Friends Should Come With Warning Labels
What a bitch! was all I could think. Thankful that Christina had sent me the link to my, now ex, friend's Scoreroom page, I read it over and over, almost memorizing each hateful word she had written. I couldn't believe Roxy had the nerve to write so much complete bull on her page about me and our "friendship". I was so mad, I couldn't even click the blinking messenger light from Chris' conversation window. All I could do was stare in total awe at the two paragraphs of complete incongruity before my eyes. Finally, after a few minutes of complete and total anger, I opened the conversation, and told her exactly how mad I was. "What. The. Fuck. was all of that?" I questioned. I was so irate I did not even know what to say to Christina. "Yeah, I know. Pretty bitchy of her, wasn't it" she finally replied. "No, not just bitchy," I retorted, "Try completely asinine! She has no idea what she's saying. I cannot believe her. We are most definitely over."
My mind was racing demons and I didn't know where to begin. It all started a few months ago when I found out Roxy smoked. I felt totally blind sighted because she had never even spoken to me of drugs before. "Me and Frank hit bowls" was what she said. "Hit… Bowls?" I replied. "You don't know what hitting bowls means? What planet do you live on? It's doing drugs." I was a mixture of many feelings then. Angry. Confused. Betrayed. Annoyed. All of these feelings were at Roxy and the sudden liking she took towards drugs. It started off small, like "hitting bowls", then smoking pot, then finally she sunk as low as stealing packs of blueberry cigars from her dad. At the time I thought she did it because she wanted to impress the new people around her. I thought it was her way of coping with moving from her home and school, into a totally different world. But as time passed, I think it had to do with much more than that. She was unhappy. She missed her old school; my school. She missed her old friends and maybe even her old teachers (As if). She was also having a lot of family problems. Her mom was, well, a bit crazy, to put it bluntly. Roxy was always being yelled at and blamed for things she didn't do. She'd always be complaining about her parents to me online, asking if she could stay the night because she was afraid to stay in her house. I had always agreed, but recently it was beginning to become too much.
Back in the 7th grade, a year after I had met Roxy, my father was picking me up from school one afternoon, and he stopped the car a bit away from the schools parking lot to talk to me. He said "Victoria, I think you should stop hanging out with Roxy." I was taken so far aback, I was almost in the trunk. "W-what" I stuttered. "I don't think you should hang out with Roxy anymore, she's a bad influence." I was so mad at him for saying that, because at the time, Roxy was my only best friend who lived close to me. He was practically asking me to cut my leg off because it was numb. In the end, I did not stop hanging out with her, instead I hung out with her even more. After a while, my dad got used to her, and possibly, started warming up to Roxy. It was good because she wasn't afraid to talk to him when we'd drop her off at school, but it would be a bit awkward and embarrassing if he confronted her on some of the "non-little-girl-words" she used.
Now, that's all I was able to see, her non-little-girl-words practically jumping off the page and bashing me in the face. "Hello! Are you there" yelled my messenger conversation, knocking me back into the present. If I was any sort of annoyed at this point already, the messenger "nudge" just set me off again. I immediately clicked open Christina's conversation window and almost let her feel my wrath, but I stopped to read what she wrote. "Sorry, I know how much you hate nudges, but someone wasn't answering me. Anyways, I was asking if you knew why she wrote that in the first place." I sat back, and thought for a moment. Why did she write that? Then it hit me, it was probably the people I'd talk to about her telling her about what I was saying. She did mention that in the note, at least she was good at one thing, reminding me of things. She actually did that a lot. I like to think I have ADD or some mental issue where I don't remember things too much, even though I think it's something I do to ignore people sometimes. Then again, other times I sincerely don't remember stuff. Anyways, back to Roxy's 2-paragraph bashing. "I think it was 'cause Teresa or Catty told her what I was saying, I don't really know all the details."
That's another thing that puzzled me. I don't know how Roxy even found out what I was saying about her. I thought it might be Teresa, but she's too nice, and she told me she never told her anything, but I was still deeply suspicious. I think Catty might have told her things, but it was odd because Catty talk about Roxy behind her back a lot too, even though I never told Roxy, so I don't get why she would have told her what I was saying. My brain was starting to hurt. Too much anger, too much confusion, too much hunger in such a short amount of time. Also, I was supposed to be getting ready to go downtown with mom. As if on cue, she called out to me to get ready. "Come on Victoria! Do you still want to go downtown or not?" "Yes, yes mom! Jesus, can you like… " I stopped before she complained about me getting short with her. It wasn't her fault I had a short temper and Roxy just happened to set it on super overdrive only moments ago. "Hey Chris, can you do me a favor? Can you copy and paste the two paragraphs and send it to me please and thank you?" Seconds later those familiar loathsome words appeared in the messenger window. "Mom, could you come here a second," I chimed. Right as she trotted through the doorway to the office, I was copying and pasting the paragraphs onto a Word document and saving it. "Read this whilst I get dressed," I commanded and stormed out of the room straight into my own.
As I tore my dresser doors open I thought back to the note. I do not think I had ever been as enraged as I was at that moment. Then what I had just said to mom popped into my head, read this whilst I get dressed. Who did I think I was? Lord of the Brits? I did that a lot, the whole taking-in-a-British-accent thing when I was pissed out of my mind. Oh well, at least she was reading it. When she was finished I heard the chair scrape against the creaky wooden floors as she backed away from the desk. Now I could hear her footsteps coming closer and closer to my door, pausing slightly for a moment, then continuing their destination past my door and down the stairs. I couldn't see it for the door in my way, but I could have sworn she stopped and stared at my door for a second, as if she could see through and was looking at me. Whatever.
Once I was dressed, which was a long and difficult process since I had absolutely nothing to match with my new black straight leg jeans and had to resort to a somewhat long black DC Tshirt, I threw my iPod and my newest eye diverter (a book) into my purse and threw it in the middle of the hallway outside of my door. I was still really mad and it was causing me to forget the basic things I needed to do before I was looking suitable enough for the general public. I stopped in front of my long mirror and stared at myself long and hard. What to do to make this face less hard on the eyes? Hmm… well, for starters, a little makeup wouldn't hurt. Grabbing my makeup bag beside the mirror, I unzipped it and pulled out my black eyeliner and mascara, black; of course.
After carefully and equally lining both top lids of my eyes with liner I applied two or three generous coats of mascara. Once finished, I stepped back to take a look at my handiwork. Good enough, I thought, although I wasn't in much of an impressing-random-stranger's mood. I walked out of my room, over my purse and into the bathroom across the hallway to stare at myself in a wider mirror, then finally remembering I came in here for a purpose. I had to brush my teeth. Oh what a chore. Once I was complete, I spritzed on some perfume and walked back into the office. Christina had obviously been messaging me like crazy because the window was full of things I had not said nor read. Clicking it open I was greeted with a bunch of "omg where are you's" and "did you die" or some of those happy little nudges. Thankfully my mom had turned the volume off when she was reading the note. I said my goodbyes to Chris, set my status to Away and put "DOWNTOWN" in my personal message so people knew where I was, like they gave a shit.
The drive to my mom's work was pretty uneventful and very bumpy. Basically the ride consisted of her asking me 'why would Roxy have said stuff that', and 'what was she thinking', blah blah fucking blah. The only other subject that came up was if I wanted to drive downtown or take the subway. I chose the latter option only because parking would cost a fortune if we actually found parking, but mainly I was afraid someone would try and steal the car. I swear, I have some major trust issues.
"No you can't park here mom," I said as she pulled into a spot only for immediate shoppers. She paused for a moment, trying to read the sign but gave up because it was too far or too small to read. She backed up and drove down the parking lot to her work's parking lot and parked close enough to the cameras so both of us could rest assured the car was under some sort of surveillance. As we walked down the lengthy parking lot towards the subway station I began wondering what I wanted to buy. I had a feeling that my mom would buy me a few hefty priced items only because I was in such a horrid mood. Hmm… Maybe a visit to Abercrombie or Holister would lift my spirits.
Walking across the bustling street was a task, that's for sure, but once we crossed the street safely we walked through the subway entrance doors. My mom was busy rummaging through her purse for change so we could pass the turnstiles and I was reading the signs covering the glass cubical a man was placed behind when I suddenly came across a picture of a TTC student discount card. "Oh my god" I yelled, startling my mom enough for her to stop and inquire as to why I almost scared her half to death. "That card, I have it from school. I've like, never used it because I don't take busses or whatever, but now I can use it," I said triumphantly. My mom then shoved $2 into my hands and returned to stick her nose into her wallet for the correct change for herself. "What's this for?" I asked, totally bewildered. I had not taken the subway in almost forever, so it confused me when I actually had to pay to get past the man in the glass box. He was on the phone, must have been pretty damn important if he couldn't look up at me to look at my sodding card. When he finally did he nodded and right as I dropped the toonie into the money box he started hitting the window in front of the box. "What did you do that for?!" he yelled. I was so startled by this all I could do was stare with a dumbfounded look on my face at the man with, what I had just noticed, an abnormally hairy moustache. "Uh-Umm… excuse me?" I asked, still unaware of any wrong doing I had just done. "You just lost 15 cents," he replied, then sitting back down and picking up the phone again. I walked out of the way of the other people, still not sure what he meant, then it hit me. I was only supposed to pay $1.85. Well why the hell couldn't he just give me 15 cents through the change slot? Once my mom reached the other side of the turnstile she asked what all the commotion was. When I told her, she whipped around to stare at the man who obviously couldn't see her for he had his back turned to us, head still pressed up to the phone as if he moved even a millimeter the world would explode. Fucking idiot can't give me 15 damned cents from his till? Screw him, it's not like life ends once you lose 15 cents to an ugly, angry, hairy subway man.
Just like the ride to the subway, the subway ride in itself was pretty uneventful. There was a big scary black gangster-like guy sitting in front of us bobbing his head too and fro from the loud rap music emitting from his iPod headphones. I couldn't stand Rap so I pulled out my own iPod and blasted some Strapping Young Lad to drown out the remaining anger I felt. "Queen Street!" yelled the lady over the speakers. My mom was pulling her purse together and standing up, so I followed suit. I had no idea where we were and how to get wherever, so I followed the woman wherever she took me.
The only thing I was really looking forward to was going to Abercrombie and possibly stealing a tank or two so I could finally say I owned a shirt from there, but that never happened. We did, indeed, stop in there, but mom wouldn't stop moving around so I couldn't settle down and find anything worth pilfering. As we left, the half naked, half not bad looking, man at the door bid us farewell and we continued on through the halls. Suddenly my mom staggered off to the left, which totally threw me off. I walked over to where she was presently standing next to a woman selling professional hair straightener's. "Victoria, how much are these? You want a new one, so I'll get you one today," she said. I knew it! She was buying me a very pricey straightener and I ignored the fact that I desperately needed a smaller straightener to get my roots properly anyways. So instead of telling us the prices like we wanted, the lady with some strange accent started telling us what the thing was made of, how durable it was, all the things I could care less about at the moment. I couldn't stand it any longer so I tuned her out and started looking around at the people walking past us. Happy faces, sad faces, blank faces. Then my mom tapped my arm. "Victoria honey, which one do you want? The pink one or the black one?" "Black," I blurted, not even knowing if there was a difference, but the lady told me before I could even ask. "Well you know, the pink one is unbreakable and heats up to a higher setting…" I didn't care about a higher setting, I hated pink, so black was what I was getting. I sat my tired ass down on the bench beside the stand while my mom chatted away with the lady as she rung up my straightener and my bonus holder so it has a place to cool off. Ohhh, what was I missing all this time? I thought sarcastically, rolling my eyes at myself.
Walking up the bustling street full of people, peddlers and men drawing on the floor in chalk, into a huge bookstore and buying 4 books may have seemed like the most fun thing for anyone else, at any other moment, but not for this chick. My heart just wasn't presently in it anymore. It was like the happiness, the life, the whatever else, was drained out of me once I left the mall. Only until the idea of going to Red Lobster was proposed by my mom was I uplifted and happy again. There's something about copious amounts of lobster and shrimp that drives me wild!
When we arrived at Red Lobster I got a call from a restricted number who had tried calling me before, so I picked up. "Hey," yelled Teresa. "Oh, hey," I said, also nodding to the waiter who had placed a cesar salad in front of me. As I munched down on the lettus, Teresa told me about her day at Square One, the shirts she bought, the naggings she received from her mother and the shirts she could have bought from some other store some place else. By this point I was sort of losing interest in listening because my taste buds just happened to be exploding from the almost-orgasmic salad. "Victoria! You still there," Teresa asked. "Oh, m-yeah, I'm jusht eating shome shalad… Can I call you bacsh, I shink the osher foodsh coming," I lied, but my mom was shooting me looks to get off the phone so I had to cut the call quick. "Oh… yeah sure thing. I'll talk to you later then, bye!" "Bye."
The meal was perfect, the remnants under my nails, well that was a little less than perfect. As I tottered over to the car, wincing in pain from all the walking that had taken place that day, I was grateful to actually be going home, although that meant facing the computer and all of its horrid memories from earlier.
When I scooted up to the computer, I was surprised to see a strange sight. Twenty-three messenger email add's. What the fuck?