What Mandy Busyman Did

Mandy's Fault

Jenna

I regretted agreeing to my mom's offering. I regretted listening to her small voice as her dark brown eyes lured me in like a kid wanting a chocolate bar. It was only first hour and I was already blaming it on my moms wide eyes as she asked me a simple question:

3 months ago. . .

"Would you rather go to Rain County schools? Mandy goes there you know!" My mom exclaimed as she held my normal hand in her clammy hand. 

I shook my moms hand off, her sweat etching onto my hand. It was making me uncomfortable and like I had to make a decision that would change mankind as we know it. I looked at her worried expression, the expression of wasted money and time. The expression that persuades you into whatever they want. I stared at that expression on my mother's face, her lips curled and hair frizzy in all directions. Bills and tuition were sitting next to her, a pile of disorganized envelopes. 

"Um," I managed to say, nothing coming out of my dry lips. The thought of going to another school scared the living crap out of me and I wasn't ready to go through that. I didn't want to give her a yes, it wasn't in my plans necessarily. 

My mom sighed,"I need you to do this Jenna. For me." 

I thought about it. It barely seemed like my thought though, more like I was in my mother's head. I was forming answers beyond what I could answer, such as: 

What if Mandy turns her back and bullies me?

 What if I'm a loser and keep tripping over my own feet as a hot guy looks on and trips too because I'm so clumsy? 

What if I hate it there?

What if I want to kill myself because how depressed I am there?

What if I develop social anxiety?

These questions seem silly now, but they were important to my well-being at the time. 

I finally managed to make my fears come true, "Okay. I'll do it. For you." 

"Good," my mom patted my hand and then rubbed her hands together as if she realized her hands were in fact very sweaty. I smiled without showing my teeth, like a closed smile that could only be understood if you knew what the conversation was about.  My mom sighed and walked to the kitchen, the wooden floors creaking underneath her small feet. She ambled off and took a black hair binder from off her wrist and sloppily made a bun that rested barely on top of her head. 

I started to walk away, realizing I could've possibly made the worst decision in my life. I noticed how everything seemed so quiet now, now that Mom had gotten the answer she wanted. And as I tried to figure out what the heck was wrong with me about making an immense deal about just moving to a different school, I realized the pit of my worries was all Mandy. What Mandy would do, if she would accept me there, if her friends and her would bully and harass me, that social anxiety would develop because of her, it was Mandy's fault for making me feel this way. It was Mandy's fault for being pretty  and perfect and all things lovely. It was her fault for making me feel like a loser at her pool party when I couldn't do anything to help her. 

So I don't know why I went to her party. I didn't know. Maybe I went because I wanted somewhere to belong. That maybe sitting on her sticky lounge chairs by the speakers playing deafening music as her friends played with a plastic ball in the blue and over-chlorinated pool would make me cool. That it would make me somebody. But all it did was make me more like a nobody. The dread that crept over me at that party made me realize it wasn't worth it. It wasn't worth it to be with Mandy if I felt stupid and oblivious to what could happen.