They Called Me Beautiful

Twelve: The Clique

Clara popped back into Maddie’s life with infuriating intimacy, and it was partly my own fault. They’d been friends before, but Justin and Damian were what bound them together. If the guys weren’t around, Clara wasn’t likely to be either.

Then in December I foolishly did something to draw them to each other instead of to their mutual friends. I told Clara my mom thought she was a flirt and maybe not even a Christian. Quite honestly, it didn’t just slip out; it was premeditated, cold, heartless.

We were alone in the bathroom at church. She was fixing her hair, and I was washing my hands. She told me hi and wondered if I’d seen Damian.

Instantly, I was mad. Why should she care where Damian was, and why should she ask me when she knew the way he treated me and my sister, even after the confrontation in the parking lot? Was she trying to rub it in that she was his friend and I wasn’t?

Like I said, no one else was around, and I saw my opportunity to hurt someone else the way I’d been hurt. And I couldn’t think of any girl I’d like hurting more than Clara.

“Why would I know where Damian is?” I asked her sharply. “I’m not always chasing the guys like you are.”

“Chasing the guys?” She looked like she was going to cry, but I saw a fury rising in her eyes.

“You’re such a flirt, Clara. Even my mom says so, and she should know. She thinks you might not even be a Christian.” After I said it, it didn’t feel quite as good as I thought it would, and when I saw Clara crying to Maddie outside a few minutes later, I knew I’d just dug my own grave. I hoped Maddie would blame my mom instead of me.

But I knew Clara wouldn’t be that kind; she’d tell Maddie exactly what I said. Maddie didn’t talk to me at all that Sunday. She didn’t even look at me. No doubt she was remembering her own tussle with my mom over her cut hair and tattoos.

After a couple weeks of silence, I couldn’t stand it any longer. I wrote apology notes to both of them, even though Maddie shouldn’t have been involved at all. It almost killed me to hear her say she forgave me. She didn’t even act mad.

I knew just how well she could act though. I’d never imagined her turning that act on me. That hurt almost more than the silence.

She never came back to me after that. Not really. We were friends, but it wasn’t the same. I knew she didn’t trust me, and I didn’t trust her. Things had slipped out, from Clara, from Damian, from Maddie herself, that informed me she’d let too many things by, that secrets I’d told her to keep hadn’t been kept.

We were friends, but like predators who are afraid of provoking the other’s wrath are friends.

“I overheard Damian talking to Justin about you,” Irene seethed one night after a youth thing. “He said that you’re on pills for your depression.”

We were both irate. Maddie knew that was supposed to be a secret, one that only a select few at church knew. It was nobody else’s business whether I was depressed or not.

Another time, she and Clara snubbed Irene and me at a church potluck by going and starting their own table, even though the one we were sitting at had two extra spaces. When Damian and Justin joined them, we knew why.

“Clara likes Damian, and Maddie likes Justin,” Irene whispered to me hotly. “It’s sick, liking each other’s brothers.”

“They can have a double wedding,” I muttered, turning away. “If Maddie doesn’t want to be my friend, she doesn’t have to be.”

Irene tried to persuade me several times that year to dump Maddie. “What does she do to build you up anyway, Kate? All she ever does is hurt you.”