RE: Trailer Trash 59, 59 pt 5 (Patreon)

    As the school day rolled on, Tabitha found herself stewing in feelings of aggravation. The other Personal Fitness kids came in after running and her friends in this class clustered around her and they all talked—but Tabitha’s mind wasn’t really there, and she wouldn’t have been able to recall any of the topics they were passing back and forth throughout the conversation. She was given a worksheet to fill out that seemed to be for assessing their general fitness knowledge, but she wasn’t able to focus on the questions.

    She filled the first answer in and then just kind of stared at the page, occasionally chatting back and forth about nothing with Tiffany and Vanessa.

    No one brought up the new Springton Spirit sweatshirt she was wearing, though Vanessa did at one point raise eyebrows and give her a knowing look. Tabitha wasn’t sure what the girl thought she knew. She wasn’t sure about a lot of things, today.

    Throughout the next two classes her cheerleader jacket drew unusual stares and she suspected people were talking about it, but Tabitha was too exhausted to care, right now. She took solace in assigned reading from the textbook in one classroom, and then stared in a daze with the rest of the students as the teacher lectured and scribbled incomprehensible words on the dry erase board for the next. Before she knew it, the bell for lunchtime was sounding, and Tabitha trudged upon listless feet through the busy hallways out to the quad where she always met up with Elena and Alicia.

    Finally remembered to bring in the Gamebody, and honestly? Tabitha let out a silent laugh. I kind of just want to lay my head down on the table and nap through all of lunch. I’m REALLY not feeling today.

    Because she was moving slowly this afternoon, both of her friends were already waiting for her at their usual table—though there was no Bobby today—and both Elena and Alicia were evaluating her new look with interest as Tabitha slipped into her seat. Before she could explain herself, however, their table was approached by two unfamiliar blonde girls.

    Two unfamiliar blonde girls that were wearing the exact same Springton cheer jackets that Tabitha had on.

    “Hey—so we meant to come over here and apologize,” The tall one said. “I guess there was some sort of a mix up, and she accidentally took your towel, instead of mine??”

    “You what?” Alicia blurted out in disbelief. “You stole her towel?!”

    “No, there was a mix-up,” The shorter cheerleader waved her hand in a dismissive gesture. “Coach Baylor said she already sorted it out. Right?”

    “Oh,” Tabitha held their gaze for a long, uncomfortable beat. “Well, I would love to accept your apology.”

    The two cheerleaders’ expressions soured further, and they exchanged can you BELIEVE the nerve of her glances with one another before turning back to Tabitha.

    “But?” The taller one scowled. “You say ‘you would love to accept our apology,’ meaning, but—?”

    “But, you haven’t apologized yet,” Tabitha found she altogether didn’t care about burning bridges right now. “You only said you intended to come over and do that. You haven’t actually done it.”

    The two girls looked confused for a moment, but after parsing her words, the confusion turned into irritation.

    “Are you a psychopath?” The first girl asked, leveling an incredulous stare at Tabitha.

    “No?” Tabitha almost wanted to laugh. “At worst, you could say I’m being petty?”

    She just felt so over it with today that she feared her attitude was turning giddy, unhinged. The feeling was wretched—it was as though some civil, reasonable part of her had sloughed away, revealing that bitter, manic Tabitha just underneath. It was the same feeling she’d experienced yesterday when ‘going off’ on Amanda. It was the same awful feeling of having well thought out, carefully constructed arguments to use when speaking with her father, but then discovering instead that an unbelievably angry immature part of herself was suddenly puppeting her movements on white-hot strings of rage to vomit out a rambling incoherent mess of a rant.

    “I’m the party that’s been wronged though, so isn’t it my privilege to be a little petty?” Tabitha continued before she could stop herself. “You come over here, with crossed arms and annoyed looks and you corner me, and you offer words that superficially seem like an apology, but aren't one—so, I measured my response with the exact same kind of semantics?”

    “Uh, news flash—when we say we meant to come over and apologize, it basically means the same thing as apologizing??”

    “Yeah, are you completely retarded?”

    “Let me guess?” Tabitha stared them down. “Apologizing to me must have been one of the conditions laid out for you. To avoid consequences. Coach Baylor is going to ask me later if you apologized to me. I’ll tell her ‘No, but they meant to, or at least, they said they meant to.’ While they were scoffing and sneering at me with arms crossed, calling me retarded, calling me a psychopath—”

    “Okay, then?” The taller girl smirked. “Here you go, then; yeah sorry?? There—I hope you’re happy?? I said it, and now you can’t say that I didn’t. Hah.”

    “Yah, SOR-RY.”

    “That’s not an apology,” Elena butted in. “When—”

    “Shut up, Wednesday Addams,” The tall girl retorted. “Look at me, durr-hurr-hurr, I dress all dark and special, because I want attention! Shut the fuck up.”

    “I just copy all of my bimbo friends, because I’m so terrified of not fitting in!” Elena shot back. “Look at me, I’m yet another blonde sorority bimbo!”

    Okay, Elena… that sounds like a line directly from Ziggy. Are we turning this into a goth or alternative versus preppy girl culture war thing, now?

    “Uhh, it’s called having taste?” The shorter one made a face. “Maybe you should try it, someday? Jealous, much?”

    “Yeah, there’s this little thing called fashion?? Maybe you haven’t heard of it??”

     The taller cheerleader—Tabitha hadn’t even learned their names yet—had a rising lilt to the end of each of her sentences Tabitha recognized as a high rising terminal, because that questioning inflection had been one of the memorable first arguments she had with the editor her publisher set up with her. Back then, Tabitha had ended some sentences with question marks even when grammatically the sentences were statements, to indicate the character speaking was performing them with that rising inflection as if they were questions.

    When she heard it used here in front of her, it came off as intentionally exaggerated, like this girl spoke in that manner to mock the stereotypical ‘valley girl’ cadence she might have picked up on TV. Her usage was so exaggerated, in fact, that if Tabitha were to express it in writing she would use double question marks, which would have sent her assigned editor into absolute conniptions. Tabitha stood by it, though—just as language evolved, so too did punctuation culture. She may have been a child of the nineties, but generations and generations of youth after her were used to communicating with one another through texts and shorthand, and sussing out inflection by the amount of question marks added to something had long since been worked out to an exact science.

    The tall girl’s cheerleader friend didn’t set out to annoy with her inflection but was instead surprisingly expressive, and every time she rolled her eyes she also distorted her entire face into a sarcastic groan of mockery that Tabitha was a little impressed by. For a moment she felt a pang of regret, because this girl seemed funny, fun to be around or like she had a great sense of humor. In other circumstances Tabitha would have enjoyed being her friend, and it was a shame that they would probably be at odds, now.

    It’s like when some amazing actor is cast in a very perfunctory role, and they give it their all but that just makes the casting feel like even more of a waste, Tabitha thought. Instead of us becoming great friends, to me she just winds up being stuck in this one-dimensional bully stereotype and I doubt there’s any way we can be friends.

    “I don’t think you even realize what you’re getting yourself into,” The taller one mocked, turning back to leer down at Tabitha. “You have no idea. We can ruin your life.”

    “Oh, is that a threat?” Tabitha blinked. “Are you going to try to murder me? Really? Right here in front of everyone?”

    “Are you insane?” The expressive one blurted out, but both cheerleaders were gawking at her, now.

    “Because, Erica Taylor tried to murder me,” Tabitha made a show of sizing the pair up and finding them wanting. “Right in the middle of a crowded party. What else are you going to do, then, push me? Convince someone else to give me a nasty shove, when I’m not looking?”

    Tabitha waggled her cast.

    “Because, that’s been done before, too,” Tabitha shrugged. “You’ll just get expelled. Hmm, let me guess—you’ll talk shit about me? Spread rumors? ‘Ruin my social life?’ Tabitha’s a slut, she’s sleeping around with so-and-so. Tabitha’s a fake. Tabitha got lipo and plastic surgery. Tabitha is the trailer trash fatty, watch out for WIDE LOAD Tubby Tabby. Everyone’s already doing that, though??”

    On reflex it slipped out—she’d thrown that mocking interrogative lilt right back at them, and it felt weird—wrong. Just yesterday, she had fretted over turning into the same kind of girl that bullied her, and this felt like a stark indicator that that transformation was in fact happening. Suppressing a grimace of disgust with herself, Tabitha continued on.

    “For you, slander and smears going around about you is ohmigod, the end of the world,” Tabitha gave them a helpless shrug. “For me? It’s just another Wednesday.”

    “We said we’re sorry, so get over yourself,” The taller girl changed from her incredulous antagonistic tact to a sniff of indifference. “We said it, so you can’t say that we didn’t?? Everyone heard us.”

    “Yeah, I’ll be sure to convey every ounce of the sincerity you’ve given me,” Tabitha lifted both eyebrows up and forced a smile. “So, yeah. Are we done, here? Can you just… go?”

    For an instant the shorter one’s expression shifted and Tabitha was afraid that she’d gone too far with her taunt—that she’d caught a flicker or flash of actual rage barely being concealed in time. That maybe the girl was about to do something. To slap her, maybe, spit in her face, to say some terrible unexpected thing. But then, Elena at the other side of the table stood up—and immediately the hushed surrounding onlookers went dead quiet, filling the entire quad with tense silence.

    How does Elena just STANDING UP FROM HER SEAT feel like it escalates this already bad situation way, way out of control?! Tabitha thought as she fought down a surge of panic.

    “Yeah, okaaay,” The girl finally scoffed. “Bye, weirdos.”

    “Fucking weirdos.”

    The two stormed off, and everyone watched Elena glaring at the departing figures with expectation. With slow, careful movements Elena folded her arms in front of her and gave the cheerleaders a dismissive huff before dropping back down into her seat. Only then did all of the chatter throughout the seating areas resume—but it was painfully obvious that everyone was still staring their way.

    “Holy shit,” Alicia whispered, shoulders still tensed up. “Like—holy shit.”

    “Yeah,” Tabitha sighed, sagging down against the table.

    She didn’t want everyone to see that her hands were shaking, and she flooded with relief when only Alicia seemed to notice. Her friend reached across the table and grabbed her good hand, giving her repeated squeezes. Whatever cocktail of hormones and adrenaline had been holding those puppet strings of confrontation aloft, those lines were all going slack now, and Tabitha felt like she was really crashing down.

    “That was. So. Badass,” Alicia praised. “Seriously. Both of you! Like, holy shit. Tabs babe, you blew up on her. And, ‘Lena—when you stood up?! I totally thought you were about to like, fight her.”

    “I was,” Elena hugged both arms across herself and shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “Sorry.”

    “N-no, no, I—thank you,” Tabitha blurted out. “Thank you. I appreciate it. I, uh—I probably shouldn’t have, um. Done all of that. Said anything. Should’ve just. Gone with their ‘apology,’ and brushed it off. I. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, today.”

    “They were being totally fake, is what’s wrong,” Elena scowled. “Everyone saw it. They said sorry but didn’t mean it at all. Of course they didn’t mean it. I hope this gets them suspended. Stealing your stuff got Clarissa suspended, so. It should.”

    “I don’t know,” Tabitha let out a bitter laugh. “I just. I probably just made more trouble for myself, and. And I feel like I want to throw up.”

    “They started it!” Alicia leaned in to whisper in a harsh voice. “So, no. No. This is all on them.”

    “Hah,” Tabitha shook her head. “Don’t start none, won’t be none? That’s a saying in the future.”

    “It’s a saying now,” Elena chuckled.

    “Yeahhh—Tabs, I think that’s a Will Smith line already,” Alicia grinned. “Men in Black.”

    “I’ve never seen any of them,” Tabitha shrugged. “Yes, ‘any of them,’ I know there’ll be like five of them, though.”

    “Uh-huh,” Elena remained skeptic. “But, uh. Seriously. Are you okay?”

    “No,” Tabitha shrugged again. “I’m not. But, I have you guys here with me, and—”

    “I didn’t even do anything!” Alicia groaned. “The second they stepped up, like—”

    “—And it’s whatever,” Tabitha squeezed Alicia’s hand. “Don’t worry about it. I’ve come a long ways, feels like earlier this year I could barely even talk back to Carrie. Now… well. I don’t know that I’m progressing in a good way, but I am progressing. I’m just. So over all of this bullshit. Fuck. You know, I’m just now realizing—I didn’t even get their names.”

/// Will fix links later. I actually put in multiple hours of diligent research into how women argue with one another, the subtle passive aggressive ways they attack each other, studied 'fascinating' topics like tone policing... and honestly it made the writing worse with each editing iteration.

I think as a guy I do still just really struggle with believable female interactions, because at every stage my mind is trying to resolve the parts of a conversation that annoy me rather than muddy things or introduce more conflict. Psychologically speaking, girls being mean to each other is just irritating to map out as a thing, and each version of this section as I made passes through felt weaker because I kept subconsciously just wanting to resolve and move past it? I don't know how else to explain. No idea if this section will read right, or not.