Are you Mad at Me?

Jayden stared at the email for the fourth time since Tuesday, trying to read it in Stella’s voice so he could hear it the way she meant for it to be read, but he kept getting stuck. He couldn’t imagine her actually saying these words to him:

I can’t connect with you anymore. I wish we could empathize with each other, but it's different now. I’m sorry. I loved our friendship. I’m glad we had those years together. I just can’t spend time with you on Saturday. Do you understand?

What had happened between them in the past 10 years?

The last time they’d seen each other was in 2009 at their 10 year high school reunion. Stella wore a navy v-neck dress and a cardigan, her hair shorter and curlier than it was in high school. Her green eyes were framed with more make-up than he remembered, but she was HER. Her smile, her warmth.

Jayden looked taller, probably because he’d lost the football weight and gained the confidence that comes with knowing yourself: something that almost no one has in high school. They spotted each other across the room, and they’d never speak of it, but they both felt the same jolt of excitement when they made eye contact and wrapped their conversations and beelined to a small cocktail table in the middle of the room where they hugged and started talking.

They spoke the way you’d expect friends who hadn’t seen each other in nearly 10 years to speak to each other: awkward at first, struggling to find a conversational rhythm that felt natural, but then, after a couple of drinks, they fell into their very cool and specific type of friendship. Stella talked about her job and her cat and all of her career dreams that had come true, in their own way. Jayden made jokes about their high school years, the teachers they loved and the coaches he was afraid of. And that evolved into a conversation of their recent fears and loves. Once the track was laid, it was effortless. They stayed at that table catching up the whole night.

They could hear other attempted reunion conversations growing around them but most of them stuck to the surface level things: appearances, the music, the venue. Fake. Awkward. Plotted. Their catch up conversation felt real, because it was. When the night was over, they made a promise that they’d get drinks together BEFORE their 20^th reunion, to avoid the initial hour of awkwardness.

But now, three weeks leading up to their 20^th reunion, Jayden realized they’d barely talked at all in the past 10 years. They had intended to stay in touch this time. They both said it. He found a trail of Facebook messages and old texts. They talked here and there for a while, but conversations got shorter and shorter and faded out about three years ago. Jayden was feeling especially grateful for the upcoming reunion, it was the only thing keeping Stella in his world.

He tried to be vulnerable. He sent a quick, funny emailing asked if she wanted to meet beforehand for a drink. And he fully expected her to say yes. Instead, he got the reply that ended with, I just can’t spend time with you on Saturday, do you understand?

He rattled off a quick reply, “Wait, what? Are you mad at me? I want to see you!”

And waited.

And waited.

He imagined her, twenty miles away, sitting on a bench outside of her office, staring at his email on her smartphone. She would have been distracted by his name - Jayden – and smiled. Here he was, being sweet and vulnerable like the kid she fell in like with in high school.

The bizarre thing was, they were never really friends in high school. They were occasional lab partners and rough draft English paper editors, but they didn’t actually communicate much at school. She would have said it was because of her friend group, and he would have believed her. But the real reason is that she couldn’t stand too close to him for too long because of the smoke. The thick cigarette smoke was on everything – his clothes, his backpack, his homework. She imagined his house and his car caked with years of accumulated tar. The other thing was his football friends who were pranksters. Stella hated pranksters. They mocked teachers and hid gross surprises in each other’s lockers. For a variety of reasons, they didn’t talk during the school day.

Their real conversations happened at night, behind the keyboard, thanks to the AIM instant messenger technology. They talked about their fears and doubts and childhoods. That’s when she shared about her ex – the one who started mean rumors about her after they broke up. He’d told everyone he’d only been with her because she helped him with his homework. It was such a stupid thing, she knew that even then, but she was always insecure about her dorky-ness. She was Freshman Class Treasurer and Sophomore Class Secretary and Junior Class Vice President, but she never fully connected with the other officers. She never fully connected with anyone, but she told Jayden, in secret, that he was one of her best friends. He talked her out of running for Class President their senior year, since she secretly hated it. And that’s when she learned the truth – about his dad, the hard-working local mechanic by day who became a disconnected smoker alcoholic by night. And his childhood best friend who’d died in a car accident during their freshman year.

At school, they’d speak of none of it. At night, they’d type long messages for hours and hours. Stella would help him with his math homework, and Jayden would coach her through the tough conversations she wanted to have with her crush on the football team.

One night, he stopped talking abruptly and she worried. She imagined his angry, drunk father smoking three inches from his face. When she saw him in school, she was relieved, but then terrified when she saw the bruise on his face. “It’s not bad – it’s not what it looks like.” But his eyes pleaded, don’t tell anyone.

Every day, they’d pass each other in the halls and exchanged smiles, but that was the extent of their public friendship. Except for one time when Stella begrudgingly let him copy her math homework before class. She knew he needed the grade, and she knew why he hadn’t finished his homework.

At night, they talked and they flirted. They’d talk a little more during the school day. The football team gave him a hard time about it once. “Are you sleeping with that math geek?” but he brushed it off. Even though they acted like it was nothing, their friendship meant everything to both of them.

These days, twenty years later, Jayden was a mechanic, which was a family business that he inherited from his father when he died in 2014. He’d been working there since they graduated high school. And their secret friendship had come in handy two years after graduation when she was home from college and her break lights went out. He fixed them for free. She found him after hours drinking in the parking lot with CJ – a guy who dropped out during his senior year – a couple other mechanics. “It’s okay, she’s cool.” He said, when they usually required cash.

She knew that he’d grown up surrounded by with a lot of guilt and self-doubt. She knew he was better – largely – because of his friends, herself included. And she was better for the love and confidence he’d instilled in her. So even though they hadn’t talked in a while, it made since that they’d connect at the reunion.

He refreshed the email every hour, wondering if he’d get a reply to, “Wait, what? Are you mad at me? I want to see you!”

He tried texting her, the night before, just to check. “Are you sure about that drink? I’ll be at O’Mally’s at seven!”

She didn’t text him back.

Jayden stared at his reflection in the bathroom mirror while he aggressively brushed his teeth. He wondered if he even wanted to go anymore. There was no one else that he even cared to catch up with, what if they didn’t talk the whole night? But the idea of not talking was manageable, the idea of not knowing was not. Plus, the location – the local casino – made a case for itself. He could always slip out to the bathroom, play the slots, and go home.

He sent one more text:

“Stella, you know me. When I’ve heard that I hurt someone, I stop everything to understand why. I don’t become defensive -- I acknowledge when my pride gets in the way. Please just tell me what happened so I can fix it.”

When he arrived, he recognized their class president, ten years older, with fresh highlights and a lot of make-up, sitting at the entrance. He realized if he hadn’t talked Stella out of running, it would be her sitting there instead.

It was clear that this class president didn’t know him, or at least didn’t recognize him, which was unsurprising but still stung a bit. “Class of 1999?” she said with a knowing smile. She was kinder than she was at 16, or, at least, better at faking sincerity.

“Guilty – Jayden Sessions.”

“Jayden! I didn’t recognize you, you look amazing!” This was even weirder – did she say that to everyone?

But then he saw it. A photo collage of football players – himself included. He was chubby and pink cheeked and he did look better, now, if he was being honest.  

And then he saw it. An answer to his email. It came in the form of a string of photos of his 18-year-old self at a post-football party. The photos were cycling through a projected slide show, and he gathered, from the conversations sputtering around him, that they same carousel of photos had been posted on the Facebook Reunion page weeks in advance.

He studied the photos and his heart sank. Suddenly, he recognized these particular photos. He remembered the reunion scrapbook. His football team had made a photo album and buried it in a time capsule to be opened at their 20th high school reunion. They were playing Truth Bombs using the names of a bunch of classmates, including Stella. He didn’t remember the specific party. He was probably too drunk to know what he was holding, but it was a sign that said “I slept with Stella so she’d let me copy her math homework.”

He imagined her rage at Stella discovering the photo before the reunion. He wondered how she’d found it, probably scrolling through the event on her work computer, excited to see some high school photos and instead feeling the betrayal that comes from thinking your friend was slut-shaming you behind your back twenty years ago. Or maybe one of the class officers had found it and sent it to her while they were planning the reunion.

And then, it got worse. A printed transcript of their instant messages from 2004 were poured into the screen under the message "true love". He'd forgotten the extra things he'd thrown into the time capsule. There was Stella being vulnerable and perfect with her dearest thoughts on display.

He thought about all of the emotions that she’d felt. How much she'd trusted him to be able to share the pain about her ex with him in the first place, the assumption that this conversation would never be printed or distributed twenty years later. Surely she’d understand it was a stupid thing he did twenty years ago. His legs gave out and he dropped into a chair and began drafting the email in his head: “Stella, I’m so sorry. If I could go back, I would. You know me. You knew me then and you know me now…”

But it was too late. The damage had been done. He’d punch his 18-year-old self if he could.