Page 52 of Unforgivable

“Cut it out,” I muttered.

“No! Why? You two make such a cute couple!”

Jimmy must have sensed something because he picked up his leather jacket, planted a kiss on my cheek and said, “See you Monday.” Then Bronwyn put music on really loud and we all had to dance, and she laughed and danced like she was having the time of her life. At five pm, parents came to pick up their kids. I was supposed to stay over, but the moment we were alone she turned on me. Accused me of planning this whole thing, of humiliating her, calling me a slut, screaming she was embarrassed to be my friend, and then she told me to get out of her house, and I walked the two miles to my house in the rain.

That Monday I went to sit next to Bronwyn, the way I always did. I even brought a Dove chocolate bar which I put on the desk in front of her. She looked at it, curled her lip, and said, “That’ll make you fat. But you’re already fat, so you have it.” She flicked it across the desk and it fell to the floor. I picked it up and when I went to sit down again, she’d put her books on my chair, then very loudly, she said, “Please sit somewhere else, Laura. My parents have told me I can’t be your friend anymore. They don’t want me to be friends with a prostitute.”

A ripple of giggles went through the class, and I felt my cheeks burn. I sat at an empty desk at the back of the room, holding back tears. Pretty soon the rumor spread that I was a prostitute and for five bucks I’d show my tits behind the toilet block. The moment that rumor died down, another one would emerge. Days later it became that I was involved in orgies because I was addicted to sex. I came to school one day to find graffiti on the side of the toilet block that screamed,LAURA IS A SLUT!Sheets of paper were sticky-taped to the windows of the canteen with my phone number.Call 555-7867 and Laura will suck your dick for free!Although those were taken down quickly by the staff and I only got a couple of phone calls that consisted of heavy breathing before hanging up abruptly.

And still, as horrible as it was, it was still the fact that Bronwyn had changed from being my friend, someone I trusted, someone I loved even, to my arch enemy in the blink of an eye that hurt the most.

Eventually she must have tired of the games because gradually the bombardment eased, until it disappeared altogether. Then the following year her family moved away, and I never saw her again, except briefly in college where I avoided her like kryptonite, and then years later, that day in Bellevue, three years ago.

I lived with the memory of her being cruel and vindictive, and now I’m finding out she may have started the stupid rumors, but she wasn’t responsible for the worst of it. Do I believe her? I’d completely forgotten that moment when she tried to talk to me, but it comes back to me now in vivid detail. She tried to take my hand, she wanted to sit with me, and I screamed at her and ran off.

Maybe it was just a stupid mistake she made, that got amplified by other kids, because let’s face it, in terms of gossip, it was pretty titillating. I lie there, staring at the ceiling, contemplating the massive mistake I’ve made, when all these years I held a grudge so deep it caused me to do terrible things to a woman who did not deserve it, to the point that I am partly responsible for the demise of her marriage.

If I could hate myself any more, I think I’d die.

TWENTY-FIVE

I have a lunch date with Katie today, and I can’t wait. I am dying to tell her about what Bronwyn said last night, about breaking up with Leon and moving back to town. I’m not dying to tell her about anything else that transpired last night. That should go without saying.

Summer brings me a cup of coffee, just the way I like it. She asks if I’m okay. I tell her yes, thank you. She looks unconvinced. Unsurprisingly, I think. I saw myself in the reflection of the microwave door earlier and I looked both disheveled and exhausted, although the disheveled part is only because it’s humid today, and that’s what my hair does. It frizzes. The exhausted part, however, is obviously because I didn’t sleep much. It’s starting to mess with my brain, this lack of sleep. I read somewhere you can bank sleep, store it up like camels store fat tissue in their hump so that when food is scarce, they can draw on those savings. I like that word,bank. It conjures up retaining walls, protective borders of earth, a cushioning. Safety. I don’t think I’ve banked anything lately, except for my own stupidity. I’ve banked enough of that for a lifetime.

I keep replaying our conversation, analyzing it beat by beat. I go back to the moment when she said, “We were kids, I messed up, I didn’t expect the rumors to take off like that. I didn’t realize the damage it did to you. Your mother had just died. You needed friends, not stupid bitches like me.” It was like something dense and heavy was excised from inside me. Add to that my own confession about Beth, and the fact that she didn’t punch me in the face, and this morning I have moments when I could almost laugh out loud. It helps soften the blow I felt about Jack and the babysitter, because let’s face it, I’d never seen Jack as the wandering-eye type. When I first saw Jack and Bronwyn together, I genuinely thought they had the perfect marriage. Tight, shiny, smooth on the surface. A Botoxed marriage. Later, I understood that underneath it was wrinkled by Bronwyn’s pathological insecurities. Zero trust, paranoia disguised as love. Except these insecurities had roots in reality.

Anyway, I tell myself she means nothing to me, Jenny the babysitter. I can only vaguely remember what she looked like. Fair hair, early to mid-twenties, sweet-looking.

Not unlike Summer, come to think of it.

“Are we okay?” Summer asks.

I look up abruptly. For a moment I’d forgotten she was still there.

“Sure, why?”

“You were annoyed with me, when I left. About Jack.”

I think about it for a moment. “Did something happen?”

“What do you mean?”

“You didn’t actually kiss him, did you?”

“No!” Then, with a pout, she adds, “not really.”

Not really?

“It wasn’t a real kiss, barely a brush of the lips against his cheek.”

She says this while chewing on a fingernail, leaning against the doorjamb, her brow furrowed with worry. She looks so young, and again it occurs to me I need my head examined. What the hell am I doing? Throwing this young woman at Jack? Asking her to flirt with my fiancé, the more the better, make it convincing, there’ll be a hundred bucks in it for you.

“I don’t understand,” she whines. “I thought I was doing what you wanted me to do.”

I rub my forehead. “Yes. I know. You’re right. I should never have asked you to do such a thing. It’s completely my fault. I apologize about that.”

She sighs. “Okay…I really thought I was helping.”

---