Page 62 of Unnecessary Drama

I haul myself out and stand up, and shove the microphone at Lauren.

‘Here, it’s all yours. I’m done.’

‘What is going on with you?’

‘Nothing.’

‘You’re acting so weird. What is your problem?’

‘You! You’re my problem! You showed up here with no notice. You’ve hijacked my whole night. You’ve ruined everything!’

‘Ruined what exactly?’

‘Everything!’

‘Fine, I’ll just drive home right now if that’s how you feel.’

‘Good! Go!’ I yell.

‘I will!’

We pause, breathing hard, glaring. I am acutely aware of everyone watching us with interest.

‘Don’t go,’ I say, suddenly worried she’ll drink and drive.

‘Obviously I’m not driving home right now.’ She rolls her eyes, and then turns back to the song list, shrugging off the fight with ease.

That’s it, that tips me over the edge.

‘You know what? I’m going home!’ I shout. I turn to the room at large. ‘And Tristan, I’m going on my own because, surprise, Jesse and I aren’t really together! We lied about it so I would look less pathetic in front of you, and yes, now, ironically, I look more pathetic than ever! So you win. I hope you’re happy. I hope everyone is happy. Jesse, you’re free. Lauren, you’re free too. You can hook up with Jesse tonight, no worries. Do it now! Right here on stage!’

I have lost control. Me, the queen of control, is now yelling wildly at people. I have stepped into total-meltdown territory. I’m ready to be cast on a reality TV show. Tristan and Kendra are staring at me, mouths agape. Jesse is still on the floor and he’s wincing, either at what I said or because he’s hurt himself, or maybe both. Penny and Harper exchange a she’s-lost-it look. Henry looks incredibly anxious at the whole situation. Lauren lets out a laugh.

I turn and storm out. My outburst might be mortifying, but I’m hoping my exit looks good. I don’t even look back. If it was set to music in a TV show, put into slow-mo, I’m confident I would look great but in real life, it’s hard to tell what the effect is.

But by the time I have stepped onto the street, I’ve lost all my anger and I am deeply embarrassed and I need to escape. I am not a maker of scenes. I hate making scenes. My role is to smooth things over when someone else makes a scene. The streets are busy, filled with drunk people and happy people, the worst combination for a recently humiliated sober person. I want to put my hands over my face and sob. I want to scream. God. Why do I feel so unhinged. It’s like I’m thirteen again.

I am due to get my period this week, so that probably explains some of it. A lot of it. But not all of it. This feeling is something else, an unhappy, impatient beast inside me, roaring and clawing, pacing the corners of its cage, wanting to spill out and cry and wail and hurt everyone around me, and I don’t understand it or know what to do with it.

The thought of going home and sitting in the empty house depresses me.

I sit down on a bench and wait to see if I will cry. I blink a bunch of times, to hurry the process along, but nothing. There’s still too much adrenaline coursing through me. Plus I left my jacket when I stormed out and now I’m cold and getting colder the more I think about it. I want to go back and get it. I’m worried they’ll leave the room and not pick my jacket up and I’ll have to call the bar and ask them to look through lost and found, and it will be a whole annoying thing. They’ve probably gone right back to singing and have forgotten I’ve even left.

Lauren and Jesse are probably hooking up right now. Probably on the stage as I suggested. Why did I give them permission? I practically spoke the situation into existence, I’ve pushed them together—I have no one to blame but myself.

The bench is close enough that they’ll be able to find me if they come looking. I need someone, anyone, to come and look for me. I’m getting colder and colder now, so I walk back to the karaoke bar, trying to decide on my approach. Options are: slink in the back of the room, grab my jacket, and rush out and hope they don’t notice, or throw open the door dramatically and storm back in and make another scene and have another speech ready to go and pretend it was my plan all along, then quickly grab the jacket as I leave.

I briefly fantasise about walking into the room with a cute guy and letting them think I’ve just met him, or, no, that we know each other from uni maybe, and I’m taking him back to the house to hook up—there’s a cute guy standing in the doorway of the 7-Eleven up ahead and he looks like he’s up for an adventure, he might agree to come with me for ten minutes—but then I realise that would be trying to play a fakehook-up scenario over the top of a fake-boyfriend scenario. How many layers of fake can you really have? I need to draw the line.

Stop making plans that hinge on people pretending to like you.

If any of them had stormed off into the night, alone, I would have chased after them. I would have been worried they were upset, and worried they were unsafe. I would have noticed they didn’t have a jacket and would get cold. I would have cared! I always care.

No one came chasing after me. Not my sister, not my housemate, not even my ex who claims he still cares about me.

Not Jesse.

I walk back to the karaoke bar, and I have a new speech ready to go in my head.