I've never been particularly good at the whole 'making friends' thing that everyone keeps going on and on about. I'm much better at 'breaking friends'. That's why I'm so surprised that Tori has dared to stay on as long as she has. What a poor, brave girl she is. Too bad she's got me for a friend.
Last night, we went to this frat party (or as Tori calls it, a 'flat party'). It was kind of not-terrible for a while, until some stupid jocks decided that I wasn't drinking enough, and held me down and made me drink a bottle of tequila.
You probably have a pretty good idea of what happened after that.
Anyway, I was sitting outside on the porch in the moonlight trying to get the taste of tequila out of my mouth. I'd rather not go into descriptive detail, but you get the point. I was just about done when I heard Tori's familiar voice come from behind me.
"Do you want me to hold your hair?" She asked cautiously. I couldn't answer, because I was too busy almost-gagging. "It's just... I used to hold my mom's hair when she threw up, so I figured..."
"Thanks, but no, I'm okay." My throat started to relax as I took a few deep breaths. Suddenly, I smelled peppermint. Tori was offering me a piece of gum.
I looked up at the roof of the house, or the clouds in the sky, or the stars. I looked anywhere but Tori's face, because I couldn't bear to see her pained expression. Finally, cautiously, after what seemed like ages of trepidation, I took the gum. I unwrapped the gum nervously, as though it was going to jump out of the wrapper and bite me.
"Don't trust me?" Tori asked, sounding a bit disappointed.
"Yeah." It wasn't personal, really. It was one of the laws my mother taught me. Number 27: Don't trust anyone until you know what they want. I still don't know what Tori wants. Probably something to do with money. "Sorry."
"No, it's..." Tori yawned and shook her head. She looked tired tonight, but then again, she always looked tired when she was spending time with me.
"Uh huh." I nodded.
We stood in treasured silence for a moment, until Tori interrupted it in an attempt to say something meaningful. "They're just jerks, you know?"
'Wow,' I thought. 'Thanks for the essential bit of information.' I shouldn't have been so hard on Tori. At least she was trying to be helpful. "I know. That doesn't make it better, or easier, or right."
"No, it doesn't. But it does make it..." Tori's thoughts trailed off to look for some remote adjective.
I knew exactly what it was. "Common."
"Yep."
"Hmh. Just seems peculiar to me, that's all."
For some reason, Tori pointed at me. "See, now that's your problem."
I tried being sarcastic, because I really didn't feel like having a meaningful conversation right now. I felt like looking at the stars, and thinking about how perfectly meaningless they are. "I've got many problems, can you be more specific?"
"Okay." Tori took a deep breath, face me on a slant and leaned forward on her front toes. She was getting into her 'lecture' position. "So, you always want everything to be special, or different, or interesting, right? You focus on details, imperfections, peculiarities, stuff like that, and it prevents you from stepping back and taking a look at the big picture."
Unluckily for Tori, I knew exactly how to combat the 'debate' position. You simply invade the debater's personal space by standing really close to them and remind them how short they are. I could win this debate without saying a thing.
Tori swallowed hard and looked up at me. Shocked her. She definitely wasn't expecting to see me looming over her. "Always... Uh... You need to... step back... now... and take a look at the big picture." Rehashing old points, unfocused, confused, stunned, nervous. I won without having to say a thing. I smirked. "Damn."
I'm such a bad friend. "Just say it." I wondered how much closer I could get before I freaked and jumped back. How weird could I get before she had to move away?
"You need to focus on what's really bothering you. You need to get closure --"
"Closer?" I leaned in a bit.
"God, no. Closure, you need to finish... that whole business with your family."
"I'm out." I stepped back. I didn't care if Tori won, as long as we didn't talk about my family.
"Just listen to me: What if the reason you can't connect with someone is because you aren't connected to your family?"
"What do you mean? I'm connected to you, aren't I?" I said that without thinking. Internal facepalm.
"I don't count."
"We both know that's not true."
Tori blushed. I might have blushed a little too. I had lost the debate, so I had nothing left to lose. I concede, "How would I go about connecting to my family?"
Tori looked like a kid a Christmas. For once, I had actually listened to her. Truly, this was a night of firsts. "It's summer! We've got nothing to do, and your family's house is on a lake, right? Sounds like a nice vacation?"
This was such a bad idea. This was easily the worst idea that Tori had ever had. So of course I agreed. I didn't tell Tori about how horrible it would be. She'd have to discover that for herself. We leave tomorrow. I've got to get packing.
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