AIRYN Chapter 8: Anger

Something of Airyn's is ruined when her friends go a little bit too far about her not being friends with Rayna.

A familiar person rang my doorbell on Saturday night when I had Leesa over along with Lily, Summer, and Marilyn. Marilyn used to annoy Rayna and me a lot in elementary school but in seventh grade we became pretty good friends. When she had come over to my house for the first time, she told me that she had wanted to be friends with me and she thought I was cool. But the only thing that had upset me was that she didn’t want be friends with Rayna and that gave me the hint she was trying to steal me away from her. I didn’t mind much, though. One night we both vowed we would never let anyone steal us away from each other. That night of the sleepover I didn’t care at all. I wanted to focus on my real friends who actually thought of me as a good friend.

“Hi, may I speak with you?” Mrs. Feingold asked me. A basket that looked freshly bought, sat by her legs.

I ushered her inside. “Sure,” I mumbled shutting the door behind her. “What’s in there?” I pointed, curiously at the basket.

“Oh, just something for you,” she replied. Her moisturized hands, as smooth and soft as velvet, carried the basket over to where I sat. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything.” She glanced at where my friends were squirting whipped cream in each other’s faces. A giggle came out of my mouth as I watched them.

Looking back at Rayna’s mother, I lied to act polite and said, “No, nothing at all.”

They all walked over and sat down on the couch. “Who’s the lady?” Marilyn asked, licking whipped cream off of her fingers. My eyes were glued to her big feet on the coffee table.

Pushing them off with my finger, I replied, “This is… Rayna’s mother.” Before they could comment I whispered hurriedly, “Be nice.” We all turned towards Mrs. Feingold and sat there with serious expressions.

“Anyway, I’m here to ask you why you’re angry at my daughter,” she continued. Her eyes kept peeking over at the basket she had given me.

I tried to choke back the tears. “Um, there’s nothing to say,” I murmured. Keeping my eyes down at my feet, I laid on Leesa’s shoulder.

“Do you want me to tell her why?” she whispered to me.

“No, I’m fine.” I lifted my head up and faced her. But I kept my eyes down at her bare feet. “Anyway, I had invited all of my friends and family to my Sweet Sixteen birthday party. I wrote a special song for Rayna, performed it, and she likes it of course. I knew she would like it. I know her better than basically everybody. The afternoon of my party, it was partly ruined when the weather got cold and we had to throw the party inside. But what I hated the most was that she didn’t think of me as a friend anymore.” My head continued to stay down at me feet. I looked up when I didn’t hear Mrs. Feingold say anything.

“Okay, so did she tell you this herself?” she asked finally.

My head immediately looked back at the floor. “No, Leesa told me,” I blurted out. “She’s a great friend. She sounded pretty hurt when she told me. Leesa was just starting to like Rayna.”

“But Rayna said herself she didn’t know what she did besides come to your party almost naked and leaving with your special robe,” she argued. Her eyes were scrunched up and her nose wiggled.

Honestly, I didn’t care about the robe. Also, I didn’t really care about Rayna. It was obviously true to me because if it wasn’t true she would demand what had happened and she would have called me. Basically, she had just ignored me. Sitting in her own misery, if she was in any that is. I didn’t try to argue back. I’m usually not the person who likes to argue with adults especially adults that aren’t even a part of your family. When we were younger we like to think of ourselves as long lost sisters. I would be the older sister and she would be the younger. We were only about seven years old when we did this. It was the summer after first grade that we did that. It was actually pretty fun. We tried on each other’s clothes and after a few hours we just played dress up. Of course, I had all of the nicer clothes with dresses and frilly skirts and shiny shoes.

After all of that fun we had, we completely forgot about all of our other friends. That day was the day we both thought, Man, we’re going to be friends forever. From exhaustion we both fell asleep on the floor on top of all of the clothing. When Rayna’s mom came to pick her up, she was laughing with joy and excitement. She was usually a hard child to work with and you usually couldn’t get her to take a nap when we were younger. I felt so incredibly happy when her mother said she would bring Rayna out to my house everyday to play and then take a nap. It worked perfectly. I guess she liked taking naps with her best friend rather than by herself. Those moments made me smile then, at this point in the story they made me cry. But I had to stay strong. I couldn’t just pour out tears and make Mrs. Feingold feel bad about her daughter.  

Calmly, I explained to her what happened and why I was upset. She seemed to understand. After I finished talking she asked a few questions then left without saying goodbye.

My friends and I got back to the sleepover party, but after that conversation I just wasn’t in the mood. Throwing this sleepover was a way for me to get my mind off of Rayna. It didn’t work. While Marilyn, Summer, and Lily through my pillows at each other, I sat in my bean bag chair thinking about Rayna.

“Hey, are you okay?” Leesa asked me sitting in a chair nearby. We both watched the rambunctious girls’ throw pillows. It was a madhouse and I immediately wanted it to stop.

“This is why I only had sleepovers with Rayna,” I muttered under my breath. I stood and went to go brush my teeth. Leesa was trailing behind me like a lost puppy.

Her hand was on the shoulder. “Do you want me to go talk to them?” Her pretty brown eyes stared at me and then I turned so I wouldn’t have to remind myself of Rayna again. She had pretty brown eyes that I could never stop looking at. Leesa’s eyes were like hers but not nearly as pretty.

Deep in thought, I brushed for five minutes not knowing I was still brushing my teeth. I spit out the toothpaste and cleaned up the sink. When I turned back around, my eyes popped out of my head and my mouth dropped open. Seriously, I was on the brink of crying right there. But I didn’t cry. I screamed. Summer was drawing a mustache on the picture of Rayna and I sleeping.

Rushing to my bedroom, I grabbed the picture out of her hand and screamed, “Give me that!” Taking the palm of my hand, I tried to rub off the marker but she must have used a permanent marker. “Look what you did!” I screamed at Summer. She kneeled down near my bed looking frightened. “You ruined this picture!” I pointed at it and slammed it down on the book shelf so hard, it shook and the picture frame had a crack in it.

“You can get a new picture frame,” she suggested weakly.

She made me so mad but I had no choice but to do it. I pulled her up by her hair and shoved her across the room. “Get out!” She ran downstairs and instantly flipped out her cell phone.

“I need to go home…” she whispered into it. I was glad my mother and father were at a party with Jason, Michella, and Grace because they would probably ground me for harassing someone. But that picture was important to me. And someone shouldn’t just draw on it.

Still frowning, I went back in my room and cradled the ruined picture. That was my favorite picture of us do I didn’t care if people stared at me. It was one of the best memories that I’ve ever had and I wanted to treasure it forever.

At that point I realized I still cared about Rayna and I needed to do one important thing. I needed to go apologize.