Macie

Chapter Two

The next year was one of the worst for me socially, though it didn’t start out that way. At the beginning of the year, Macie, Audrey, Callie, Phoebe, and I really bonded as a group. That was the year we started traditions like our monthly scary movie sleepover. We all hated scary movies, but Audrey had the idea to start watching them. She told us that when boys took girls out on dates, they always took them to scary movies, so we needed to be able to sit through them. On the first Saturday of every month, we would all go over to Audrey’s house and watch a horror film in the basement with all the lights off.

The first time we did this, Callie hated it so much that she left the room and sat upstairs while the rest of us watched the movie. Halfway through, Macie decided that it wasn’t right that four of us should be in the basement watching the movie if Callie wasn’t with us. She marched upstairs and talked to Callie for twenty minutes. The rest of us waited. Audrey and Phoebe were looking at pictures on Audrey’s laptop while I sat awkwardly waiting for Macie to come back. I never admitted this to anyone, but when Macie wasn’t with there, I didn’t really feel like I was part of the group. It’s not that Audrey, Callie, or Phoebe wanted to make me feel left out, it just happened that way.

About twenty minutes after Macie had left the room, she came back down the basement stairs, her arm linked with Callie’s. I don’t know how she did it, but Macie had put a huge grin on Callie’s face. She was able to sit and watch the rest movie with us.

By November, Callie became the one who wanted to pick the scary movie for us to watch. To this day I still don’t know what Macie said that changed Callie’s mind. Whatever it was, we all knew how much Callie appreciated it.

Callie started hanging around with Macie more often after that. At school, she’d sit next to her at the lunch table and start up a conversation that only the two of them were involved in. In history class they’d pass notes, which would keep me from being able to connect with Macie. The worst of this happened in December.

At the beginning of the month, our history teacher announced that there would be a partner project due the day before we all left for Winter Break. We were allowed to choose our own partners, which made everyone really happy to hear.

“We have an even number of students in this class so there will be no groups of three!” The teacher proclaimed. People giggled at that, although I didn’t really see what was funny.

Immediately, I looked for Macie. That’s when I saw Callie sitting with her. The two of them were laughing about something. Macie caught me watching and motioned me to come over. I did walk over, only to hear Callie remind me, “We’re only allowed groups of two. Sorry.”

Macie didn’t seem to register the fact that that meant I had no partner. She smiled somewhat sympathetically and went back to laughing with Callie.

Macie and Callie grew really close that month. They started hanging out almost everyday. When Audrey or Phoebe would invite all of us over to one of their houses, Callie would remind Macie that they had to work on their history project. And if Macie wasn’t coming, none of us were. In fact, I can’t think of one time that Audrey, Callie, Phoebe, and I were together without Macie. She tied us together. So when Callie “stole” her from the rest of us, it was almost like we didn’t have friends. Callie had achieved what we all secretly wanted to do. The truth of the matter is that each of us, Audrey, Callie, Phoebe, and I, wanted Macie to ourselves.

I ended up being paired with Max, a quiet boy in our class who always seemed happy; despite the fact that I don’t think he had many friends.

We weren’t the best pair, Max and I. If one of us had been more open, it might have been easier. But since we were both passive and quiet, not much got done at first. We worked it out, of course, but it wasn’t exactly fun. We decided to use the few free periods we had to work on the project together. Since we both wanted to avoid the awkwardness of going over to each other’s houses, we often stayed after school and worked in the library.