Thursday (part 2)

Th .4

There are always people who know things we don't. And, when we need help, we ask those people, because sometimes we don't have the tools we need to deal with problems. Like, if my computer breaks, I call Brandon—since a certain someone is evidently off-limits to me. Brandon can't strip down and rebuilt a computer like that certain someone, but at least he can tell me what some of the error messages mean.

But this time it wasn't hardware.

Brandon and Meredith were nowhere in sight during lunch, and of course Derek wasn't around either. It was just Zach and Christa and Sajel, and I didn't feel like talking to them; I don't think any of them take me seriously. I don't think any of them know how to take me seriously. I mean, how do you talk to somebody about being Arie Chang, the girl with the cuts on her arm, when they've never even needed therapy before?

So I did what I used to do, back before I met Brandon: I went to the computer lab and hung around on the Internet.

And boy, was that a mistake. And it was a mistake for one very simple reason, a reason I like to call, The Devil Incarnate. By which I mean, Trina.

I had barely settled into my chair when somebody hissed behind me—"What are you doing here?"—and when I turned, you can guess who I saw.

"This isn't your private domain," I said. "I can come here if I want."

"Go to another lab," Trina hissed.

"Why," I said, confused, "I like this one."

"Go," Trina gritted.

I blinked at her. What on earth had brought this about? For once I wasn't feeling defensive. I didn't get angry, I didn't snap back, I just refused. "No, I'm not going to. I'm sorry if you don't like my being here, Trina, but... Well, if you're able to stand me sitting twenty feet away when we're at home, why can't you do that here?"

Trina made a subvocal snarl and stalked away. I stared after her in confusion.

"Well," I said to myself. "Far be it for me to understand the wiles of the feminine mind."

But, of course, Trina was determined to make my life a living hell for the criminal audacity of intruding on her private sanctuary. Not five minutes later a new post came up on the bitch&moan sub-board: Flicker, predictably, cursing about her pathetic loser of an older sister, predictably. Besides the typical O she's stupid thing and the more recent I can't believe she dumped her boyfriend, life is so unfair thing, now there was more stuff about how I was supposedly following her around and trying to make her life miserable.

I ignored it. I mean, there wasn't anything to say. It's a free country, I have rights, the computer labs are open to everyone, and it's not like Trina has a restraining order out on me. I can go where I please. And the radicals are starting to slow down with the more moderate mindset pervading the country. In history class, they tell me that, back before gay marriage was legal, there used to be groups advocating that, because they found it immoral, no one should be allowed to do it. Which was basically what Trina was saying to me. I find you annoying, so I should have the power to make you stay away from me. Amusingly enough, I found my own thoughts paralleling those of the more moderate right, and the prevailing attitudes today: If you find me offensive to look on, look somewhere else.

My God, I thought with a dim trace of amusement, I'm turning political.

When posts by Flicker started appearing in threads I'd posted in, though, defaming me for all to see, it started to be hard to look somewhere else. Mostly they consisted of irrelevant personal attacks: "Why would you listn to hre she had th eperfect boyfreind and she DUPMDE him" and stuff like that. Now I was starting to get angry. There are rules at Candlelight about being polite to people, and I follow them at Candlelight because I want to be a part of the group. The people I am supposed to be polite to, unfortunately, includes Trina. But her actions amounted to deliberately following me around trying to annoy me. Which I had never— Oh, scratch that, no, Trina's original post asserted that I "must have shwoed up jst to annoy" her. Because, God only knows I totally have nothing better to do than just follow her around.

The reaction from the other board denizens was overwhelmingly disapproving. Mostly because of Trina's blood-relationship with me, but also because of a number of other in-real-life friends were now interacting on the Candlelight boards, a set of regulations had sprung up to supplement the general 'be polite' rule, regarding those board members who knew each other by face. The policy was, very simply, 'Take it to e-mail'—discuss it privately, in other words, with either the person you had a grievance with, or with friends you trust to keep a secret. Mostly, Sara feared what was basically happening now: two people trying to polarize the board against each other. This could rapidly degenerate into a flame war. The rules were strict: Sara and the other moderators would delete any such posts on sight, and if necessary use admin privileges to revoke the person's posting rights until the matter was settled. This policy was overwhelmingly approved by most of the board members, and Trina's explosive violation was garnering a lot of admonishment from the board's older, calmer heads—and quite a few of the younger ones as well.

What was even nicer was how many people spoke up, not just against Trina, but in support of me. It may be a fine distinction, but when someone who thinks you're a whiny, self-absorbed, stuck-up loser (she resents me for being lucky enough to be upper-middle-class, okay?) is willing to admit that at least you're being more virtuous than your opponent, it means something—heck, arguably, it was the highest praise I received. It was good to know that people had noticed my dignity and deportment in this situation. And I wouldn't be human if there wasn't a rather malicious delight involved: See? See how I can fight my battles without rolling in the mud like a pig?

But the problem was, none of the mods were around right now—the only person who could delete Trina's posts, at present, was Trina herself, since she had made them. The standard response was ruled out. Other than that, the most anybody could do was, essentially, wag their finger at Flicker and say "Naughty naughty naughty." And clearly, Trina didn't give a damn at this point. We could all talk a lot, but nothing could be done—and while Trina's posts still stood, her actions still held power.

She came to stand behind me; I felt nauseating, sickly body heat. Her breath grated against my neck. "There. You like that, bitch?"

What I'd really like, sister dear, is to fix my arms around your neck and give you a nice big hug. A really tight hug. One that gets tighter and tighter and...

"Answer me, bitch," Trina hissed. "You like that?"

I focused on nonchalance and kept one hand on the keyboard, another on the mouse—fearful of what would happen if either one left contact with the computer.

Then there was a percussive impact on the back of my head, and I went face-first into the keyboard. The tray of keys rattled. The computer honked at the random discharge of keystrokes. My face stung. "Ow!"

I could hear the instant cessation of keyboard clatter, feel a dozen eyes on me. The room monitor said, "Arie? Are you alright?"

Without having to look, I knew that Trina was back in her seat halfway across the room. I don't know how that girl can move so fast.

In the bathroom, I inspected my face. I half expected a staggered checkerboard pattern from the keys, but there was no permanent damage that I could see, or even cosmetic. What had gotten me was the surprise of it all: Trina's rather literally back-stabbing attack that had sent my head flying. She uses physical force—sometimes—never when anybody else can see. At least, not until now. And she's very good at that whole wide-eyed-innocent routine, which is why I didn't even bother explaining what had happened to the room monitor. They wouldn't have believed me. Trina bounds and smiles, she's a small girl; no one expects sudden, explosive violence out of her. No one would credit it unless they saw it. And Trina's way too smart to let anyone see it.

What do you do when your enemy won't play by the rules, and you are— Well, fuck. And you're too stupid to be able to fight back without getting in trouble?

You ask your friends. You call Meredith.

"She did, did she," Meredith said when I explained the problem. School had just let out, and Brandon and I had come straight from Chemistry to find her. We didn't have much time to talk before choir practice started. "That's... Quite a novel response from her."

"And she does this often?" Brandon asked, blinking at me.

"Not often," I said. "Not often enough that people catch on."

"Of course not," Meredith said. "She's very careful. When she breaks the rules, she breaks them in a way that is completely outrageous—so over-the-top that nobody would ever believe it."

"That's not what all the posting on the web-board sounds like," Brandon said.

"She doesn't care about what people believe of her there," I said, "because it doesn't matter. Nobody can stop her."

"Yeah, but she stands to lose respect," Brandon said.

"She doesn't want respect," I said. "There are groups on Candlelight that don't care about authority. Those are the groups she wants to be part of. And by deliberately breaking the rules, she becomes a hero. On the other hand, most of the boards do follow the rules—"

"But she doesn't like them anyway," Brandon said, catching on, "so what does she care if she offends them."

"And your question is... ?" Meredith said to me.

"How do I deal with her," I said. "She doesn't care about breaking the rules, so I can't use them to fight her."

"Then forget authority," Brandon suggested. "Fight fire with fire."

"I don't know how," I said. "She uses her own rules, and I don't know what they are."

"Well, pretty obviously, they include a disregard for other people's rules..." said Meredith.

"If I tried to break other people's rules, I'd get caught," I said.

"The use of physical violence is not ruled out at all..." Meredith said, ticking off on her fingers.

"The problem is, she doesn't care about anything," I said.

Meredith and Brandon looked at me.

"She treats anyone and everyone like they're shit," I said. "If there's something she's supposed to do, to—you know, because it's polite or because it's what you do to avoid conflict... She doesn't do it. But it's not like she's bucking convention just to be a rebel, she isn't... She doesn't break rules to be breaking them, she breaks them because they get in her way."

"The only thing that matters to her is winning," said Brandon.

"She doesn't care what she loses," Meredith said.

"That's a really bad position to be against," Brandon said. "If you're fighting someone with nothing to lose, there's no way they can't win."

"... What?" I said, totally mystified.

"What if you had nothing to lose," Brandon said. "How could you lose it? All conflict has a single goal—to take something from the other person. Trina doesn't care if you take things away from her, because she doesn't value them. There's nothing for you to win from her. So, there's no way you can win."

"Except that she does have things to lose," Meredith said, just when I was starting to think this was hopeless. "She just doesn't realize it. Her computer privileges, for instance."

"She could live without them," I said bleakly.

"Yes, she could, but she wouldn't want to," Meredith said.

"She wouldn't care," I said. "She'd still have her friends here at school to whine to."

"There's another thing she can lose," Meredith said.

"So... You're saying I should turn her friends against her," I asked.

"Nonsense," Meredith said. "I'm just pointing out that the situation isn't the utter disaster Brandon makes it look like."

"Of course it's a disaster," Brandon said pleasantly. "It's going to end in ruin. Like a Shakespearian tragedy."

"Involving barbarians," I said humorlessly, remembering the conversation on Wednenday morning.

"You are all going to die, " Brandon leered, his voice an alarmingly sinister basso. "Slowly... And. Painfully."

Meredith and I stared at him, our mouths gaping open.

"Right, well," I said. "That's just very reassuring."

"He's very good at that," Meredith said faintly, her eyes as large as saucers.

Brandon beamed, inordinately pleased with himself.

"Okay, so, Trina," I said. "Conversation back on track. Trina."

"Yeah," said Meredith, tearing her gaze away from Brandon with an effort. "Trina. Okay." She heaved a breath.

"The whole point of fighting," she said, "is to—"

"Hey guys," Zach said suddenly, bobbing into our midst. Christa hovered behind him. "Sorry to bother you, but Christa's got a question and then she's got to run to orchestra— Well, I guess you'd know about that. Uh. Well. Am I interrupting anything, or—"

"No, go for it," Meredith said. "If it's quick. We've got to get to choir too."

"Yeah, it's quick," Zach said. "Uh, Brandon, uh. Is it okay if we—by 'we' I mean Christa and I—is it okay if we come to your house after school? We, um. We've been looking for, uh. Some privacy, to. Uh. You know. To, uh—"

Meredith was smiling at his clear discomfiture—Zach hadn't yet turned red, but he seemed about five inches from it. But Brandon said, "I'm sorry, Zach, but, I can't. My parents—"

"Oh, oh yeah!" said Zach. "Shit, I totally forgot about them. It's totally cool, man—"

"They're not even okay with me and Meredith doing stuff, they'd go crazy if you were to show up—"

"Naw, I get it," Zach said. "It's cool. Sorry, man, didn't mean to—"

"It's okay," Brandon said, "normally I'd say yes in an instant, but, they kinda..."

"Yeah, man..." said Zach.

There was a moment of silence as their momentum wound down.

"Well," said Zach. "I better let you guys get back to talking about... Whatever you're talking about. Thanks anyway, man."

"No problem," Brandon said, and Zach and Christa left.

"Have they been like that since yesterday?" he asked Meredith.

"Looks like it," said Meredith.

I had no idea what they had been like, and I wanted my answers. "So," I said again, "conversation back on track. Trina."

"Yes, Trina," said Meredith, rousing herself into action.

"Well, first off. Brandon's kinda right but not exactly right. When Trina attacks you, it's not really to take something away from you. The point is, rather, to make it so difficult for you to oppose her that it isn't worth it anymore, and you stop."

"Like, if someone attacks you on the street," Brandon said. "Some lunatic comes at you with a knife—"

"Trina," I said humorlessly.

"—And tries to kill you," Brandon said. "Do you kill him? No, not necessarily. I mean, you could, but you don't have to. You just have to make it clear to him—her—that it's not going to be worth the trouble of hurting you."

"And how do I do that," I asked.

"Generally by hurting them more," Brandon said bluntly. "To the point where they stop and think and say, Why am I even bothering? This isn't worth the effort. And then they go away."

"And you're supposed to do that against a man with a knife??" Meredith asked.

"Yes, unless you want him to stab you," Brandon said.

Connections sparked in my mind, and I held up my hand. "Hold on." Puzzle pieces clicked into place, spelling out a new answer. "But that's missing an important point. What you described—that's how Trina's reacting to me. She's trying to hurt me so much that I stop attacking her. But the thing is—when did I start attacking her? I've been leaving her alone. I've been just staying out of her way."

"In other words, why is she attacking pre-emptively in the first place," Meredith said.

"Does it matter?" Brandon asked flatly. "If the man comes at you with a knife, are you gonna stand there and say, 'No, wait, why are you doing this' while he kills you?"

"It does matter," Meredith said. "Because if we know why she hit first, we know what she's trying to protect."

"Something important to her." Another flash of insight, a vital connection falling into place, and I added: "Something she can lose."

Meredith nodded.

"But what?" Brandon said.

"You haven't done anything to offend her," Meredith said. "You haven't said anything publicly that could be taken the wrong way?"

"No," I said, remembering all the people on Candlelight who had stood forward, volunteering evidence of my good conduct: "I took it to e-mail."

"Might Trina have received the contents of those e-mails, either by first- or second-hand?" Brandon asked.

"God, I hope not," I said. Violetta was my main online confidante, and though she sometimes suggested drawing others into my confidences when they had skills and knowledge that could prove useful, she had never told those people why they were being consulted, merely told them that I, through her, was asking them to contact me. The thought that she might be betraying me sent a cold shiver down my back. I liked Violetta. So, for that matter, did Brandon and Meredith (who had both met her online) (as had... That other person), and we sometimes joked that she should come cross-country and visit us of a day—we were all sure we'd get along famously. Well, if push came to shove, I had my own store of her secrets... Which I knew I'd never use. I'm just not that kind of person. But it was reassuring to have them, just in case.

"So if you haven't offended Trina on purpose, you might have offended her on accident," Meredith said.

"—Well— Yeah," I said. I mean, duh. I might also have breathed today. "But how does that help us? Now that we've covered all the actions I took that have to do with her, now we have to cover every action I've taken ever?? This is gonna take a little while."

"No, I didn't say we'd figure it out," Meredith said. "If it's that, then... You'll just have to ask Trina yourself."

Uh-huh.

"Gee," I said, "can we say, Marching into the lion's den?"

"Marchingintothelion'sden," Brandon said brightly.

We both looked at him.

"So, anyway," I said to Meredith. "Marching into the lion's den. Without weapons. And wearing lots of pieces of steak."

"So, what, are you saying she won't tell you?" Meredith said.

"No," I said, "she probably will. But it'll be hard."

"So what?" said Brandon again. "Arie, the man's coming with the knife. He intends to kill you. Yeah, it's gonna be hard to stop him. But does that mean you're gonna lie down and let him do it?"

They looked at me, calm twin stares, and I knew what the answer was.

The car ride home was like water torture: wanting to move, wanting to flinch, wanting something to happen. While Mom and Trina sat serenely in the front seats, barely talking, evidently content to let the world scroll past them. I wanted to jump up and shake them. Words wanted to spill from my throat: "Somebody do something! Somebody say something!" Words, or maybe just my lunch.

I fled up to my room the instant I could. I didn't think I could do this. Trina had become such a monster in my head that I wasn't sure I could stand up to her. And can you blame me? This girl was able to march into my life at whim and send everything toppling, and there was never anything I was able to do about it. Or, at least, I was never smart or quick enough to do anything useful about it, which is about the same thing. For her, it was like killing a fly with a nuclear bomb, and I had about the same chance as the fly of escaping.

I slumped at my desk with my head in my hands. It was hopeless. Trina was going to destroy me and there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it.

The man with the knife was coming.

Suddenly I could hear Brandon's voice as if he were standing beside me. So it's gonna be hard. So what? Are you gonna lie down and let him kill you?

I stared at my reflection in the unlit computer monitor, in its single shadow-colored eye.

When Trina finally came up to her room, nearly half an hour had passed. I'd heard her voice and my mother's the whole time; I wondered what half-truths or booby traps she had been planting in my absence. It didn't matter. I had to do this no matter what.

When I knocked on Trina's mostly-closed door, she snarled, "Get lost, douchebag." She knew it was me because my mother doesn't knock on doors.

"Trina," I said, "why are you so angry at me?"

"I said get lost, douchebag, " said Trina.

"No," I said, "I'm not going to." With a sudden flash of inspiration: "I'm going to follow you around and make your life miserable. Like I always do."

A short snarl was her only response to the sound of my dull irony.

"But!" I added brightly. "This time I want something from you, Trina."

No response.

"If you give it to me, maybe I'll go away."

A short silence. And then the door creaked open a little, just enough to allow out my sister's furious face.

"What do you want."

I shrugged. "Answer the question. Why are you so angry at me?"

She stared at me, her face frozen.

"I mean... I've done my best to steer clear of you, because I know you don't like having me around. And... If I've offended you on accident, well... I'm sorry. I didn't mean to. I apologize. But I don't want you to go to war on me like this. It's already getting ridiculous. If it's something I've done, well, tell me what it is, and I'll stop doing it. I don't wanna be your enemy."

Trina stared at me for a long, silent moment. Then her face took on a smile I didn't like.

"You really think it's that simple," she said. "You think it's really that simple."

"Should I... Think otherwise," I asked, scrabbling for purchase.

" 'Should I think otherwise, ' " Trina sneered. She flung the door open, sauntering into her dim room. "Are you really so mentally incapable as that? Is it really so hard for you to figure it out?"

"Look, Trina," I said. "I didn't come here to fight you, so you don't need to be hostile. Cut it out already. Just tell me what I need to know."

Trina looked at me, with a glint in her eye that made me nervous. Her voice was seductive. "Tell you... 'What you need to know, ' eh?" Her smile could have chilled lava. "Do you mean that?"

I swallowed a nervous lump in my throat. "Yeah. Yeah, I mean that. Tell me what I need to know."

"All right." Trina spun dramatically, pacing back and forth. "Where shall I start, then. Ohhh, there's so much to say!"

I blinked.

"All right. First off." She turned to me. "That whole suffering saint bit? Pathetic. Really is pathetic. No one buys it, Arie. We all know where the blame lies."

I said, "... What?"

"And the Innocent schtick isn't cutting it either," Trina said. "Nobody's fooled by you, don't you get it?"

"Who's fooling," I retorted. "When have I ever pretended to be anything that I'm not?"

"Roll up your sleeves," said Trina.

"What?" I said.

"Roll up your fucking sleeves!"

I gave her a sidelong glance and pulled at my sleeves. My scars began to itch when they felt the open air.

"So, tell me, O Innocent Sister Who Wears Everything On Her Sleeve," said Trina, her voice laconic. "What's with the long sleeves? It's getting on towards summer: can't you wear T-shirts or tank tops like the rest of us?" Now there was a sneer in her voice, and singsong mockery. "Whatcha hiding? You haven't got anything to be ashamed of, have you?"

I fought the urge to scratch my arms. "What I do with my arms is my business and mine alone."

"You're missing the point, " said Trina in a voice like acid. "Of course it's your business, but what do you do?"

"So I don't want to deal with the questions," I said, feeling uncomfortable. "Is that a crime?"

"Oh-h! so there's que-eestions, " said Trina. "Why? There wouldn't happen to be something you'd like to keep hidden, would there? Something you'd like to... Pretend... Isn't there?"

I heard my own words suddenly, rebounding out of the past: When have I ever pretended to be anything that I'm not?

"You're not normal," Trina hissed, an unknowing echo of my thoughts. "You're fucked up. You have scars. You do weird things that other people don't."

I found refuge in defensiveness. "So do you."

Trina paused mid-step. "—Why. Yes. Yes, actually. So do I. But at least I don't lie about it."

"And that somehow makes it better?" I charged. "It's somehow okay that everybody looks at you funny because you deserve it? 'Oh, it's no problem that I'm actually in therapy, because I'm so fucked up, I ought to be!' "

Trina froze in place, her face speculative, as if I had suddenly said something interesting. "Ah, yes. Therapy. The vaunted family therapy. Tell me, Arie. Is it truly worth the effort?"

"What?" I said. The floor was dropping out from under me. "What do you mean?"

"We go in every week... Over dinner we hear Mother complaining about how much money it costs, and then how much more it costs to eat out that night... We sit there for an hour and listen to Dr. Moreau's—excuse me, Loren's—soggy proselytizing, and for what? Nothing changes. Nothing ever gets better. Wouldn't it have been easier, dear sister, if we had never gone at all?"

"No," I said stubbornly, clinging to the few signposts I trusted. "No, we should have gone and we should still go. It's our only chance at getting better."

Trina's lips curved in a dull smile. " 'Our only chance at getting better, ' " she repeated.

"I wish we didn't have to go." She seemed to be talking to herself more than anything else. "I wish things were like they were before. When I had control over my own life. When I could decide what was going to happen. When there weren't a thousand ridiculous rules hedging me in."

She looked at me. "Do you know when that changed?"

I swallowed past a dry throat. "No."

"It has to do with somebody going behind my back while I was at a flute lesson," Trina snapped.

My heart hammered. "Really?"

Trina stalked towards me, a predator with gleaming fangs. "I came home that night to find my life completely rearranged. Somebody had revealed my deepest secret. Those few things in my life that I had managed to get some control over—my cutting, my depression, my purging—were suddenly laid bare for all to see. Do you know how I felt?"

"Probably... Probably not so good," I said faintly. Probably a little like I felt now.

"That night I swallowed a dozen pills," Trina said matter-of-factly. "I guess it wasn't enough, because I woke up the next day, but I wonder what my liver looks like."

And after school that day she had laughed with me. Was I truly that blind? Was it as simple as that? All my secrets, dumped blindside—because I had dumped hers?

"And do you know why you told them?" Trina said.

"To—" I grappled blindly for defense. "Because you needed help. Because I wanted to—"

"Bullshit, " Trina spat. Her face was inches from mine. She could kill me at any moment. She was clearly planning to. "You told them... Because you wanted to look good."

The sense of vertigo was so strong that I thought gravity had disappeared. What was all this? Where the hell had she come up with all this?... Was any of it actually true?

"The failing daughter," Trina said. "The one with all the hopes riding on her. You know how they talk. 'Oh, Arie, she's such a nice girl, I can't believe she's wasting herself away like that... ' And then you saw a golden opportunity. To make yourself look like a saint. And you took it. You told them my secrets, our secrets—all our secrets—and they thought you were the Messiah. And you ruined my life.

"And now... I'm going to do the same to yours."

"W... Why?"

"Because I hate you." She gave me a disturbing smile. "You're my sister. What do you expect?"

In my room, I hunched on the bed, staring at the wall with the door closed. Thousands of things whispered and galloped in my head, a rampant whirlwind. Trina had said so many things... But it all amounted to one thing: That I was just the same as her.

My mind rebelled. No. No I'm NOT the same as her. I'm not a huge fucking bitch like her. I don't do stupid things like her, I don't make stupid mistakes like her. I don't... Look for attention, by acting like a little child. I don't do stupid things like... Push away the perfect boyfriend because he isn't perfect enough. I don't... Do things deliberately to earn my parents' approval, like telling them huge secrets I should have at least talked to my sister about first. I'm... not...