forty dollars for the makeover.’
Two hundred and forty dollars? My formal dress cost just under that.
‘I’m fine,’ I say. ‘We’re happy to do our own makeup.’
I can see Ade’s face — she’s disappointed.
Lana stares at me. ‘Why wouldn’t you want to make the best of yourself?’
What she’s saying is, Ugly girls need to try harder.
I need to get away. Other people around us watch me leave. I know everyone’s been talking about why the ugly girl is sitting at the Tens’ lunch table, and at the formal it won’t be any different. They’ll be talking about why the ugly girl is sitting at the pretty girls’ table.
I head to the quad and sit on one of the benches. Suddenly I hear my name from the other side of the greenery.
‘I told you to ask Emily so I’d have a shot with Adriana,’ a male voice says. ‘We knew she’d end up taking a date, and now it’s some other lucky jerk.’
My Best Friend Is a Goddess Page 29