Bee, Stung

I don’t know if she remembers, but it stings me every time that I do. It has been six years. Six years of growing my confidence and finding root in my principles. Still, when I think of my role in that night, that simple act of exclusion, my stomach sinks to the floor, and I feel that I’ve lost the right to live. Wondering if I owe her an apology. Wondering who remembers.

We’re all adults now, but we are seventeen or eighteen in my mind. Eager to be cool. Eager to do what it takes. We are a memory. We are complicit, to this day. 

It’s easy enough to sink back into the memory. Once again, I do.

It is March of 2014. I am a senior in high school, as are the other girls in the memory. I do something brave, something for myself, something that I think will make my future-self smile when I look back at the memories labeled: Senior Prom, 2014. I’m a shy girl with no prom date and no friends to go with. My supposed friends are either in a group of couples, a group with a label that I don’t possess, or a group full of people who probably don’t know I exist. For a girl, it’s acceptable to go “stag” with a group. For a girl like me, finding a group to go with is the only way to go to prom. For a high school girl, you can’t not go to prom. How will you live with yourself? What will you tell your kids? 

With those fictional children in mind--children that, six years later, I no longer envision myself having--I ask the girls in my Spanish class, “Do you mind if I join your prom group?” And they say yes. Yes, of course. They’re not “cool” girls, but they’re confident. There’s another girl like me. Another girl who asked and got in. like me, on the mercy of the confident but lower-strata girls in our Spanish class. We are tagalongs, but at least we are going to our senior prom. We’d get our stamp on the passport of life.

I’ll call her Bee. It’s a cute name for a victim. 

Bee and I aren’t friends. The rule about likes repelling applies to us only because we are alike in our silence. How could one silent person befriend another if they never spoke any words? Alas, the words we have in common turn out to be, “Do you mind if I join your prom group?”. And that is the first time I really become acquainted with Bee. She isn’t anything remarkable, just like I’m not. She tries too little, just like I do. She is sweet, just like they say I am. She doesn’t deserve to be a victim, just like I don’t, except that I wouldn’t be, and Bee...would. Maybe it’s a good thing we never become friends.

Prom approaches. We have a group text, but really, only two people are in charge. The girl who’s driving, and the girl who’s hosting the after-prom sleepover. The rest of us are just toddling along. Our group photos are beautiful. I’ve never looked better. She looks gorgeous, too. We all look six years older. We’ll never look like this again, not even on our wedding days, because colorful dresses are just something else. This day is special for all of us, and luckily, there are no bitches to dampen our smiles. Unluckily, some bitches are silent, and you don’t know they’re there until they’ve already stung you. No, I’m not talking about Bee.

I need to introduce the silent bitch. I’m going to call her Patti, because I don’t feel like giving her a cute name. (I’m ashamed to say that I would become friends with her for about a year afterward). The group has just finished taking formal pictures--i.e., posing for our parents--and we’re milling about in front of Driving Girl’s house, chatting and taking selfies. Patti is trying to make sure everything is in order for the after party, which is at her house. Really, it’s just a sleepover. We all know this. She’s kind enough to tell me--while we’re standing around chatting and taking selfies--that the waffles are friendly to my allergies. Then...

“What waffles?” Bee asks. 

This is where my mind freezes. Every time. As I recall these words, and Patti’s reply, I cringe and beg for forgiveness. Every time. 

“Uh,” Patti laughs. I’m looking at her for a rope to hold onto. She’s the leader. I’m a tagalong. “It’s, um, for a Spanish project,” Patti says easily. Then she realizes what she’s said. Bee is in our Spanish class. We’re all in the same damn Spanish class. This isn’t lying to explain why you bought a really weird outfit or stayed up abnormally late on a school night. Whatever it was, it is failure, and my figurative knees shake in sympathy for Bee’s position. Patti acts like she’s said something funny. Made a joke or something. I’m mortified. I don’t even want to go to prom anymore.

“Yeah, I forgot to tell you,” Patti says to Bee. “There’s a sleepover at my house, after prom.”

Bee knows that Patti didn’t forget. Bee has to know that I knew that Patti intentionally did not tell her. Patti did tell me that “we” were intentionally leaving Bee out of the plans. At the time, I struggled to understand what made me different from her. We were both tagalongs. Why was I in on the plan, and she intentionally excluded? 

Isn’t this bullying? Am I not immediately complicit?

Bee couldn’t decide not to come. Why would she? Then the bullying would have been successful. I’m glad she decided to attend the after prom sleepover. But there was a shadow over my head the entire night. I could never look at Bee without thinking about the deception I went along with. I can never think about prom without remembering how awful I felt. 

It’s true, that every time I think of Bee, I wish her well. I pray that she is thriving. And selfishly, I hope that she does not remember.