Chapter 7
November 8th, 1991
Dear friend,
It's that glorious time of year again. The time of year when myself, Sam, Mary Elizabeth and Alice get involved in amateur dramatics. (for them, anyway, I'm clearly no amateur.
Mary Elizabeth has this crazy obsession with the Rocky Horror Picture Show, so this year we're doing that. I, naturally, am playing Tim Curry's character, Frank n Furter. Im the only one with strong enough cheekbones and acting ability. Sam is playing Janet, and Brad, of course, is not playing a part. Although he has started to hang around with us on occasion, not that he'd ever admit to the popular crowd. Charlie is also sitting out on this one. He's socially awkward even in his own company let alone on a stage in front of a room full of people wearing bondage! Sam and I decided to take Charlie to the Halloween showing anyway, because I know him well enough to know he'd like to be involved anyway, even if he's not a participator. He sat and gazed at Sam the entire night as she pranced around in her corset. Man, has he got it bad. I wonder if were all that obvious about who we like? Unfortunately for Charlie Sam has started seeing this college guy. I was the one who had to break the bad news, it was like killing a puppy.
Now, personally, I'm on Charlie's side on this one. Craig, as I have observed so far, is a fucking pretentious moron. The worst part is that Sam doesn't seem to realise let alone care. Love is blind as a freaking bat (I'm trying to cut down on the swearing, by the way). Sam also develops these annoying habits around him. She's adopted this creepy, high pitched laugh, which is ridiculous. How can you change your laugh? Laughing is a spontaneous, natural reaction to humour. You can't control these types of things, which leads me to believe she secretly finds him as boring as the rest of us. Truth be told I think Mr Callahan cracks better jokes. I've tried to tell her to be herself but she won't, or can't, I don't know. It's like she's so scared that he might see who she really is, and he might not like her enough, that she puts on all these airs and graces, and then he gets her into bed just like all the other guys anyway. As far as I can see, it's just like all those nights driving through the tunnel, except this time she might actually give a shit (sorry) about him. Which is worse. Why can't you ever save anybody?
I've tried to be less catty about new people after the awful things I said about Sam and Charlie, so when Charlie started probing me for information about him I just said he was 'cut and hunky' because it was still true without being offensive, and I just brushed over his personality. Charlie sees right through him though, and not just because he likes Sam, but because that's just the way he his. The difference between Charlie and I is that Charlie will see the good in him anyway (e.g. he makes Sam happy) whereas I just can't stand the creep.
Love always,
Patrick
