The Olive Theory

Chapter 8

AMICA

My tears had dried after crying for almost an hour. My eyes were swollen, stinging, and red. I felt the crust linger, clinging to my flushed cheeks. I sucked in a breath, attempting to compose myself. While I was crying, sobbing, desperate and hopeless, letting my eyes run until there was nothing, no tears left to shed, I kept feeling a continuous vibration brushing on my left thigh, taking brief pauses before buzzing again. My phone was buried in the pocket of my latex pants. Notification after notification, the sound of my weeps, sniffles, and the faint sound of the buzzing echoed through the empty room, bouncing off the solemnly bleak gray walls. But I couldn't bring myself to check; to stare at my screen, run my eyes over everything everyone had said.

I clenched my fist. I unclenched it. I clenched it again, tighter this time. Deeper this time, deeper I dug my nails into my palm, into my skin.

I knew why it was buzzing, and that was why I was so scared to look. Terrified. I was terrified to look. Terrified of this phone, this object I had in my possession that allowed me to easily learn what people saw when they looked at me now. I know I shouldn't care - I know I shouldn't - but this person - this image - I had spent the past 16 years of my life creating, building, and perfecting, had crumbled around me in mere seconds, at the hands of my best friend. All my secrets, the words I kept pushed down deep in my throat, were knocked out of me. Hung up to dry like clothes on a line, hung up for everyone to see, to mock, to judge. Everyone saw how pathetic, how desperate I was to try to be normal, and I couldn't stop it. I couldn't hold up the walls as they fell apart around me. So I ran away, I hid, like I always do. I felt like I was spinning, and spinning, and spinning; trying to break free from this nauseating dizziness. I don't know why I was letting her words get to me. Lily always says similar things to me and I try not to take it to heart. Sure, I'll stumble over my words as I respond to her snarky comments, but I won't think about them as I lay awake at night. Natalia's words were somehow different. They had struck a chord in me that I couldn't shake off. I couldn't stop asking myself the same questions - was this the real Natalia? Were those words what she truly thought of me? Maybe, tomorrow, she'll apologize; with a witting grin and fake empathy glimmering in her eyes, and blame it on the alcohol. Or maybe, she'll cackle, tower over me in her bright pink three-inch high boots as she points dead at my face and tells me she meant everything she said. I pinched the bridge of my nose, letting out a deep breath. I brought my hand to my side, felt for the cold metal of the zipper, and pulled it down. I pushed my hand into my pocket and grabbed my phone. I had to check. I was scared, but I had to; I had to see what people were saying about me. I bit down on my bottom lip and pressed my finger across the numbers on my screen to unlock my phone. To no surprise, I had about 50 notifications from both Snap and Instagram - people all tagging me in their stories. The video was posted so many times I couldn't count even if I tried. Most of them were just ones of Natalia hissing her drunken words at me, heels planted on the wood of the table, but there were even a few of me vomiting on Peter's white button-up as he clung to my arms in confusion, a slight look of disgust across his face with his nose scrunched up ever so slightly. That gloomy feeling of humiliation crept up on me again as my throat stung, my dry red eyes turned wet and my face flushed with intense heat. Why was I being punished with this embarrassment, when Natalia was the one making a fool of herself? It puzzled me. And I was mad about it. My thumb fumbled up to the power off button. I was a moment away from pressing down to shut it off and then I saw a text. My eyes widened. My chest tightened. An apology, perhaps, from a certain best friend? I wondered, but not for long as I clicked on the message.

A text from an unknown number.

Unknown: Are you okay? Where are you?

I clicked on it and typed out a response.