The Thing About Flip Flops

Chapter Fifteen: Funding Someone's Mental Breakdown Is The Best Form Of Support

I look at him, surprised. "You don't know?" Then I mentally hit myself in the head for being somewhat rude. "Sorry. His girlfriend, Melissa is coming back into town. I mentioned her, I think. When we were talking about..." I trail off awkwardly, looking down as the memory comes back to me.

Chris looks somewhat uncomfortable for a second, then shrugs. "Oh. I guess that explains... this."

Across the table from where we are sitting, Henry is texting frantically, waving his arms around like a madman, and occasionally yelling for Jenna to come check if what he's written is good. He's acting like a sixth grade girl, except possibly more drunk.

"Don't worry," I lean into Chris to whisper, and I feel Jack on the other side of me glance at us quickly. "He's not usually..." I consider, then say, "Actually, he's usually a crackhead. But this is taking the concept of "crackhead" to an extreme."

Chris chuckles.

"Jenna! Help." Henry shoves his phone at her and she rolls her eyes. "I need to know if I need to text in one big paragraph or just continue it in a ton of little text bubbles."

"HENRY, I SWEAR TO GOD IF YOU DON'T SHUT UP, I'M GONNA DROP YOUR PHONE FROM THE FUCKING ROOF." Jenna shouts, then tones down her voice and stage-whispers to the rest of us, "He's losing it, you guys."

"So are you," Nat points out in an uncharacteristically rude way, and Jenna looks frustrated then goes back to helping Henry.

"You ok?" I ask Natalia.

She glances at Henry and Jenna, then pointedly at Chris and Jack. Years of friendship help me understand that this means she wants to go somewhere else to discuss this.

"Be right back," I say, popping up from my seat. "Nat and I have to..."

"- go to the bathroom. Bye!" Natalia jumps in and yanks me with her as she rushes out of the cafeteria.

On the way, I mutter, "Wow, you might be the least subtle person on earth. I was going to invent a really detailed story about how we accidentally blew up the Chemistry lab-"

"But there isn't time. They're gonna get suspicious if we're here too long."

"So what's going on?" I ask hesitantly, not wanting to intrude too much.

"It's about Jenna. We had a really bad fight." She looks upset.

I sigh deeply, reminding myself to watch what I say. I don't want to slip up and start spilling Jenna's secrets. "When? What was it about?"

She fidgets around for a few moments, and I can tell that she's weighing what she's going to say. "Basically, after my singing lesson yesterday afternoon, I couldn't start my car. I wanted to call you, but I figured you were in detention and I didn't want you to get into more trouble-"

"I forgot about it. Continue."

"And I didn't call Henry because he hasn't exactly been... himself lately, so I texted Jenna. Except I didn't give her a lot of details and from her reaction when she showed up, she seemed to think that I was injured or something? She was there in like five minutes flat and she looked super upset. Then I was like, "Is everything okay?" And she says, "I could ask the same thing to you!" And then I told her my car had broken down and then she yelled at me and now we're fighting."

After the rant, Natalia is breathing rapidly. I put a gentle hand on her shoulder and say, "I'm sure she didn't mean to get angry. She thought you were hurt."

"I know that, and that's why I think this whole fight is stupid!" She yelps. "So then I said, "It's not a big deal, I'm sorry if you thought something bad happened." And she went, "Of course it's a big deal! I was scared shitless!" And then I told her it's not even her business because if she was a good person or even just a good friend, she'd forgive me for making a mistake!"

"You didn't..." I sigh. "I'm not trying to take sides here. You guys are my best friends. But that was really shitty for you to say. Especially to Jenna."

I stop abruptly, but luckily she doesn't seem to think too much of the last part. She looks even more upset now. "I know! I hate that I said it. I'm the shitty friend, not Jenna. She's done so much for me. Look at how she reacted when she thought I was hurt. And I had the audacity to get mad at her for it." She starts tearing up.

"You're both great friends-" I start to console her, giving her a big hug as the first tears fall from her eyes.

"No. Do you want to know what I see when I look in the mirror? I look at myself and think, She's just a nervous freak that's too shy to do anything and who caused an entire fight just because she was too stupid to consider telling her own friend the truth."

At the exact moment she says the last part of the sentence, Jenna herself walks into the hallway where we're talking. Something regretful in her face twitches as she sees Natalia's tear-streaked face and something very different changes in her expression as she notices the way I'm hugging Nat.

There's a long silence before she spits out, "Incidentally, was going to come out here to apologize to you, Natalia, but I guess if I'm "too stupid to consider telling my own friend the truth", I won't bother." She turns to me. "And you might even be on to something, because I am absolutely stupid for telling you the truth, Audrey, if you're just going to tell Natalia everything!"

She storms down the hall, flinging on her leather Jacket as she leaves. If I know Jenna at all, I know for a fact that she is not coming back to finish today's lessons.

"I was talking about myself!" Natalia cries at her retreating back at the same time that I yell "Jenna, I didn't tell-", but Jenna is already long gone, her black hair swishing behind her.