Growing Up

Ava’s gym bag felt like a sack of bricks as they exited the changing rooms. The scoreboard loomed over them as Ella and Ava walked over to look at their points. The glowing red numbers seemed to taunt them as the frustration grew inside Ava.

Home — 6
Away — 25

‘Ugh!’ Ava exclaimed, letting her gym bag fall to the ground as she raised her arms. ‘Why do we always have to play so badly! You should’ve hit like this, Ella!’ She demonstrated a stance by hitting an imaginary volleyball.

‘Sorry.’ Ella said quietly, her confidence faltering. Her head hung down; shoulders slumped in defeat.

Ava wanted to scream at her best friend’s meek response, but instead stormed out of the sports hall heading to her next class as the school bell rang. Ella quickly chased after her, as she called out, ‘I’m sorry, it was a mistake!’

‘It was a mistake, alright!’ Ava puffed, walking even faster so that Ella couldn’t catch up. Ava reached her next class before Ella did and settled in her chair. Just as the teacher started to speak, Ella burst into the classroom panting and scrambled into the seat next to hers.

She had almost forgotten that the class they were having right then was Humanities, in which was not just the only class Ella and her were together in, but they were at the same table, in the same group, and were working partners. Usually, Ava would have been overjoyed to be working with her best friend, but in this case, she had no reaction and looked at the teacher — who was giving a lecture on the history of England — while completely ignoring Ella’s existence. The rest of their group noticed something was clearly off, considering that during the first ten minutes of the class, Ella had asked Ava three questions, while Ava had completely ignored her, straight-faced and paying no attention to the group altogether.

The class was given a task to have a group conversation on the importance of having royalty within a government. Ava had started to give her opinion while her group obviously had other plans. They each glanced nervously at the teacher and took it as a sign to go off-task when the teacher left to speak to another group.

One group member decided to break the tension. ‘What’s going on? You guys are acting weird.’

Another asked, ‘Ava, are you mad at Ella?’

The fact that she was asked that question given that it was clear she was mad made Ava even more furious. Ava wanted to yell at them and tell them to be quiet but of course, they were in a classroom and she wasn’t able to do that. Instead, Ava spoke in a plain, emotionless voice. ‘Yes, I’m very mad as you can see.’

The group members exchanged faces of curiosity and nervousness. ‘What happened?’ they asked Ella. ‘Don’t tell them.’ Ava snapped, giving Ella a pointed look.

‘I can’t tell you.’ was Ella’s only response.

‘It’s your choice, you don’t have to listen to Ava.’ One of the girls urged.

Ava shot a glare at Ella. Fearful, Ella shook her head and looked back at her teacher to be given another task. The group members sighed; Ava was relieved. The rest of the lesson flew by and Ava packed her bag and ran out the door, not even giving a second thought about leaving Ella and their argument behind.

-

The next day, Ava had cooled down and acted as if nothing happened the day before. Ava approached Ella in her classroom like she did every morning but Ella walked away without a word. Ava thought Ella was trying to make her feel bad, but she knew Ella would come back so Ava brushed it off, instead starting conversations with her other classmates. Ava walked up to Lana, who had just joined the school this year. Ava thought Lana was cool and pretty; the way her short black hair was smooth and shiny, and how she was nearly bound to be popular.

‘Hey, Lana!’ Ava called out.

Lana smiled at Ava. ‘Oh hi, Avy,’ said Lana, with a kind smile on her face. Lana had always called Ava that since she joined the school. It had only been a few days since school had started so Ava was still getting used to the name. Ava didn’t even know why Lana called her Avy, but she went along with it.

Ava briefly told Lana what had happened with Ella and started to hang out with her more and more. Eventually, Ava started to hang out with Lana’s friend group, but when she first met everyone, she was surprised to see Ella sitting with them, laughing and sharing treats.
This time, Ava took a spot next to Ella but almost immediately as Ava sat down, Ella moved to the other side of the group. Ava felt a little pang of sadness thinking that she may have lost her best friend of 5 years but she brushed it off and talked to Lana and her friends.

After that day, Ava had done nothing but try to talk to Ella and try to become her best friend again for a whole week. But no such luck. Ava had been thinking as if she had really lost her best friend for good but on the other hand, she thought Ella was being a little foolish. Why was she mad? Was it because of what happened at the volleyball match? Ava had no idea.

That evening, she talked to her sister Avery about the situation. ‘Maybe you need to sit her down at lunch and talk to her’ Avery suggested. ‘Just ask her if you could have a talk with her, I’m sure she’ll be keen to.’

But Ava forgot to mention to Avery — quite frankly, she had forgotten about it herself — that Ella most definitely did not like talking things out. The realization had come to her when she thought of a distant memory from two years ago, when Ava and Ella had a fight about who was the better LegoTM character. Ava remembered that Ella had wanted to leave the topic alone when Ava tried to talk to her about it.

Following her sister’s advice, the next day, she asked Ella to have lunch with her, just as her sister had suggested. However, when Ava proceeded to take the empty seat across Ella, Ella immediately stood up and moved to another table. Ava followed Ella but instead sat at the other end of the table, far away from Ella. Ava was greeted with faces of disgust from Ella’s friends, which made her feel unwelcome. So, she stood up and walked to the library to spend her lunch there, alone. That day when Ava reached home from school, the first thing she did was to go and vent to Avery about the unfortunate day she had.

Avery didn’t quite have the dramatic response upon listening to Ava’s experience that Ava was expecting, but was instead bothered by the fact that Ava had forgotten to tell her about Ella’s past behaviors. If she had known about them, she would have helped come up with a different plan for Ava to confront Ella. For about 15 minutes, or what felt like an hour to Ava, she tried to come up with a plan with her sister, but had to keep starting over when they encountered the tiniest of flaws in their plan. Ava eventually gave up and just decided to go to school normally without a plan, and to act as if everything was normal and unbothered, just like how it was before Ella.

The more Ava tried to ignore the trouble with Ella, the harder it was to make new friends at school. Ella had told almost every girl in their class a convoluted story of what had happened between her and Ava to make people take her side. Ella’s plan was successful, and Ava found it challenging to make new friends in her class. However, there was one girl in Ava’s class who Ava knew was on Ella’s side but didn’t mind talking to her otherwise. This girl was Lana.

After ditching Avery and her horrible advice, Ava started to talk to Lana a lot more and asked her for advice. It was rare for Lana to actually understand where Ava was coming from but when she did, she gave Ava excellent advice. Though Ava grew closer to Lana, Ava couldn’t sit with her because Lana was still good friends with Ella. Ava adored Lana as she thought she was cool, so Ava tried to become more and more like Lana thinking that it might help her make more friends.

Although Ava thought she had mastered acting like Lana, it gave the complete opposite result and she still struggled with her friendships. So instead of attempting to sit at Ella’s table every day to be disappointed and then going to sit in the library, Ava decided to skip lunch entirely and go straight to the library. Ava ended up doing that for 2 months until Ava took notice of another girl in her class, Rebecca, who didn’t have any friends from their class.

Rebecca and Ava had a rather colourful history. Rebecca used to tease Ava constantly until a teacher stepped in to stop it. Although Ava hated Rebecca with all her heart, She still didn’t have anyone to hang out with so she put the past behind her and started to hang out with Rebecca. At first it was obvious that Rebecca was uncomfortable hanging out with Ava but with time, Rebecca seemed to accept it. One day, Rebecca told Ava to call her Becca and Ava knew that Rebecca was starting to enjoy their friendship. Ava was really happy about her friendship with Becca and somehow Ella’s group started to become nicer to Ava…