Alba looks at me then, something in her eyes telling me she doesn’t believe me. She knows the truth then—that no one has ever liked me enough to stick around. I avert my gaze before continuing. So maybe it ends up being a casual, fun summer fling. Where’s the harm in that?
But there is harm in wanting something I know can’t be anything but make believe.
It’s not only about never having had a boyfriend. I think about my conversation with Finn, my lie to him about never having time for friends. Growing up, it wasn’t that I was so busy with my family—although in my first few years of school, we moved around so much that I never stuck around anywhere long enough to make any real friends.
But later, it was because I was very quickly identified as being different, which is never a good thing as a kid. I was used to playing barefoot in the trees and running wild to my heart’s content. I had trouble sitting still in class because I had never sat still for that long at home. I would look out the window and daydream, getting into trouble for not paying attention, even though all of my work was already done.
And the other kids, I was convinced, could smell it on me. That something wasn’t quite right.
When I was nine, our family went camping one summer on Salt Spring Island. There was another little boy my age, Ethan, who I spent the entire summer with—we did everything together. Found minnows in pools of water along the rocks at the beach, returning them to the ocean. Pretended we were wolves prowling through the thick brush of the forest.
It was the closest I had ever come to having a friend.
One morning, on the whims of my flighty parents, we packed up and went back to Victoria. I never got to say goodbye, and suddenly found myself living at another new address, getting ready to start at another new school.
When I went in on the very first day, to my absolute delight, Ethan was there. And he was excited to see me too—at first.
But apart from Ethan, I had trouble relating to the other kids in my class.
While I was still eager to play pretend, the other kids said they weren’t babies anymore. When I wanted to play in the dirt at recess, never caring about getting dirty, I would find myself doing it completely alone.
It was also the first time I remember feeling slightly embarrassed when my mom came to get me after school. Her clothes would be covered in stains from chasing after my two younger siblings, she was heavily pregnant with the twins, and my brother and sister seemed like feral animals running around her.
When Ethan started to realize the other kids didn’t like me, that I didn’t fit in, he told me one day that I was too weird and we couldn’t be friends anymore. I remember crying so hard that the school eventually called my mother to come get me.
I had tried to tell her what was wrong, but she was too distracted by whatever mischief my siblings were getting into, and she seemed to forget I’d even been upset.
It didn’t matter in the end. We moved again a few months later anyway, and I was at another new school, where I would start the cycle all over again.
It became easier to other myself from the start—if I was open and accepting of the fact that I was different, I couldn’t be hurt by it when others noticed, too.
It wasn’t until Alba and Florence that I learned friends didn’t always have to be a temporary, transient thing.
And now here I am, a fully grown adult, lying to the friends I do have.
Alba’s eyes sweep over me, and I know she’s seeing that there’s still more to this she isn’t getting to the bottom of—but she doesn’t push it.
I like Finn, she says, matter-of-factly. I do too, I think, involuntarily. But I have to wonder if the fact he lives in Scotland is part of the appeal.
What do you mean?
I mean, she says sighing. If he lives across the Atlantic Ocean, and you live on the other side of the country, it can’t exactly turn into anything more serious. Not really. And maybe that’s intentional on your part.
What are you, my therapist? I try to make it sound like a joke, but I feel a burning in the back of my throat, acid riling up from my stomach.
And if he does like you, Alba continues, ignoring my barbed comment, And does want to be together, then what Violet?
Then what?
Thankfully, that’s not an option, since someone like Finn would never seriously like me, so there’s no point in even worrying about that.
I shrug, trying to play it off to Alba, who isn’t buying any of it.
I guess we’ll find out.
But I already know the answer: that it doesn’t matter anyway.
Chapter 24
