Jodee

Chapter 31 - No Longer Hidden

For the rest of the day I was in a bad mood.

I hated conflict and there was a lot of conflict going on right now. Not to mention, I had the next two classes after lunch with Aubrey so the tension was very high.

The first class I had after lunch was math with Aubrey — and we were partners. The project was to make a detailed image of something using just equations to make circles and lines and parabolas and those sorts of things. This was worth a lot of points and we got two in class days to work on it. Today was the very first day.

For the entire class period, Aubrey and I never spoke.

Correction: Aubrey never spoke.

I tried to talk to her countless times during the project so we could solve our issues or at least get to work on this assignment. But, the only thing she did was surf on her phone — we're allowed our phones in math class because my teacher just really doesn't care. I tried to ask her what image she wanted to make or what part of the project she wanted to do. But Aubrey didn't say anything. She didn't even tell me to shut up, she just acted like I wasn't there.

Acting like someone doesn't exist and yelling at them are two ways of approaching the situation. I'm not sure which one hurts worse.

In this particular instance I would prefer the latter. I would rather Aubrey yell at me and have a conversation so I can explain or make her feel better or just attempt to clear the air. But she has made it very clear that will not be happening anytime soon. At lunch with all of our friends and with the silent treatment I have been receiving.

I'm all for sweeping things (arguments) under the rug, I think it's great, love the tactic. But I absolutely hate it when someone is quiet mad. This is when they're mad at you and you know it but they refuse to tell you what they're mad about or how you can try to solve it. That is worse than having a full blown argument.

My hate for Quiet Mad runs deep; The one person I will do anything for them not to be mad at me is my brother. When Ace is mad at me he dishes out a punishment which is non negotiable and makes sure I know exactly what he is mad about. But he can hold a grudge for a long time. Although I always know what he's mad about, he never tells me how I can fix our relationship. It just usually takes time, but that entire time I'm stressed.

My relationship with my brother — and Caleb — is the most important thing to me. It's really the only thing that matters to me at the end of day. So I work pretty hard to make sure we don't fight, and if we do I'm usually the first to apologize.

Aubrey not working on the project has gotten me pretty stressed and made me a little on edge or meaner because of the stress. I knew tonight I would have to do a lot of homework to make up the time we lost in class due to our fight.

But I also needed her opinion on what we were doing the project about so I can actually work on it. After some debating I decided to send her a text asking — partly because it was the end of school so she was probably driving home, but also because I was too much of a coward to speak to her face.

Me — hey, Aub! Sry abt the sleepover again, pls tell me what i can do to make it up 2 u or when we can talk abt it.

I decided to first send her a text apologizing and asking her to talk again so Aubrey knew that I really did care about her and our friendship, and not just about the project. But I also needed to know the answer about our project so I sent another text.

Me — abt our math project – what do u want 2 do it on? I can do some for hw since we didn't do anything in class.

Me — pls just write me back, xxxxx