The Kind of Person You Are

Chapter 6: A Bit More Normal

Axel and I keep meeting, usually once or twice a week at his house. I keep teaching him to improve his trumpet skills, and he basically teaches me his own personal human psychology course. Of course, I do the other things he suggested as well- the hygiene stuff, and every once in a while he'll reappraise my appearance and suggest something else for me to do.

Keira and I are still not speaking, which makes school life hard. I kind of get through the day like Cody does- not really talking much to anyone during classes, and hanging out together at lunch. We move to the couches near my locker instead though, because first of all, I don't know where Keira is eating lunch anymore and I feel way too guilty to even chance seeing her, and second, I'm hoping that the girls Cody and I used to stare at will kind of forget that we used to do that when I try to move in on them.

I considered sharing my newfound knowledge on how to talk to girls with Cody, but I decided against it. Mostly because I don't know how to explain it as well as Axel does, and because I don't have any idea how to explain that I'm now going to a giant mansion twice a week which is home to the person I used to hate and also kind of destroyed my friendship with Keira over. So. Yeah.

I know Axel and Keira are still friends, though from what I've heard from him, she's not talking to him as much. I'm not entirely sure if it's because of me or something else, but I feel guilty for it anyways.

Guilt is such a disgusting feeling. I hate it. It's all heavy and sickening and overwhelming.
Fortunately, I have (mostly) appeased my guilt for being a horrible person to Axel by teaching him trumpet, though I am sort of also really benefitting from it. I tell myself that I'm making up for it by letting him kind of befriend me. I mean, I wouldn't say we're friends. I'd say I don't resent him anymore, which I force myself to believe is enough.

Anyways.

"I really think you should apologize to Keira," Axel tells me one day, just before his trumpet lesson. "You'll feel better. And you'll both be happier."

"Start with this," I tell him, picking the hardest song we have for band purely out of spite.

"You can't feel good about it. And it's going to be really hard to avoid her when we go on the band trip."

I ignore him, setting up the metronome app on my phone.

"Plus, you guys have been inseparable pretty much since grade nine, right? I'm sure you don't want to-"

"We weren't inseparable," I interrupt without really wanting to. "It was more just a convenient friendship, since we're both pretty difficult to deal with and we were the only people who could tolerate each other every day."

"Maybe that's how it started," he counters. "But I'm sure you got a lot closer after that. Four years is a lot of time to just tolerate someone."

"No, I'm pretty sure it was just toleration. She's super argumentative and nagged me about everything, and I'm super cynical and resentful and she had to deal with my constant sarcastic remarks- usually by nagging me about being nicer."