Be Good to Me

“Jared, stop!” I gasped, pushing my best friend off of me. I had somehow found myself being tickled into hysteria, and he was a lot stronger than I am. See, I’m a really ticklish person. Jared knows this and was taking advantage of that little fact.

“Come on, Cam,” he whined, sitting with his arms over his chest, looking like a defeated child. “I just want to hear that deranged toddler laugh your sister told me about!”

I poked his side, and he winced. For some reason, being poked in the side was his only weakness. “What?” he asked.

“You know how ticklish I am! That laugh is embarrassing, and I would really rather you didn’t hear it,” I stood my ground. We were sitting on the couch in my basement, so I didn’t stand my ground in a literal sense, but you know what I mean.

Jared threw a pillow at me. I caught it and sat it in my laugh so he couldn’t throw it again. He understood this as an invitation to put his head on it and look up at me with puppy dog eyes.
“We’re best friends, Cam. How can anything possibly embarrass you in front of me?”

I thumped his forehead and he pretended to look furious. I didn’t like that look. I shoved his head away from me and began running. Within seconds, he had hopped up and was already hot on my trail. I was losing the lead as we ran around and around the couch.

This plan had worked out better in my head. I was forgetting the fact that Jared was a lot faster than me. Once he’d launched himself at my feet and we toppled to the ground, I remembered all too well that I really shouldn’t have tried to outrun him.

“Really? What are we, four? This is no way to treat the birthday boy,” Jared scolded, sitting on my legs.

“Your birthday isn’t for another month,” I reminded him.

He frowned. “It doesn’t even matter anymore. You know how I was going to ask my parents if I could throw a party at my house? Well, they said no. They said it was something about how they would be forced to pick up my mess, and they didn’t want to deal with a hundred teenagers in their backyard.”

It was hard for me to keep a straight face at this point in time. I knew the real reason why Mr. and Mrs. Laurence weren’t letting their son throw his own birthday party. Jared’s sister, Mia, and had already begun planning a surprise party for him. The invitations had just been sent out this week and I’d been receiving RSVPs via text message.

“I’m sorry,” I pulled my best sympathetic face. “How about we watch a movie at my house that night, and then we can head over to your place for cake and ice cream with your family?”
Jared rolled off me, stood up, and held out his hand. I took it and allowed him to help me up. “Did you read my mind? I was going to ask if you wanted to do that.”

I shrugged. “Great minds think alike, I said.

We made our way back over to the couch, where Dragon Ball Z Kai was on. Don’t laugh, but this was our favorite show. It was the episode where Vegeta and Goku were fighting. Goku was just about to kill him when Vegeta told a lie that made Goku hesitate. It gave Vegeta just enough time to flip Goku and start kicking him. Then, Goku’s son, Gohan, pops up out of the ground (Jared and I both think he’s worthless because all he does on the show is stand there, twitching and stuttering).

I flipped the TV off at this point in the episode. “I need to talk to you about something.”

Jared kicked back and laced his fingers behind his head. “Shoot.”

“I got a rather odd text today. You know Valerie, right? She asked if I wanted to go over to her house this Friday. She also told me that . . . Katrina was going to be there.”

A muscle in his jaw twitched, and I could tell he was fighting to stay calm. “Did you accept the invite?”

The reason this is such a big deal is a very long story. A couple of years ago, Jared really liked Katrina. They were ‘talking’ all summer, but Katrina never wanted to make anything official. She kept telling him she didn’t like Jared that way, but they still talked everyday because she wanted to be his friend. Jared didn’t want to give up on Katrina. He kept trying to make her see that they should be together.

Katrina ended up freaking out on him at this party when he tried to hold her hand, saying he was crazy and that he needed to leave her alone. It was all a publicity stunt. She was always doing things to make herself the center of attention. After that, Jared didn’t want anything to do with her, but that wasn’t enough for Katrina. She started spreading the most ridiculous rumors about him. For example, she told everyone at our school that he had a foot fetish.

She was attempting to turn everyone against him. Jared ended up putting on his big boy face, and being the better person. He didn’t retaliate or say anything bad about her. Most people ended up staying his friend anyways. There were a few girls Katrina managed to persuade. Valerie was one of them. She was Katrina’s best friend. Just last year, she pretended to like Jared. She lead him on and flirted with him until he fell for her, hard. Then, at the Sadie Hawkins dance (girls ask guys), Valerie told him that he should kiss her. When he went in for it, she slapped Jared across the face and made it seem like he was coming onto her and she was just some innocent damsel in distress.

All of this happened before Jared and I became friends. However, once he told me everything, I hated those girls with a passion. I would never forgive them for hurting my best friend. They were still out there trying to take everyone away from him. I was the last one who hadn’t given in. I was the only one Jared could trust.

“I told them I would have to ask my parents,” I said. The look on his face told me he was furious. I hurried to explain. “I was just thinking . . . wouldn’t this be a good way to see if they’re up to anything? I could be like a spy. We need someone on the inside. If you really don’t want me to go, all you have to do is say the word.”

Jared was quiet for a few moments. Then he said, “No, you should go. You’re right. You might be able to find out something useful that could help me out. That doesn’t mean I won’t be nervous about it the whole time you’re there. These girls aren’t dumb. They’re conniving and manipulative. They’ll do whatever it takes to turn you against me. Just keep in mind that I trust you, Camille. You can hurt me like nobody else. All I’m asking is that you remember your best friend while you’re with them.”

We hugged it out and I promised him that nothing anyone did could make me want to turn against him. In return, Jared promised not to get mad at me for going over there. I kept my promise. He didn’t.

The night I spent at Valerie’s had to be the most boring thing I’d suffered through in my high school career. All Katrina and Valerie talked about was themselves. We went swimming and I’ve never felt more insecure in my life. They were both twigs complete twigs. I was a little curvier. All they talked about was how “fat” they were. Jared’s name came up a couple of times, but I quickly put an end to that by telling them off. I was supposed to be playing it cool to see if they were planning anything against him. They weren’t quite as cunning as Jared thought they were. Sure, they were trying to take me away from him, but they had no tact whatsoever. Once I figured out that there was no threat there, I faked a stomach ache and went home.

The minute I was in my room, I dialed Jared’s number. It rang and rang, but he never picked up. I frowned. He said he wasn’t doing anything tonight. I received a text.

Dont think i can talk 2 u right now. Txt u when im rdy.

What did he mean by he would text me when he was ready? I hadn’t done anything wrong, had I?

Whats wrong?

In a nutshell, Jared told me that he couldn’t help himself. He ended up becoming really angry that I had gone over to his enemy’s house, and he didn’t believe that I only did it to get information. He thought I’d forgiven them for hurting him, and that I was going to start hanging out with them. No matter how many times I argued with him that wasn’t what was going on at all, he wouldn’t believe me. He spent all day yelling at me over text message, explaining how he thought I was different, but I was just like the rest of those bitches. I was only using him until I got him to trust me, then I threw him away like the rest.

By four ‘o clock in the morning, he was still text-yelling at me for being an awful friend, and I was reduced to tears. I felt so pathetic, curled up in the fetal position on my bed. As much as I’d tried to convince myself that I’d done nothing wrong, he was getting to me at this point. Jared was making me believe that I’d committed a hideous crime, and didn’t deserve him as a friend.

I had managed to get to a point where we were exchanging somewhat civil messages, and I decided to ask him the question I knew I didn’t want to know the answer to.

How much do you really hate me right now?

There was a long wait between my text and his next one. It was agonizing, and I was still sniffling.

If u want a grade u get a 0% out of 100. Done arguing. Just dont want N E thing 2 do with u N E more. Bye