Horrible & Lovely
Daphne
Alison was Abby’s first crush.
It was third grade, and they’d been staring at each other across Ms. Stroh’s classroom when Abby first realized she was enamored with girls. Alison seemed to stow something special behind her eyes for Abby too. They just kind of sat there looking at each other all the time.
Everyone else saw Alison differently than Abby. She had been the only African American girl in the entire grade. Abby could tell the others mistook Alison for the difference; she was the kindest, brightest sort.
They were crushing hard that year but were paralyzed, unable to speak about it. Abby wouldn’t remember sharing a single spoken word. Alison seemed expectant for her to make the move. The two of them just wasted school days blatantly staring at each other and smiling a lot until the year ended. Things got awkward after that. Grades ticked into the past. Moments shared thereafter were strangely avoidant.
Abby was still looking in Alison’s direction. She never stopped staring and didn’t understand what went wrong until much later. All the others called Abby names, and eventually, Alison took part. Abby wasn’t treated well by her family either. Nothing made sense without friends, so she took grasp of what was available.
Growing up abused and sheltered led Abby to reform into something she was not, hardening over again. Expectations were thrust upon her always.
She hadn’t shaken off the fear it birthed of being bold until junior high. Abby and her best friend Chris, someone she met in third grade, who had been separated from Abby throughout their following time in elementary for having too much fun, were finally assigned two classes in seventh grade, and he promptly insulted the weakness out of her. That was when she’d finally started letting herself out a little.
Alone most often, time after school wasted away for Abby while playing games with herself, only making friends with the boys who treated her less poorly than the rest of her class. Once in a while she made a friend who mattered in junior high. Those friendships wouldn’t extend through the quarter where she shared a period with whatever girl that was, or the portion of time they’d be sitting next to each other. Every longest while she had a chance to show herself to a young woman, and they all seemed to love Abby, but then they’d end up looking at her strangely and despising her. Something about being friends with Abby was embarrassing to her classmates who cared about the perceptions of others.
Abby loved girls who loved girls. She always wanted to be friends with another one, too. One day, she would love women who loved women.
There were a few imitatively romantic relationships throughout those junior high years; they were all about hiding, running, and avoiding each other after the initial flirtation.
Once, near the end of junior high, and then in phases throughout high school, Abby had been friends with a young woman named Kristin. Abby hurt her by feigning disinterest romantically, in a calloused way, to their shared friend who had approached Abby with the revelation of Kristin’s interest.
In retrospect, she would have been open to it but was too attached to the one safe friendship she had with a girl. The way they had met was the strangest happening of all her time. It took place during the length of a single field trip when Abby became immediate friends with Kristin. And it was bizarre how they were leaning into each other fully while walking around in front of others and ignoring the eyes of others.
She lost Kristin as a friend after pretending to be mean and disinterested when put on the spot so abrasively and flirtatiously by Brianna. That girl was a manipulator who had long liked Abby’s attention.
Abby still saw Kristin a few times after that, as friends, but it grew increasingly awkward. When Kristin put on a dress, she shattered preconceptions with every single classmate about how her grace would hide in plain clothes. Abby had to excuse herself. One particular instance felt as if it were aimed directly at her heart. Kristin wore a blue dress Abby wouldn’t ever forget; nobody at their school would. She had been walking into a formal Abby wasn’t joining, not too long after Abby had been accosted with Brianna’s obtuse line of questioning on her behalf. It just felt like an odd moment, seeing Kristin hang there so long in the parking lot while her mind and heart shattered.
Sometimes, Abby decided, the universe works in mysterious ways.
Kristin was a most beautiful sort, and always, even if too strong for the boys. Abby would regret that false assertion of disinterest she’d made which made it to her friend always. Even if it was unfair to have sent someone she didn’t enjoy. That Brianna had wrecked Abby’s heart in junior high after stealing her interest from someone else.
Girls expected Abby to chase them, and she didn’t understand. She just wanted someone to want her back and have a girl who was a friend too. She needed someone to be brave and take the kiss if they really wanted her in a romantic way. Never had Abby felt pursued in the way she needed. It was as if something made her a toxin of popularity unless she played the clown.
During ninth grade, Abby’s final year of junior high, she had tried leaning into the class clown role. She became the most popular loser in school. Abby even won that distinction in the yearbook to prove it. She also took a seat in her high school’s student government by giving the speech of all speeches, running a satirical campaign of all campaigns, utilizing every power to take the seat from that hardest crush. You see, the owner of the worst and best dreams Abby ever had was to fall. Her name was Jordan.
Abby wanted to take them down after being bullied by the mean girl she loved the most through junior high. Yet her desire was a flimsy hope obscuring the truth — she had wanted them both to be on the council together. There were two seats being vied for.
Brazon, unabashed, Abby had been telling people how she wanted to make Jordan cry. She was becoming a bully, and she hadn’t even realized that. It was the way that girl whom she’d felt most strongly for had spurned her that had Abby lashing out in a posture of maliciousness.
Jordan was too pretty for Abby’s mind and had been part of a more popular class of students as well, barely. There were two castes of schoolchildren in that junior high which spanned seventh to ninth grade: the cool kids and the uncool kids. Abby was the coolest uncool kid. Jordan barely clung to the popular crowd at that point.
Abby tried talking to Jordan occasionally, or picking on her throughout junior high. It felt as if others would look down upon her for believing in that possibility; Jordan would most often scowl at Abby when she caught her peeking, wafting the stenchiest of faces.
It wasn’t all Jordan’s fault. Abby was constantly being petulant and confused about how to break through, but mostly frustrated. Neither seemed to realize how cruel and embittered they were being to each other. Something about the way Jordan had seemingly compromised Abby’s estimation of her intelligence for privilege with their math teacher set them off to cast the first barb of cruelty, and Jordan never forgave her.
Jordan was the one Abby fell for most throughout all her schooling. Her feelings remained constant from the beginning, despite all posturing, because Jordan was the smartest and bossiest girl in school who had shared the kindest moments. Then she saw Jordan playing dumb for their math teacher, who was a dunce. Abby felt it compromised her awe of Jordan’s intelligence to see her acting like an airhead. Deep down, Abby had only wanted compassionate help completing her answers too. She always projected anger. Abby hated nothing more than watching her idol of heart become some disguise within their culture of female infantilization. Except for math, Abby hated that most of all.
She began cheating her way through every math class at that point, and a rivalry was born between them from the moment Abby said something catty to Jordan in that classroom.
When Abby won a spot in the ninth-grade election, second place, well behind a popular boy named Ryan, she thought of herself as happy. She laughed with her friend who helped with that last-minute campaign by handing out little hand-ripped flyers.
They read, “Mmm… Grape Juice. Vote for Abby.”
She had begun beaming right after the announcement of the winners.
All Abby’s teachers were awfully proud of her, except Mr. Carpine — the skeptic. He was her favorite, by far. Mark Carpine had been the first teacher she truly loved, and a stern but supportive father figure to everyone with half a brain. Each class was either a lecture, focused on group projects, or about competing in some mental competition with classmates. Abby found herself routinely absorbed and enriched.
Her favorite singular memory from Mr. Carpine’s classroom would always be the quiz show-like competition. He was only starting a question, reading the first two words as Abby and a boy were standing next to each other in the center of his mocked-up classroom set. Abby seemed to know the answer ahead of time, as if she could feel it coming, life blooming into synchronicity for the precipitating seconds. She had been waiting the whole quiz for the name of that one explorer’s ship, and it was near the end of the competition. From the moment he had emphasized it in class, earlier that quarter, something about it stood out to Abby as worth memorizing.
He had only said two words before she began walking to the whiteboard confidently.
Mark froze. His eyebrows raised. He hadn’t read another word while Abby strode, his smile growing slowly with an unbelieving tilt of the head, unafraid to watch the little witch, then puffing his chest towards the challenge, leaning forward, genuinely hyped to watch her try. She’d written the correct name to both his greatest pleasure and dismay.
Abby enjoyed scaring the other kids with her unique brand of intelligence.
That day in which she had won her place in the election, Mr. Carpine was the last teacher she saw on her victory tour. Abby had to go out of her way. He laughed in her face at the obvious pride stowed within her blatantly prideful, unscheduled appearance in his classroom. Something in him had known that Abby was only running for the chaos and had lost herself in the inflated congratulations of other teachers.
Mark said, “It was a good speech. Very—everyman.”
While it wasn’t the compliment Abby expected after being gassed up by the other teachers, it was exactly the kind of challenging and earnest reflection she respected most from the man. The truth could never dull her gleam; it only set Abby right.
Her inflated sense of liar’s joy, already dimmed from Mr. Carpine’s truthful reflection, managed to last right up until she finally saw Jordan.
She was crying and wasn’t trying to hide it from Abby. It felt awful, gut-wrenching, and Abby realized she was the fool for all she had said about wanting that. It felt as if Jordan knew Abby didn’t really care about being on the student council.
Abby had gotten what she had wished for, and it would deflate her entirely from wielding that brand of manifested falsehood going forward. In fact, the next school year, she was a different person entirely, hardened and bitter, refusing to play the clown for anyone any longer.
She realized her acting out was because of that kiss and romance she’d long dreamed of with Jordan after they first met. Also, the strangest and most literal dream of being a grown-up in love with Jordan, and mostly the one slow dance they shared in the dark before Jordan returned to being cruel in the hallways.
Abby felt rotten nearly every time she saw Jordan after that, except once when she had beaten her during an FFA trip where they competed in separate groups. Abby was particularly inspired in Jordan’s presence.
Once, midway through high school, there was a memory made that Abby repressed into the darkest place. All she could remember by the time she was an adult had been that Jordan had made her cry near the football field in front of all the popular kids.
Near the end of twelfth grade, there were many parties. So many that even Abby found herself invited to a few that weren’t full of members from a sexually coercive boy-cult who unironically named themselves “The Horseman.” At one of those final gatherings, she had been on a couch, but unlike the usual experience, her company was better. She’d been sitting across from Alison and her boyfriend Ryan, who had won that election with Abby. Alison and Ryan were two of the most popular kids in school.
They had too much fun talking between the three of them. Even Ryan was being kind, and he had once been some rival of Abby in the gym. They were the two best basketball players of their junior high, though Abby was unjustly overshadowed by all the others for her constant attempts at genuine cooperation. She hated the boys for never passing her the ball, Ryan especially. Abby had to watch him miss too many shots.
Alison and Ryan seemed blown away by what Abby was actually like at that party. It had been a first. She had never been around a crowd so mixed in gender and full of people she actually wanted to meet and speak with.
Smiles were shared with Alison, which reminded Abby of third grade and had her lamenting her wasted school years in terms of companionship. They were flirting right in front of Ryan. He didn’t really believe it, even though it was happening right in front of him.
Abby loved it; she was too excited.
That next week at school had been another in a long line of similar disappointments. She was still uncool there. People went right back to rhythms of normality in the crowd. Folks were always looking at her strangely by that point. Everyone seemed to think they understood Abby, and everybody knew her name, but nobody understood her.
By the end of high school, Abby hated everything, and time at home the most. All she ever wanted was to love someone. She would see couples in the bleachers at football games melting into each other, and her sister with her boyfriend snuggling on the beanbag. All Abby wanted was to have someone to be affectionate with.
People made fun of Abby for being a “pussy” in high school. It didn’t feel very good. That made her hate everyone more than anything. Nobody had ever taken care of her feelings the way she needed.
Abby was a loser her whole life.
One last party, and it was going to be over. Abby hadn’t been invited to many.
Graduation went by quickly. Her summer was short before getting out of town too. Nothing seemed to happen for Abby before she was to leave town. She had been able to get into the best film school nearby. Truthfully, she just wanted to get out of her parents’ house as soon as possible.
There was a friend she had known for the longest time — a boy named Troy. He was a sweet guy underneath. Everybody knew it; he had been roughed up, and kids could tell. His father did not appear to be a good man in that regard. It was read on his brother’s face as well. Abby always forgave Troy for everything he did acting out; people got him wrong. She hated him a lot of the time, too.
Troy eventually went to live in Thailand as an English teacher and stayed there.
Once, in elementary school, Abby had called Troy on his phone, in some great scheme concocted over an extended period of time — Abby’s original idea — and asked him for his phone number. He had given it to her.
That last party, a final night with people from her school, had been a most special and tragic event. There was one great surprise left.
Jordan was there and everything was different — somehow renewed. They had only glared at, avoided, and talked trash about each other throughout high school. They were both going off soon after. Jordan seemed happy for Abby, and that sentiment was shared both ways.
Abby was relieved to see Jordan again, but she longed for the lost opportunities they had. She pretended to be happy for her, trying not to fall back into old feelings.
Jordan was the last girl Abby talked to from high school before leaving town. Nothing had ever felt more divine than getting that chance, not even her cherished victory from Mr. Carpine’s class. Jordan was someone her heart always cared for the most, and it wasn’t because of the dreams she had about her throughout her years.
They talked by the campfire through most of the party, and Jordan didn’t seem to mind Abby following her around for the rest of it. That was the second sweetest night of Abby’s entire youth, for better and worse. You see, the two had met once during grade school before running into each other in front of their junior high on the first day. While they had gone to different elementary schools, Jordan seemed to Abby like a familiar face from a plethora of moments spotting each other in tow of their mothers around town.
That was how it felt when they met, on the other most precious night of Abby’s youth; spent at a fairground. It was where she had first met Jordan properly, in sixth grade, the last year of elementary school. Jordan had approached Abby pointedly, as if they already knew each other.
Abby immediately noticed how Jordan intimidated the other kids and didn’t understand why. She was the most authentic and outspoken of them all. The two of them began flirting shamelessly in front of their friends; it was the first time Abby felt happy to be receiving that kind of attention from anyone.
Jordan was a brainy girl, and Abby wasn’t used to being the smitten type. With attention from Jordan trained upon her, Abby melted. The ice from all the abusive energies of her childhood thawed. She felt like the safest touch and presence Abby had ever known.
They played games at that fair, then slid down the big yellow slide. Jordan hadn’t cared at all that Abby didn’t like to ride the rides; she seemed to enjoy that about her. She was the only person to ever be kind in response to Abby’s refusal to get on human constructions so teetering. Even so, Jordan had managed to convince her that it would be safe to ride the coaster together.
It was the oldest and most rickety-looking coaster Abby had ever seen. Her anxiety rose simply from looking at the structure. But it was that gentleness with which Jordan had convinced her to take part that lit Abby’s fire the most brightly.
That was the moment she first felt romantic love.
Near the end of that most memorable night meeting each other, they had entered a carted funhouse together. It was only the two of them there. Even as an adult, Abby would feel as if she had never truly gotten off that ride.
Jordan was forward, sometimes gloriously abrasive, with the most infectious laugh anyone could know. She was a beauty of mind and features alike to Abby, and bitterness had never soured that reality. To let all that hurt between them go at that party was inspiringly synchronistic with a divine pattern. It would be seen and felt in the moment by Abby as both a blessing and a curse.
Abby’s whole lifetime of hope spent forward, much like the night at Troy’s by the fire with Jordan, and from the very start, had seemed a tragic poem of love.
While Jordan and Abby hadn’t seen each other again after that, they didn’t expect to.
Still, they’d hung on there together as long as they could. The two of them were eager to milk every moment by the fire and in each other’s company. They were letting other people see again, just like the fair. They had known it was hopeless but bled their hearts the same, and for each other. Abby didn’t want it to be the end it had been.
Near the end, there was a time spent in darkness, alone, on the side of Troy’s house. Abby always lamented not finding the courage to give Jordan a kiss. Still, they had shared the greatest and most relieving hug. It was the saddest thing, but Abby was too happy for those feelings shared to cry until after Jordan pulled away.
Always, forever, Abby would remember that goodbye warmly.
Time when she might find a person to exist beside her, in energies of mutually shared compassion — even and synchronous, joyous and romantic, of fire and freedom — beyond that felt with Jordan in their few passing moments, simply never came for Abby. Not for the longest time. And even then, a feeling quite as sweet only ever happened upon Abby once, on one night. It took someone whom Abby felt a near-equal awe of wanting her back in that way she had always dreamed of; when a woman who was otherwise Abby’s friend had stolen the sweetest kiss.
