Melanie

Melanie’s next.  What immediately comes to mind when I think of her?  Honesty.  Loyalty.  Trust issues.  Lots of best guy friends, lots of friends in general, but also lots of fights.

I met Melanie my senior year in Art class.  She was absent the first week, or something, due to some kind of eye problem, and when she came back, she got stuck sitting at the table with the Beatle girl.  Me.

We started talking, and soon I was sharing my sagas of everything happening in my life, and she’d share the soap opera-like happenings of her friends as well.

I got back then that she had trust issues, because she would talk about how she tried to help out everyone around her, and didn’t like telling her problems to anyone.  I got that she was a private person, despite how loud she could be and how open she seemed.

I remember once, when we were studying for midterms, or finals or something, I asked if she wanted to quiz me, and I’d quiz her.  She said no, and went on to study by herself.  I really could have used the prep up, and didn’t understand why she’d said no.  (Well, maybe I didn’t need the prep up, considering that on one of the tests, I got a perfect hundred.)  Anyway, I found out later why she’d said no.  For some reason, that to this day I don’t know, she’s afraid, or used to be afraid, of one-on-one studying.  I admit, that one never made sense to me.

After my senior year ended, I didn;t contact her for a bit, until close to my eighteenth birthday.  A group that I was trying to get together was going bowling, and I called her and invited her.  She had been invited somewhere else like twenty minutes before, though, so declined.  But, I kept in contact, calling her again, and inviting her to my birthday party.  She came.

She also came to my 19th birthday, where things got interesting.  To say the least.  Concussion-guy and hand-boy both wound up in the hospital.  Sheesh.  And people say nothing interesting happens at parties.

Everything seemed to go downhill with me and everyone after that, though.  Around September, she and I had a small argument, that I don’t recall us ever talking out.  I tried once, but she was upset about something else, and didn’t want to add to her depression/worry/anger/whatever.  I can understand that, but I think not talking about it made both our reactions to later events a bit worse.

We’re all tired of rehashing the story of my badly-timed sarcastic joke.  Okay, I decided I was going to be completely honest in here, so . . . here it goes.  I wasn’t being completely joking when I sent that E-mail.  A part of me was figuring she’d laugh at it, but a part of me was hoping that she’d get mad.  I wasn’t in a great mood that day myself, considering that literally the night before, Dolly and I had finally ended things.  For good.  So, I suppose I was looking to push her away.  Well, it worked.  Better than I think I ever would have guessed.  She IMed me, right after getting the E-mail, I believe, and basically told me off in an IM.  I was angry, too, and said things back, finally blocking her and deciding to do what I knew would attack her to the core, because that’s what I felt she’d done to me.  I called an E-mail up, typed in all caps, “bitch” in the subject line, and sent it.  It was another thing she’d told me in Art.  Because of things when she was younger, that she has never divulged to me, she hates being called a bitch by others, though she’ll call herself one all the time, I notice.  In any case, she’d hurt me to the core by what she said to and about me, so I decided to do the same to her.

It took a long time for things to get sorted out between us, and to say the least, I didn’t think or speak kindly about her for a long time.  But, since we’ve talked, and hashed out these things time and again, I’ve come to terms with a lot more than what happened between us.  She’s helped me in ways I don’t think she’ll ever fully know.

I just can’t help wondering a few things.  When I left the entry stating that I was going to do this, she left a note saying how she’d always been honest with me and everything.

I know she has, and I don’t understand why she feels the need to state it so many times to me.  I may not like some things she does, or philosophies she seems to believe, but I’m not questioning her honesty.  I don’t know.  At the risk of starting another mini-fight because I’m misunderstood, it’s almost like . . .  Like she doesn’t think people will believe she’s being honest.  Like . . .  damn it, how do I put this?

It’s like . . . there’s this insecurity in her.  That she thinks people she’s had a falling out with and then a reconciliation with are going to automatically accuse her of lying, just because of the past.  I admit, not exactly an irrational fear, but I’m not like that.

Okay, with her I’m not like that.  I don’t know.  I get feelings about people, when my heart’s not involved.  And Melanie gives me this deep-rooted, intuitive, down-to-the-core feeling of trust.  I have the feeling that we could be worst enemies, but if I really needed someone’s help, and had nowhere else to turn, she’d do what she could to help.

I suppose that’s why I think even now, we could really be close if we wanted.  Admittedly, I probably want it more than she does, because I wish I had a female best friend again.  I have three guy best friends.  One I never see.  We’re more best friends in spirit for right now, one who randomly falls off the earth, and I have to go to his house to find him and talk to him, and one who . . .  I don’t even know.

But any girl who’s lost a girl best friend will agree, I’m sure, guys are great, but they aren’t girls.  There’s just something about two girls being able to sit and talk, or whatever.  It’s just different.  I don’t know.  I’m just rambling.  I don’t even know if she would be willing to try getting that close to me.  Maybe she has enough people around her and is happy that we’ve reconciled and talk online sometimes.  I don’t know.

Okay, I’ve run out of space, so this is continued in the next entry.