One consequence of Beth being over all the time is that she's starting to get used to me. She doesn't seem nervous around me anymore. Not even a little bit. Sometimes I feel like she can predict what I'm going to say next, and it bores her, or scares her, or something...I don't know.
She gets on my nerves sometimes, too. We'll be talking about something, then she'll say something that doesn't make sense to me but won't clarify what she means. Or she'll go on and on about some subject that I couldn't care less about—like a story she likes from one of the Gospels, or her Aunt's pet ferret, or a British TV show I've never heard of—and never get the hint that I'm not interested. She'll blast Underoath on her portable speaker, even after I tell her I have a headache, and then get irritated when I ask her to turn it down.
I've been getting into these moods occasionally. I get quiet, pretend nothing's wrong, then stop talking entirely, or tell her outright that I want to be alone. And she desperately tries to pull me out of the mood, asking repeatedly if there's anything she can do, making suggestions for how we can turn the day around, wearing this expression of guilt like my mood is entirely her fault.
I don't know whose fault it is, but it feels like the onus is on me to fix it.
To make myself feel better, to make her feel better.
But I can't. I don't know how...
And then I realize that what it probably means is that I can't handle the responsibility of making another person happy. It's just beyond my capacity.
She's grieving the death of her mom and I'm the moody one, the one who needs someone to make them feel better. I hate it... but I don't know how to stop.
I also hate how nice she is to me when I'm like this, how hard she tries to make me feel better. I don't deserve it. I don't understand how she can't see that. Doesn't she have any self-respect?
I get quiet and distant, she tries to pull me out of it, and then eventually she just gives up and leaves me alone.
Then I miss her, like a sap, and get this sudden rush of feeling for her.
Maybe things go back to normal for a minute... and then the cycle repeats.
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Alternative
Teen FictionTim's public high school experience thus far has been characterized by bad grades and the total absence of a social life; he's listless and needs a change. So, after grade eleven ends, his mom decides to enrol him in a bizarre, little alternative sc...
