Horrible & Lovely
a short story
Horrible & Lovely
By Ophelia Everfall
Alison was Abby’s first mutual crush.
It had been third grade, and they’d been staring at each other across Ms. Stroh’s classroom, when Abby first realized herself enamored with girls. Alison seemed to stow something special behind her eyes for Abby too. They kind of just sat there staring at each other all the time.
Everyone else saw Alison differently than Abby. She’d been the only African American girl in their entire grade. Abby could tell the others missed her for the difference; Alison was a kindest, brightest sort.
They were crushing hard that year, but paralyzed, unable to speak about it. Abby wouldn’t remember a single spoken word. Alison seemed expectant for her to make the move. They just sat there, and smiled at each other, a lot, until the year ended. Things got awkward after that. Grades ticked into the past. Moments shared were strange and avoidant.
Abby was still looking Alison’s way. She’d never stopped staring. She didn’t really understand what went wrong. All the others called her names. Abby wasn’t treated well within her family either. Nothing made sense without friends, so she’d taken what was available.
Growing up abused and sheltered led Abby to reform into something she was not, over again. Expectations were thrust upon her always. She hadn’t shaken it off until junior high, when her friend Chris, someone she actually met in third grade, henceforth separated throughout their time at elementary, was assigned two classes with Abby in seventh grade and promptly insulted the weakness out of her. That was when she’d finally started letting herself out a little.
Alone most often, time wasted away for Abby while playing games with herself, only making friends with the boys who treated her less poorly. Once in a while she’d make a friend who mattered at school. Those friendships wouldn’t extend through the quarter she shared a class with whatever girl that was, or the portion of time they’d be sitting next to each other. Every longest while she’d gotten a chance to show herself to a young woman, and they’d all seem to love Abby, but then they’d end up looking at her strangely and despising her.
Abby loved girls who loved girls. She always wanted to be friends with another one too. One day, she’d love women who loved women.
There were a few imitatively romantic relationships throughout her schooling years. They were all of hiding, running, and avoidance, after initial flirtations.
Once, near the end of junior high, and then in phases throughout high-school, Abby had been friends with a young woman named Kristin. She’d hurt them most by pretending herself not interested romantically, with callousness, spoken to their shared friend who approached Abby with the revelation of Kristin’s interest.
Abby hadn’t wanted to taint her one friendship with a girl. The way they’d met had been a strangest happening of all times. It was the length of a single field trip when she’d met Kristin. And it was bizarre the way they were immediately leaning into each other fully while walking around that ropes course.
She lost Kristin as a friend after pretending to be mean and disinterested when put on the spot so abrasively and flirtatiously. That girl who Kristin sent was a manipulator and liked Abby’s attention.
Abby still saw Kristin a few times after that, as friends, but it was increasingly awkward. When they’d put on a dress and shatter preconceptions with every single classmate for how their grace would hide in plainclothes, Abby had to excuse herself. She even felt that aimed directly at her heart once. Kristin wore a blue dress she wouldn’t ever forget. She’d been walking into a formal Abby wasn’t joining part of, not too long after Abby had been accosted with their proposal. That just felt an odd moment, seeing Krisin hang there so long in the parking lot. The universe works in mysterious ways.
Kristin was a most beautiful sort. Abby would regret that false assertion of disinterest she’d made to their friend always. Even if it was unfair to have sent someone she didn’t enjoy. Brianna had wrecked Abby’s heart in junior high after stealing her interest from someone else.
Girls expected Abby to chase them and she didn’t understand. She just wanted someone to want her back and to have a girlfriend too. She needed someone to be brave and take the kiss. Never had Abby felt pursued in that way she needed. It was as if something made her a toxin of popularity, unless she’d been playing the clown.
During ninth grade, her final year of junior high, she had tried leaning into that. She became the most popular loser in school. Abby even won ‘Class Clown’ in the yearbook to prove it.
She also took a seat in her high-school’s student government by giving the speech of all speeches, running a satirical campaign of all campaigns, utilizing every power to take the seat from a crush; the owner of the worst and best dreams she’d ever have was to fall. Her name was Jordan.
They were the hardest crush she’d ever crushed. Abby wanted to take them down. Yet it was a flimsy hope obscuring the truth — she’d wanted them both to be on the council together. There were two seats being vied for.
Abby had been telling people of how she wanted to make Jordan cry. She was a bully and she’d not even known. It was the way that girl who she’d felt most brightly had spurned her unknowing, of no fault their own, still felt all the same, for which Abby had lashed out through malice.
Jordan was too pretty. She’d been popular too.
Abby thought about talking to Jordan occasionally. Although, it felt as if others would look down upon her for believing in that possibility. Jordan would look at her sideways when she caught Abby peeking. She could waft the stenchiest of faces.
It wasn’t all Jordan’s fault. Abby had been a little bitch. She was just confused. She didn’t know how mean she’d been. Abby was a bitter girl. Something about the way Jordan had seemingly compromised Abby’s estimation of her intelligence, for privilege, with their math teacher, had set them off to hate the girl.
Jordan was who Abby loved because they were the smartest. She’d been playing dumb for their math teacher. He was a dunce. She’d not understand the weight of his attention earned. Abby had only wanted compassionate help completing her answers too. She projected in anger always. Abby hated nothing more than watching her idol of heart becoming some disguise within their culture of infantilization. Except for math. Abby hated math most of all.
She’d just been cheating the whole way through.
When Abby won a spot in that election, second place, well behind some popular boy, she thought herself happy. She’d been laughing uproariously with her friend who helped with that last-minute campaign by handing out little hand-ripped fliers that read one thing unanimously.
Mmm… Grape Juice.
She’d been beaming when the winners were announced.
All of Abby’s teachers were awfully proud of her, except Mr. Carpine — the skeptic. He was her favorite, and by far. He’d been the history teacher she loved. Mark was a father to everyone. Each class was a lecture, unless they were working group projects, or competing in some mental competition which Abby owned wholly.
Her favorite was a singular moment, when he’d only started a question, reading those first two words, as her and some boy were standing next to each other in the center of his mocked-up, game-show-set classroom. Abby just knew the answer. Something about Mark Carpine’s method of choosing, and the lack of content to choose from, provided Abby’s mind with the name of that ship quite instantaneously.
Mark froze. His eyebrows raised. He hadn’t read another word while Abby walked up to that whiteboard, his smile growing slowly with an unbelieving turn of the head, afraid to watch the little witch, then proud of himself for cutting off the question so quickly to test her, puffing his chest in challenge, leaning back forwards, genuinely hyped for getting to watch her try. She’d written the correct name to his greatest pleasure of dismay.
Abby didn’t know why the other kids seemed scared of her.
When Abby won her place in that election. Mr. Carpine was the last teacher she saw. She had to go out of her way. He’d laughed in her face for the obvious pride stowed within her blatantly mistimed appearance. He knew Abby has only been running for the chaos and lost herself in the pomp.
Mark said, “It was good speech. Very—everyman.”
While it wasn’t the compliment Abby expected after being gassed up by the other teachers so completely. It was exactly the kind of challenging, earnest reflection she’d respect most from the man, or anyone for that matter. The truth could never dull her gleam. It only set Abby right.
Her joy that day, a lie above her glow of affirmation, lasted right up until she’d actually seen Jordan crying. She wasn’t trying to hide it from Abby as she’d stormed passed in the hallway. It was awful. Jordan knew Abby didn’t really care about being on the student council. Abby had gotten what she’d pretended to want, and it would deflate her entirely from wielding that brand of manifested falsehood going forward.
Abby knew she acted out because of that kiss she’d dreamt of, with Jordan, after they first met. Then another, where it was as if they were the same age, but older than everyone else too.
She felt rotten every time she saw Jordan after that. Especially when Mr. Chad Johnson found some right within himself to campaign for the overthrowing of Abby’s election on Jordan’s behalf. Especially when she saw Jordan standing beside him with her deadliest glare. Still, Abby had deigned to shake it off.
Chad found it advantageous to discover that Abby had been dragged into trouble by one of her friends. It was that same cruel boy who had been passing out her election fliers.
They’d been satirical anarchists together.
Weeks had been spent on a timeless gag with Emory. Firstly, the two would gather attention from some unsuspecting victim amidst their educational process. Next, they would glue a bottle of glue to a desk, eye-contacting, a haphazard process, Elmer’s was the key, retaining their stares for some time before and after. Both would then back away with falsest intimidation, speaking in varied tones of over-seriousness. Most often, Emory would tilt his head to one side, often lifting his arms up and out, as they’d each speak it plainly, “The Revolution.”
They thought that move up, in tandem. Emory performed that first gluing, between them, upon a desk, and Abby had spoken those fateful words with an open stare his way.
Emory was a child of poetry and had a chip on his shoulder. He just needed love too. In high school he’d left their friendship for dating a possessive girl, and that confused Abby’s feelings. Eventually she’d stolen another girl right out from under him, but that girl was the wrong kind of possessive too, and moreso. They were also a Christian psychotic.
Abby knew better than to feel bad. She was saving that girl from Emory.
She stuck it out just a while with Paige, to let them down extra hard, and hurt herself the worst by putting up with it for so long.
At school, to spite Mr. Chad, and especially Jordan beside him, remembering forever that cross-armed condemnation of such plainly spoken petulance, wielding power of pretty-girlhood’s privilege, Abby fought mercilessly to keep her seat in student government.
Abby won that fight, and she never smiled towards that leering, mouth-breathing man again. She’d glared into his face when he tried to shake her hand at their graduation.
She always felt bad towards Jordan. Nothing ever hurt worse than seeing her cry. There was a layer added when she found herself unable to care about the meaningless fundraising tasks of student government. She stopped going after their first meeting. Abby made one car wash. She’d been complaining the whole way through and left to see X2: X-Men United — a second time — with her friend Nik.
Near the end of high school there were many parties. So many that even Abby found herself invited to a few that weren’t just full of sexually coercive boy-cult who unironically named themselves, “The Horseman”. At one of those sane gatherings, she’d been on a couch, but unlike the usual, her company was better. She’d been sitting across from Alison and her boyfriend. They were two of the most popular kids in school. He’d been the other winner of that lamest, most incompetently competent speech contest in ninth grade.
They had too much fun talking between the three of them. Even Ryan, who had once been some rival of Abby’s in the gym, each pushing harder than the others in their own most disparate ways. They were the two best basketball players of their junior high teams, though Abby was overshadowed by all others unjustly. She hated them for never passing her the ball, Ryan especially. She’d simply watched him miss too many shots.
Mr. Johnson was the coach. He had no idea what he was doing. Ryan wasn’t even good at basketball, only strong for his age and popular.
Alison and Ryan seemed blown away by what Abby was actually like at that party. It had been a first. She’d never been around a crowd so mixed of gender, and full of people she actually wanted to meet.
Abby had recently began smoking pot, and it helped her find relaxation about how sad she’d been. Abby finally seemed cool to some people, sometimes, but nobody understood what was beneath her surface. Many would never believe.
Alison was smiling at her that night, just like third grade. They were flirting right in front of Ryan. He didn’t really know, but he knew, and didn’t seem to be anything but flabbergasted. He believed it as harmless, and not realized their feelings shared were more than he might ever know. Abby loved it. She was too excited.
That next week at school had been another in a long line of similar disappointments. She was still uncool there. People just went right back to their rhythms of normality in the crowd. Abby had been hiding in the bathroom a lot that week. People were always looking at her strangely. Everyone thought they understood Abby, but she didn’t really know anyone, and nobody knew her back. She’d lost herself. No one ever witnessed her but Jordan, that once or twice, something in their eyes excited by the type of girl Abby was.
By the end of high school, Abby just hated everything, and time at home the most. All she ever wanted was to love someone. She’d see couples in the bleachers at the football games melting into each other, and her sister with their boyfriends snuggling on the beanbag. All Abby really wanted was to have someone like that.
Only once did Abby have a girl upon her own bed. Victoria had been from Mr. Carpine’s class. Two others in the room had ruined the mood. Victoria was on top of Abby then, pinning her. It was an unmemorable memory. The two had been playing footsie in their classroom all quarter and Abby’s interest was projection. Victoria had been sitting next to Courtney, who was modest, the sweetheart, of some broadest humor, and Abby liked her more.
Victoria didn’t kiss Abby. She got close though.
They were never really friends.
People made fun of Abby for being a “pussy” in high school. It didn’t feel very good. That made her hate everyone more than anything. Nobody had ever taken care of her feelings the way she needed.
Abby was a loser her whole life.
One last party and it was over. Abby hadn’t been invited to many.
Graduation went by quickly. Summer too. Nothing seemed to happen for Abby before she was to leave town. She’d been able to get into the best film school nearby. Truthfully, she just wanted out of her parents’ house as soon as possible.
There was a friend she’d known for some longest time — a boy named Troy. He was a sweet guy underneath. Everybody knew it. He’d just been roughed up, and kids could tell. His father was not a good man. It was read on his brother’s face as well. Abby always forgave Troy for anything; people got him wrong. She hated him a lot of the time too.
Troy went to live in Thailand as an English teacher and stayed.
Once, Abby had called Troy on his phone, in some great scheme concocted over an extended period of time, Abby’s original idea, and asked the boy for his phone number. He’d given it to her.
Sometimes girls crush on guys and hate them most at the same time. Sometimes women crush on men and do the same. Those are called dykes.
That last party, a final night with people from her school, had been a most special and tragic thing. There was one greatest surprise left.
Jordan was there and everything was different — somehow renewed. They had only glared at each other throughout high school. They were both going off soon after. Jordan seemed happy for Abby.
Abby was only relieved they’d seen each other again, and pining, but she was pretending to be happy for Jordan all the same.
Jordan was the last person she talked to from high school before leaving town. Nothing felt more divine than to say goodbye that way. Jordan was someone her heart always loved most, and it wasn’t for the dreams she’d had about them throughout her years.
They talked by the campfire for a long time. It was the second sweetest night of Abby’s entire youth. The two had met once before junior high, then ran into each other on their first day while walking in the front door. They’d both gone to different elementaries but seemed to run into each other oddly throughout those years.
At least, it felt that way to Abby’s remembrance.
Jordan’s face had been a most familiar one.
That other best night of Abby’s youth was spent at a fair. She’d met Jordan there properly. It was in sixth grade, the last of elementary. They had seen each other around before but never talked. They were flirting in front of their friends shamelessly.
Jordan was a brainy girl, and Abby was the smitten type. With attention from someone like Jordan, a rarest breed, one of a few she’d ever meet that way to begin with, trained upon her, Abby would melt.
They had played a game at that fair, then slid a slide. Jordan had been the reason Abby was excited for junior high in the first place, even before they ran into each other on their first day. She’d not seemed to care at all that Abby didn’t ride the rides, even if she was egging her on. Jordan was the only young woman ever to be kind about her refusal to bear human constructions so teetering. She even shmoozed Abby to go on one first refused. She had only ridden it that once, some oldest coaster which set off her anxiety from the structures up. Jordan had convinced her it was part of the fun.
At the very end of that most beautiful night, there had been a funhouse which Abby never truly left.
It had been the first taste of anything reciprocally sweet for Abby. Jordan made her heart burn. She was the only girl who’d ever spoken earnestly of interest, directly, to Abby’s face, taking lead, all throughout her many years. Jordan was forward, gloriously abrasive, with the most gorgeously infectious laugh anyone might know. She was a beauty of mind and features alike.
To let all that false hurt go in the end, and move on with some sense of meaningful hope, would be seen as both blessing and the curse of curses. Abby’s lifetime spent; that night at Troy’s by the fire with Jordan, from the very start, and especially through the end, had been a tragic poem of love.
Jordan and Abby hadn’t seen each other again after that. They didn’t expect to.
Neither of them was anything but brilliant. They’d hung on there, that night by the fire, and as long as they could. They were letting other people see. It was beyond obvious again. They’d known it hopeless but bled their hearts the same, and for each other. Neither of them wanted it to be the end it was.
They had shared a greatest, and most releasing hug. It was a saddest thing, but Abby was too happy for those feelings to cry. She only teared up as Jordan was pulling away.
Always, forever, Abby would remember that goodbye warmly.
Time where she might find a person to exist beside her, in energies of mutually shared compassion, evenly and synchronous, joyously romantic, of fire and freedom, beyond that felt with Jordan in their few passing moments, simply never came. Not for a long time, and then only once, on one night, when someone else Abby loved the most who had wanted her back, in that way she always dreamed; they’d taken a kiss.
