The Note
I didn’t know where else to go. I had made it through this horrible day, and now I was bereft. My feet find the quickest route through town, and I turn onto the side street where the little white house sits. I’ve spent countless days and nights there. It feels almost as much my home as the real one. I’m not sure if she’ll speak to me- perhaps she shouldn’t after the way I’ve treated her, but the fact that she didn’t sign the note gives me hope.
The note. My stomach clenches and I nearly sob.
Middle school is fraught with peril for adolescent girls, and eighth grade was no exception for me. That morning, I had received a note from no fewer than eighteen of my classmates, telling me how I am awful. I am stuck up. I am a bitch. I play basketball with the boys instead of sitting with the girls at lunchtime. I am full of myself. Everyone hates me. I should fuck off. I am ugly. No one likes me. I suck. Eighteen of my classmates wrote individual messages and signed them. At school, no one speaks to me. Even kids who weren’t in my friend group give me the cold shoulder. People whisper as I walk by. I eat lunch by myself, read a book during recess. It is humiliating.
The words in the note sting, but I have to admit, some of them are deserved. I haven’t always been kind. In my bid for popularity, I have occasionally been sucked into the horrible behaviors of so-called “mean girls”. The insecurities that plague girls and turn them into vicious monsters at this age are real. I had those insecurities, plus I was angry at the world for a childhood trauma I hadn’t even begun to process. In middle school, these insecurities play out as jealousy and feeling threatened by others’ success, beauty, happiness, clothes…whatever.
The funny thing is, by eighth grade, I was outgrowing those behaviors. I was mostly a good kid now, avoiding the drama. Perhaps that’s why the note was a punch in the gut. In the past, I definitely deserved it; but now? Does playing basketball with the boys instead of gossiping in the bleachers with the girls really make me the horrible person the note says I am?
The mean girl behavior had never come easily to me. Even as an adolescent, I had a well-developed guilt complex (see “Pecan Sandies”). And even though I am adept at being mean, I can never forgive myself afterward. I remember every horrible thing I’ve ever done, and I hate myself for it.
Throughout the day, I read and reread the pages of crumpled paper, committing the horrible words and who said them to memory. I refuse to cry, but my eyes sting and my cheeks burn red. I consider the amount of effort and organization that went into getting this many people to participate. It must have taken days. But yesterday the people who had already written these terrible things had sat with me and pretended to be my friends.
On the last page, the note reads, “Lots more people wanted to sign this, but we ran out of time,” and I wonder how a deadline for such a thing is set. Why rush? Were they afraid that if the bulging wad of papers wasn’t shoved into my hand first thing this morning that it’s effect would be blunted?
Then I consider who didn’t sign the note, and I feel worse. Rachel. If anyone had reason to say horrible things to me, she did. She had been my best friend since kindergarten. We had weathered a lot; but lately, we had struggled. Perhaps her anger at her parents’ divorce and my anger at being abused peaked simultaneously and it just made us angry with each other, but we had not been kind. At a recent sleep over we had gotten into an argument, making the other girls uncomfortable. Another day, she had been jokingly slapping my face. I told her to stop. When she didn’t I hit her in the mouth, cutting her lip on her braces. I rolled my eyes at her stories. Bitched about her to other friends. Felt constantly annoyed.
There is no doubt in my mind that she was asked to sign the note. She was likely one of the first. Why hadn’t she signed it? I had been a shit friend during the hardest time in her life. I had been catty, and jealous, and stuck up- all of the things that the note said I was.
By the end of the day, I am defeated. I skip the bus home. Walking through town by myself, I think how usually I do this with Rachel or a big group of friends. We stop at the gas station or the pharmacy and buy candy. I have never felt so alone.
I arrive at Rachel’s house, and I let myself in, following the sound of her voice to the living room. She is sitting on the couch, talking on the phone about me. She looks at me in surprise and says into the receiver, “Um, she’s here. I’ll call you back.”
I collapse into an armchair and weep. Rachel looks at me unsympathetically as I cry, big gulping sobs escaping me. When I finally compose myself, I say, “Why didn’t you sign it?”
“Because I’ll tell you myself.”
“Are you mad at me?”
“Yes.”
I feel shame unlike any I’ve felt before. I didn’t blame her for being mad. I had been awful to her when she needed me most. Yet she hadn’t piled on with the others. She was here, talking to me, telling me how I had hurt her and that she wouldn’t put up with it and to get my shit together.
“I’m so sorry,” I say, and I mean it. She forgives me.
The next day at school, Rachel is by my side, and within another few days, the eighteen people who signed the note seemed to forget what a horrible person they thought I was. They speak to me as though nothing happened.
Life returned to normal, but I didn’t forget. I kept the note all through high school, rereading it from time to time. It kept me humble. It reminded me of whom I could trust. And it reminded me of the value of true friendship.
I have never forgotten how Rachel’s loyalty made me feel, how her maturity helped me grow, how her kindness made me want to be the type of friend that she was to me. In that moment, I learned that one good friend far outweighs eighteen fair weather friends.
Rachel’s mother moved her to the West Coast the following year. We wrote letters and visited when she came home. Years later, I went to college and formed the best friendships of my life. I became the type of friend she had taught me to be. And then, after visiting me there, Rachel gave me another gift: she enrolled there, too. Reunited at last, we shared more adventures, laughter, and tears. Still today, forty years since kindergarten, we are sisters in friendship. I believe that I am now the friend she deserves. I would take one hundred more kids signing that mean note for that lesson and that gift. Thanks, Rachee.