Story #12 - Three Little Words

Hi everyone! Man, I'm tired. I'm back home now, but I didn't get back 'till 2 AM. And now it's back to school already! Spring break sure passes quickly. Anyways, about this story - it's a true story about I not-so-great friend I had in elementary school. There's a bit of teen angst (even though technically I wasn't a teen in 6th grade). A huge thank you to everyone who commented on my previous story - I've never written horror before and I really appreciate the feedback. As always, I'd love feedback on this story too. Happy reading!

Title: Three Little Words
Warnings: depressing... bad friendship... negative feelings
Summary: "Today, I would finally do it. I'd finally say "I hate you" to my best friend of over six years."
Length: ~1,200 words
Notes: First person point of view, past tense. Genre is memoir, and inside of that, probably drama or angst.



THREE LITTLE WORDS

I sat in the bathroom stall in my elementary school, gathering my courage. The stall was small, cramped, and gray. I stared up at the sullen spitballs on the pockmarked ceiling. Today, I would finally do it. I’d finally say “I hate you” to Beatrice, my best friend of over six years.

I had first met Beatrice in kindergarten. We became friends almost immediately and went everywhere together. I don’t know why we bonded so quickly, but very soon she was my BFF – best friend forever. Sadly, “forever” was turning out to be pretty short.

I switched my gaze from the spitballs to my feet, clad in sneakers and dangling on the floor as I sat on top of the toilet lid. My sneakers were dirty and old. They were the kind that lit up when I walked. I thought they were so cool, but Beatrice called them dorky. She called everything I owned or liked dorky.

Beatrice was never a perfect friend. But we had a lot of fun together, sometimes. I could remember times when we laughed for what felt like hours over a silly little thing. Times when we talked and played and smiled.

Those times seemed very far away as I sat there in the bathroom stall. They seemed as far away as Pluto, as another universe, as my own death. As I stared sightlessly at my sneakers, I thought of other times, moments as close as my injured heart.

The time when Beatrice chased me around the playground to get a piece of my cookie and knocked it on the floor. The time when a pretend game went a bit too far and she hit me. The time when she told me to lie to my mom. All those times when she accused me of “ditching” her, when she scared away my other friends so she could have me all to myself.

Even closer in my mind were all the times she had called me a dork. I was a dork because I wore sneakers with socks and shorts. I was a dork because I wore matching close. I was a dork because I read my book vertically and not horizontally on my desk. Dork, dork, dork – that’s all I heard around Beatrice anymore. That and weak. I had to learn how to stand up for myself, Beatrice constantly told me.

As I sat there reviewing the ways our friendship had gone sour – the ways it had been sour all along – I felt a poisonous coil of hatred wind around my heart. Beatrice was right, in a way. I did need to learn how to stand up for myself. Little did she know that I would begin that process by standing up to her. For years, my classmates had known me only as “Beatrice’s friend” or the “short, shy girl”. I had lost my identity to Beatrice’s greedy, bossy mouth. But no longer. Today was going to be the day.

Courage and hatred finally gathered, I stepped out of that dismal bathroom stall and headed to the sink. Every step of the way, I rehearsed. I would go up to Beatrice and simply say, “I hate you.” That would be that. She would be shocked, I would be victorious, and we could either salvage this facsimile of a friendship or scrap it. I hate you, I thought as I washed my hands. The cold shock of the water did nothing to interrupt my focus, the constant litany of images – Beatrice yelling at me, sneering at me, making me cry. I hate you.

I walked out of the bathroom as if I was walking out to a battlefield. That’s what it felt like, as melodramatic as it may seem. Beatrice was waiting for me outside, arms crossed in irritation.

Beatrice was pale, even paler than I was. She had a few freckles and dark brown hair that almost looked black. She was short – only a bit taller than I was. She was the face I had looked up to almost half of my life, a face nearly as familiar as my own. Maybe even more familiar. At that moment, the only thing I could think of when I looked into her blue eyes was, I hate you. I wonder if she could see that hatred lurking beneath my own eyes.

“Where were you yesterday?” Beatrice asked before I could say a word. Her voice grated on my ears.

“What do you mean?” I replied in confusion, my thoughts temporarily thrown off their cyclic hatefest. What was she talking about? “I was here.”

“No,” Beatrice insisted. “During lunch, you weren’t there. Were you ditching me?”

I barely resisted the urge to roll my eyes. It was always like this with Beatrice. If I wasn’t with her all of the time, I was “ditching” her. I couldn’t be friends with anyone else. I used to think that I didn’t need other friends, but now I was having second thoughts. I hadn’t realized how twisted my friendship with Beatrice was until she crossed the line with this “dork” business. Maybe if I had other friends, I would understand what friendship was supposed to be like. Because surely it wasn’t supposed to be like this.

I wasn’t going to dignify her accusation with a response. At least, not in the form of defending myself. I was sick and tired of defending myself from her, of giving her all of my food, of giving her all of myself and getting nothing in return but grief and thanklessness. I thought of how angry I was at her, how angry I’d been throughout all of my friendship. I mustered up the last of my courage and opened my mouth, but Beatrice spoke first.

“You know what, Julianna?” she said in a tone so nasty it stopped me cold. “I hate you. You’re so clueless and you’re such a dork. I don’t even know why I’m friends with you – you’re always dumping me. I hate you.”

I could only stand there speechless. Not so much at Beatrice’s words than at the knowledge that, once again, Beatrice had beaten me. By being the one to say “I hate you” first, she had gotten the last word, and I was the one standing there trying not to cry.

Beatrice turned up her nose and walked away huffily. I knew that she would be back apologizing tomorrow, and I would forgive her, as I always do. We had more fights than the most cliché married couple ever, usually started by Beatrice and ended by me.

That’s the thing about Beatrice saying “I hate you” – it hurt, but it wasn’t like she hadn’t said much worse things before. Here's the thing, though - if I had been the one to say those three little words, things would I been different. I firmly believed this. I had never said “I hate you” to anyone. I never said a mean word to anyone. Today I had been ready to change that. For a few minutes, I had held the power to make or break our friendship in my unsaid words. I felt all of that power bleed out as I walked Beatrice walk away.

I hate you too, I thought, but didn’t say anything. After all, I was a weak little dork who never stood up for herself. Why would today be any different?

THE END