The Budding Roses

The Aubergine

Saturday 19th September

I'm stabbing an aubergine. I found it in the vegetable basket, its waxy purple skin, so plump, begged for me to touch it.

Placed on a chopping board, I started by slicing it into nice clean pieces, but the way the knife cut through the taut flesh so readily, just made me want to stab it, hard. Oh it was such a release, and before my decorum knew any control, warm tears were streaming down my burning face.

I am perhaps a little over emotional, having drunk nearly half a bottle of red wine in the company of no-one, and suddenly, knife in hand, I'm profoundly aware of my isolation, alone in the kitchen on a Saturday night, mauling a vegetable to death.

Okay so I'm not totally alone in my consumption of alcohol, for Mother and Daddy are drunk too, engaging in some kind of debauched sex act in the living room, playing music way too loud, and laughing way too much for people their age. Yuck.

'Shut up!' I banged on the wall, ravaged with embarrassment. Is this the type of activity they normally indulge in on a Saturday night? Fortunately I wouldn't know since I'm not "normally" with them, I'm "normally" in the company of my peer group at said time of the week. Oh yes, my lovingly loyal, considerate peers. What a bunch of back stabbing whores more like. Where might they be now? Oh yes, let me remind myself, some girl Fliss is having a party.

'Maybe if you'd made more of an effort to be sociable then you would have been invited.' Natasha is a complete cow.

'Are you going too?' I had punched Harry in the arm when he had refused to disclose his plans for the weekend, 'you're such a tramp, and how come everyone except me seems to have been invited?'

'Fliss is very protective about her space,' Natasha reported gleefully, 'and so she's only inviting people who are "real friends".'

I still can't believe that both Harry and Natasha received an invite yet I didn't. How are they even remotely close to being "real friends" with this girl; someone they've known for only a handful of days?

I slinked over to Liam, so desperate not to be alone on a Saturday night that I was willing to reach this worst slutty low, because he would be overjoyed at the opportunity to spend an evening alone with me, he does love me after all.

'I'm happy to go out with you earlier in the evening, but the party starts at eight o'clock, so we'll have to be done by then, okay?' Have to be done by then? Why that's certainly no way to win my heart, by making me sound like a prostitute to be paid by the hour, you hopeless wannabe suitor! 'You know that I'd love to invite you,' he continued, 'but it's Fliss's "friend's only" party.' All of this "friends only" talk makes me want to puke, preferably right on to her doormat.

And so I have left the pile of aubergine innards spewing out to rot across the kitchen work surface. Mother needs to see for herself what she has driven me to, and perhaps she might care to share it with my scummy so called friends too?

But for now I have retreated to my bedroom. It's 7:45pm and I'm laid out across the duvet. At least I have stopped crying, for I do have one friend remaining after all, he's smiling at me right now, from his position hanging crookedly on the wall.

'How I've neglected you,' I pawed at the ragged edged poster, stroking at his neat stubble, 'yet still you remain loyal. I love you Jamie Redknapp. Do you think you would like to take me on a date some time? Oh you would, that's a wonderful, pick me up in half an hour. Great!'