Am I Right or Am I Right? by Barry Jonsberg Page B

difficult to stay mad at someone when you’re feeling particularly optimistic, and anyway, Vanessa is too calm. She dilutes drama. If she had been the first person on the moon, she’d have yawned through it all. Instead of “This is one small step for a man, but a giant leap for mankind,” we’d have “Like, is there any
point
to mankind?” for posterity to contemplate.
    So I went to school prepared, eager even, to forgive and forget. At lunchtime Vanessa was already on the benches outside the canteen when I rocked up. She was chipping away at a banana and staring off into the middle distance, pondering the mysteries of the universe. I plopped myself down beside her.
    I’d given this some thought. I wasn’t going to mention Jason. I was going to be completely normal, chatting away as usual. If she had a problem with my love life, and I couldn’t understand why she should, then I wasn’t going to give her any opportunities to articulate it. A good plan, I thought. Unfortunately, it was a doomed one.
    “Hey ho, Vanessa,” I said in a frighteningly cheerful voice. “Here we are again. It’s Monday morning and the week stretches before us like a pitted path to nowhere. Tell me, why are two urbane sophisticates like us marking time in this academic wasteland when we could be out in the real world amassing personal fortunes and making indelible marks upon history?”
    Not an aggressive opening statement, I think you will admit.
    “I’m surprised you bother to talk to me,” Vanessa replied.
    “What?” I said. Sometimes I fluctuate wildly between a flood of words and a dribble. This time I was just stunned.
    “Nothing,” she said, keeping her head turned from me.
    “Hang on,” I said. I wasn’t going to let this go. “What do you mean, bother to talk? Why wouldn’t I talk to you?”
    Vanessa squirmed. She kept her head at an angle so I couldn’t make eye contact, shutting me out.
    “Now that you’ve got a boyfriend,” she said, “I figured you’d find me dull company.”
    I laughed. I couldn’t help it. She sounded so childish, like we were both six years old. Maybe I should have left it at that, possibly put my arm around her shoulders to comfort her. But it was absurd. I’ve never been good at dealing with immaturity and I’ve also got an alarming tendency to speak my mind regardless of the consequences.
    I’m not proud of this. It’s just the way it is.
    “Have you completely lost it, Vanessa?” I said. “What are you on about? Do you really think that because I’ve got a date with a guy—he’s not even my boyfriend, damn it—it diminishes you as a human being? Are you so insecure you can’t bear for me to have relationships with other people? What do you want me to do? Stop speaking to anyone else, to protect your jealous possessiveness? We are not in preschool, Vanessa. You’re being pathetic.”
    She turned toward me and I saw her eyes were filled with tears. Her face crumpled. I was shocked. It was so rare that Vanessa showed any emotion at all and now her whole being was drenched in it. And for what? For nothing.
    “Thanks,” she said, her voice strangled and tight with feeling. “Childish? I see. I’ve never been good enough for you and your smart talk. No one is good enough for Calma Harrison. It’s not all about you, bloody big-shot Calma. No one wants to be your friend because you pride yourself on making people feel small and worthless. Didn’t you ever wonder why the only friend you’ve ever managed to keep was a mindless dickhead? That Kiffing boy. He made you feel really superior, didn’t he?”
    It felt, literally, as if someone had smacked me across the face. I don’t know where the tears came from. It’s a cliché, I know, but it was like an internal tap had opened. My chest felt as if a massive weight had me pinned. I couldn’t breathe. For once I could find no words. Even my brain was paralyzed. I watched in a daze as Vanessa threw down the remains of her