Second Helpings_ A Jessica Darling Novel - Megan McCafferty [17]
“Yuh,” I said, nodding vigorously.
“ ‘If you can’t annoy somebody, there’s little point in writing,’ ” he replied. “Kingsley Amis.”
“I’m afraid of embarrassing myself,” I said. “I reveal excruciating things. Things like my illegal lust for my gay writing teacher. The me in my journal is a total moron.”
This cracked Mac up.
“ ‘The ignorant take themselves too seriously. The brilliant know better, and laugh at themselves.’ ”
“Who said that?”
“I did,” he said, pausing long enough to shine the high beams on my stupidity. “In my second novel.”
“Oh,” I said, wincing. “Yeah.”
“Tch.”
While I’m relieved that Mac doesn’t think I’m a pervy loser, his praise doesn’t change the fact that I don’t want to be a writer. I’ve already decided to major in psychology. I analyze everyone so much already, I might as well get paid for it.
I was on my way out the door when Mac called out to me.
“Oh, one last thing,” he said.
“Yes?”
“Who is He Who Shall Remain Nameless?”
“Muhhh,” I replied, stripped of my powers of speech. Again.
August 1st
Hope,
Now that I’ve FINALLY FINALLY FINALLY got my journal back, I’ve been looking through it more carefully than usual, for glimpses of genius. Personally, I don’t see it.
What I do know is that my journal is a very shabby representation of my SPECIAL experience so far. I’ve been here for four weeks, and yet I’ve neglected to write about any of the fun stuff I’ve done, or the cool people I’ve met since I’ve been here. No, I’d much rather dwell on Ashleigh and Call Me Chantalle, who have taught me a very valuable lesson: Bitches and skanks are everywhere. They’re at school. They’re at camp. And they’ll surely be in college. I might as well get used to it. But I won’t. And that, my friend, is because I am a moron.
Happy entries in my journal do not exist. Or if they do, they end abruptly with scenes and sentences left unfinished because they are too gushy in a way that is disturbing and sick and foreign. Like Fabio. Because of my inability to document any nondepressing developments in my life, the girls with whom I’ve spent the bulk of my time here at SPECIAL have gone nameless. Brooke Mars, for example. I’ve never mentioned her before, even though she is a very cool person. And I doubt I’ll mention her again. I think the reason I didn’t bother writing about Brooke is that I know, deep down in my gut, she and all the friends-4-eva that I meet this summer will drop off the edge of the universe once school starts up.
Oh, sure. I’ll still be on their lists for forwarded e-mail jokes and whatever, and there will be a few phone calls. But responding to their e-mails with a “LOL” is about as much effort as I’m willing to put into these friendships, which I know are just temporary time-and-place things, anyway. I know that to them, I’m just another smart-ass girl, no better or worse than the friends they see every day in the halls of their own high schools. Why make the effort to stay friends with me, someone they would have only known for forty-two days? Especially when we’re all going to make a new four-year set of friends once we head to college.
I have a hard enough time keeping in touch with you—and you were my soul sista numero uno for three and a half years. You know as well as I do how exhausting it can be to have to explain everything after the fact. You should just be here, watching my life happen in real time, because that’s the only chance you’ll have at really understanding it—and even then there’s no guarantee. Even with the best intentions, growing apart might just be an inevitable part of growing up. It’s no one’s fault, so there’s nothing to feel guilty about. It’s just the way things are.
I know this letter is particularly pessimistic, but I just don’t see the point in putting any effort into any more long-distance friendships. Life— such as it is—always seems to get in the way.
Pragmatically yours,
J.
august
the fourth
I’ve never been a big fan of New York City. A lot of this has to do with