Friendship Fails of Emma Nash Read online

  ‘Stop it! What about…looking at our phone?’

  ‘Bit confusing. What if I genuinely need to look at my phone?’

  ‘OK. Blink three times?’

  ‘That’ll do, I guess,’ I conceded.

  Silence.

  ‘… I still preferred the owl, though.’

  Evidence: Friendships take just as much work as romantic relationships.

  Anyway, I feel like this was an important moment for us. For me. Instead of going away feeling like I’d chewed on Crazy Holly’s snack bag of lemons all afternoon, we’re actually ok. It just takes…effort?

  Maybe I should start making an effort with more things…Like, contouring my face. Or eating super foods.

  Then again, slow and steady and all that.

  posted by EditingEmma 16.39

  Damnit!

  Aghhh. I’m SO annoyed at myself. I said that I wasn’t going to let Leon… I mean, Oh Nameless One…affect me. But here I am, the first after-school designing session for the fashion show, and what is he doing?

  Affecting me.

  I came in to start working on a shirt (blue/green silk, buttonless, flowing) and, lo and behold, he was in the room. We made eye contact as I came in and he immediately left.

  His friend Charlie came in a minute later.

  ‘Hey, have you seen Leon?’ he asked.

  ‘He left.’

  Charlie frowned. ‘Oh. I’m sure we said to meet here. Hey, amazing material, by the way.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said absently.

  And I shouldn’t have let it, I know, but it kind of bugged me. Because then all those familiar thoughts started creeping back in. What’s he thinking? Why did he leave the room? Was it because of me?

  How is it fair that as soon as I’ve managed to kick stalking him online, he starts getting constantly shoved in front of me IRL?

  Well, I refuse to dwell on this any longer. Maybe he left the room because it was too awkward. Maybe he left the room because he wanted a sandwich. It makes no difference to me.

  Friday, 14 November

  posted by EditingEmma 11.15

  The ‘Race’ (That Apparently I’m In Without Even Entering) Was just sitting around with Gracie when she suddenly said, ‘I guess Steph’s going to win, then.’

  ‘Win what?’ I asked. Had she entered some kind of competition I didn’t know about?

  ‘You know,’ said Gracie.

  ‘No, I really don’t.’

  ‘You know.’ She raised her eyebrows.

  When I didn’t respond she sighed, and said, ‘She’s going to lose her virginity.’

  ‘I…what? How is that winning?!’

  ‘Well, she’s going to be the first one.’

  I paused, stupefied.

  ‘… Do you mean winning against all the rest of us?’

  She looked at me like I was really, really dumb.

  I blinked three times.

  ‘I’m sorry, I just refuse to believe you haven’t thought it.’

  ‘I honestly, swear to God, have never thought about it like that.’

  Gracie sighed.

  ‘All right fine you’re an oblivious loser, but you’re still a loser.’

  This is confusing to me on so many levels. Firstly:

  •Different people are ready at different times. So does my ‘race’ begin from the moment I’m ready or the moment that my best friend is ready? Surely that would be like starting off Usain Bolt about a year behind everyone else on a track and calling it fair?

  •Or is this not about being ready at all? But then does that mean you’re just supposed to do it, even if you’re not ready? Why would that be winning? Surely doing something you don’t want to do just for the sake of it is actually losing?

  •Even if someone is ready to lose their virginity, they still have to find someone else to lose their virginity with, which seems purely circumstantial to me. I can’t just order up someone I like enough, who likes me back (and I did learn this the hard way).

  •Surely this would all logically entail that people who’ve had sex are superior to people who haven’t. I’m just not sure this makes any sense. At the end of the day it’s really just a bodily function, with two people involved instead of one. Or is it the fact that someone else wants to have sex with you that makes you superior? But in that case, all we’d have to do is walk into any old seedy club and I’m sure there’d be hundreds of creepy men there willing to have sex with any one of us.

  I showed this list to Gracie. She just shrugged.

  posted by EditingEmma 13.19

  Can You Tell If Someone’s A Virgin Just By Looking At Them?

  Gracie seems to think so, because she keeps staring at Steph and saying stupid things about her appearance being virginal or non-virginal.

  ‘Look at that walk,’ she said. ‘That’s definitely a non-virgin walk.’

  I looked at Steph, walking across the sixth form centre.

  ‘It’s not,’ I said.

  ‘Well for one thing, she’s strutting.’

  ‘Steph always struts.’

  ‘Nooo.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘No way!’

  ‘Yes, you just never noticed before because you didn’t used to analyse her every move.’

  ‘Look at the way she bites into the cookie!’

  I looked again.

  ‘She’s hungry.’

  Gracie fixed her eyes on Steph and furrowed her eyebrows.

  ‘But then again, that was a very virginal sneeze.’

  ‘Oh for God’s sake. She’s still a virgin, all right.’

  ‘Was it the sneeze?’

  ‘NO.’

  ‘Well how do you know?’

  ‘I just know.’

  ‘How?’ Gracie needled. ‘I’m going to need solid evidence.’

  ‘Solid evidence like a sneeze?’

  She shrugged.

  ‘I just KNOW, OK.’

  ‘All right, all right,’ she said.

  We sat in silence for a moment.

  ‘But she’s got a distinctly ex-virgin glow,’ she added in quite a disturbing voice.

  I didn’t say anything else so that she’d leave it alone. Because the truth is… I mean, now that she’s said it… I actually don’t know whether Steph’s had sex or not. I mean, I’m pretty sure she hasn’t. But I don’t know for definite. Ugh, I don’t want to admit that!! I don’t want to admit there’s a possibility she might have had sex and might not have told me, because we tell each other everything.

  EVERYTHING.

  She definitely would have told me, right?! She would have discussed with me, if she was even thinking about it?

  RIGHT?

  posted by EditingEmma 17.07

  Must Leon be EVERYWHERE?! Even When He’s Not Technically In The Room?

  Just did my second designing session for the fashion show. Thankfully, this time **** was nowhere to be seen…but his friend Charlie was. He started talking to me when I came in.

  ‘Hey, can I ask your opinion, Button Queen?’ he said. ‘These or these?’ He held out two kinds of grey buttons.

  ‘Uh…’ I said.

  It was really nice being asked my opinion about a fashion thing, and I did want to talk to him about it… But also what popped into my head when he spoke to me was, I wonder if Leon’s spoken to you about me? I wonder what you know about Leon right now, that I don’t? etc., etc. And it’s unfair of me, I know, but even speaking to Charlie is a little bit of a reminder of the person I would much rather forget.

  ‘Those, I think,’ I eventually answered and sat down at my station.

  I’m not usually stand-offish, but if I’m really going to stop thinking about Leon, fraternizing with his friends just isn’t going to help. I must maintain a safe distance from all things Leon. I mean ****.

  Saturday, 15 November

  posted by EditingEmma 18.03

  Why Did I Sign Up For This, Again?

  So, as part of my role on the social media team
, it’s my job to create the event for the show. And now, sitting and staring at the blank event, I’m wondering why on EARTH I volunteered for this.

  ‘Steph! Help me!’ I shouted on the phone.

  ‘Uh huh.’

  ‘What do I say on the event description?’

  ‘Umm…’ I could hear her chewing on something. ‘Be super chill and casual. Like you’re doing this really fun thing people can come to, but ultimately you don’t really care whether anyone comes or not.’

  ‘OK. Got it. Chill and casual.’

  Hey you crazy cats. Some of us have been making some cool clothes and it would be great if you came to see our show. Or Not. Whatever. No pressure.

  Rang Steph back, and read it out to her.

  ‘“Crazy cats”?’ she repeated. ‘Crazy cats?! Since when do you live in the Fifties?’

  ‘I was going for off-the-wall,’ I said.

  ‘Hmm, works for Crazy Holly, because she legit doesn’t care…not so much for you.’

  ‘All right all right, what else needs to go?’

  ‘Um, ALL of it.’

  ‘All right, fine, clearly I can’t do casual. I’m going for heartfelt.’

  Hello, everyone. We’re working really, really hard on this fashion show, and it would mean a lot to us if you came down to see the fruits of our labours. It’s for a good cause, so please think of the children.

  ‘Sounds vaguely threatening,’ said Steph.

  ‘All right, well…’

  ‘And a bit intense.’

  ‘OK, I’ll…’

  ‘And what is fruits of our labours? Now you sound like you’re in the nineteenth century.’

  ‘Oh my God, I GIVE UP. How does anyone write these things?!’

  ‘Look, you’re overthinking it. Go again. You’ll get there. I BELIEVE IN YOU.’

  Come to our super cool fashion show…

  ‘Hello, Desperate Paul.’

  Join us for a night of fun…

  ‘Exactly what Mr Morris would say.’

  Be there or be square…

  ‘Oh my God, Emma. I’ve stopped believing in you.’

  posted by EditingEmma 18.10

  It took three hours but I finally concocted a casual and fun-sounding event description (no thanks to Steph). Now I just have to ‘invite’ people.

  Oh my God. There are about five hundred people to invite.

  Hovering over the button…

  Done.

  … And now there are literally five hundred people invited and one ‘attending’.

  Me.

  OH MY GOD. What have I done?! Why didn’t I prepare?! Why didn’t I have Steph on standby to click attending immediately?! Now she’s having dinner, aghhhh!!

  posted by EditingEmma 18.19

  Called Gracie.

  ‘Gracie, please go online, I just invited you to something.’

  ‘Yeah, I saw.’

  ‘You saw?! What?! WHY haven’t you said yes yet?!’

  ‘Well, then it would just be me and you attending…’

  ‘Oh my God.’

  ‘Bit keen, you know.’

  ‘Click attending NOW.’

  ‘Um, yeah, I will.’

  ‘You mean you will, when some other people have!!’

  ‘Well…’

  ‘Gracie. That’s ridiculous. What if everyone did that? Then no one would ever click attending for anything, EVER.’

  ‘Oh, er, sorry, Emma, my dad’s calling me…’

  ‘NO HE ISN’T.’

  ‘What’s that, Dad? Oh, all right, yes, I’m coming!’

  ‘Gracie Morton, do not hang up on me!’

  ‘SorryEmmagottagoloveyouuuuu.’

  Then she hung up. How dare she!!! How dare she!!!

  @Em_Nasher

  @GracieMorton1 Just listening to ‘You’ve Got A Friend In Me’, what a tune

  @Em_Nasher

  @GracieMorton1 Oh and, ‘With A Little Help From My Friends’

  @Em_Nasher

  @GracieMorton1 ‘Best Friend’

  @Em_Nasher

  @GracieMorton1 ‘My Forever Friend’

  @GracieMorton1

  @Em_Nasher All right the others maybe, but I just googled & you are not listening to ‘My Forever Friend’

  posted by EditingEmma 18.27

  Phew, ****’s friend Charlie clicked attending. Feeling marginally less anxious now.

  Marginally.

  Oh, and **** did too. Not that I noticed.

  Sunday, 16 November

  posted by EditingEmma 15.22

  The Word ‘Virgin’

  I’ve been thinking about the word ‘virgin’, because we’ve used it a lot recently. I really, really don’t like it. I think because either way you use it, there’s some sort of negative connotation. It’s really hard to use it and simply mean ‘person who has not had sex’. It usually comes out like…virgin = loser. Which implies if you haven’t had sex by age sixteen, you’re some kind of weirdo. Or…virgin = pure. Which makes sex seem like this sort of bad, sullying thing.

  I’ve been repeating it to myself under my breath, to try and remove all the connotations and simplify it’s meaning.

  Virgin virgin virgin virgin virgin virgin virgin virgin virgin virgin virgin virgin virgin virgin virgin virgin virgin virgin virgin virgin virgin virgin virgin virgin virgin virgin virgin virgin virgin virgin virgin virgin virgin virgin virgin virgin virgin virgin virgin virgin virgin.

  But it just hasn’t worked. I simply cannot use the word ‘virgin’ in the literal sense.

  We should come up with new words like…um… ‘non-sexer’ or ‘oui-sexer’. Always said in French accents. Because nothing said in a French accent can have a negative connotation.

  posted by EditingEmma 19.19

  Friendship Mission: Reboot

  I don’t know if it’s Gracie going on about Steph’s virginity, which is making me feel like Steph’s a million miles away from me in adult-land, or whether it’s the fact that a certain person keeps cropping up IRL, which is maybe…just a tiny, minuscule bit…giving me the urge to click on his profile…but all of a sudden I feel kind of lonely. I reached for my phone to message Steph, about it getting harder to resist clicking on him, and then put it down again. How massively immature would she think I was? I mean, there she is in this new, amazing relationship, and I’m still trying to resist cyber-stalking someone I barely even dated at all. We were so on and off that we never even got to that stage. She’s probably so bored of it by now.

  I was feeling a bit down and lost, when I started to wonder if I gave up too quickly on the hunt for a new buddy.

  What happened with Anika and Hannah were setbacks, to be sure, but that doesn’t mean the last girl on the list isn’t ripe with potential life-affirming friendship…

  I mean, where would we be if people didn’t see their missions through to the end?! If James Cook and his crew had turned around and said, Hey, guys, it’s kinda cold? Who cares about crossing the Antarctic Circle? Let’s go home and buy a snow machine? (Actually, that’s probably exactly what I would have done, but anyway.)

  No. I will NOT abort my mission yet, only one week into school. And last up on the list is Kayleigh Spencer, Cat Lover Extraordinaire.

  I’m currently in the process of digging up lots of cute cat pictures online and littering everyone’s feeds with them. Hello my furry, feline friend-enticers.

  posted by EditingEmma 21.34

  Right. Obnoxious amount of cat pictures = posted. I’m feeling so much more upbeat than I was earlier. No uptake from Kayleigh yet. But I’m sure it’s only a matter of time…

  Monday, 17 November

  posted by EditingEmma 08.46

  When I came in this morning, Steph and Gracie were clucking around like chickens.

  ‘Faith’s new girlfriend is coming to Battle of the Bands on Saturday!’ Gracie filled me in.

  ‘Oh my God!’ Steph squawked. ‘The mysterious Claudia.’

  ‘I’m glad she’s coming,’ said
Gracie. ‘It will be so nice to meet her.’

  ‘Yeah, come to think of it…Faith hasn’t said that much about her,’ I pondered.

  ‘I think she’s scared of putting too much pressure on it, too early,’ said Steph.

  Avoiding putting too much pressure on things too early. Huh, there’s a novel thought.

  posted by EditingEmma 11.39

  Walked to Art with Faith.

  ‘So Faith,’ I said. ‘I hear, Clauuuudia’s coming to Battle of the Bands.’

  ‘Yes, Claudia is coming,’ she said.

  ‘What’s Clauuuuuuudia like?’ I asked.

  ‘She’s…Well… ’ I could feel Faith’s happiness and discomfort radiating from her in equal measure.

  ‘She’s PERFECT,’ I finished for her.

  ‘Ugh!’ said Faith. ‘This is exactly why I didn’t want to talk about it.’

  ‘Does she have dreamy eyes?’

  ‘Stop.’

  ‘Does she…understand you?’

  ‘You’re the worst.’

  I am the worst. But I’m also massively, massively trying to distract myself from the fact that, from the event flyer, I can see Leon’s band are performing. How can I ignore him whilst he’s doing that? Would it be weird to wear an eyeless balaclava?

  posted by EditingEmma 13.25

  Dear God No

  Just sewing some stuff next to Holly, when she said, ‘Are you still trying to meet boys on the internet?’

  ‘I was never doing that.’

  ‘Oh, I thought… ’

  ‘I was trying to get to know boys that I already sort of knew, using the internet.’

  ‘Uh huh. Well, are you still doing that?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because, actually, I realized I’m quite happy not knowing them.’

  ‘Oh.’

  She shuffled in her seat.

  ‘Well that’s a shame…’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘My friend Adam, he saw your picture and he said you have a very square jaw.’