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with you.”
    “He’s my stalker,” I muttered. “I don’t even like him as a friend anymore.”
    “Know the feeling,” she said. “See ya, Abi.”
    “See ya,” I echoed.
    Now, before you get all “Oh, Leanne seems like such a nice person, Abi has it all wrong about her”, let me say that she clearly didn’t believe me, because she never said anything to contradict the rumour, and still continues to refer to him as “that Graham guy, you know, Abi’s ex-boyfriend”. I’m not completely irrational.
    After my encounter with Leanne I went over to Sarah’s.
    “Abi, what’s the story? Graham’s been going on about how he’s madly in love with you and how great it is now that he’s with you. I thought you hated him.”
    “I do . He made it up,” I said quietly.
    “What? Seriously? He just . . . made it up?”
    I nodded. “All I told him was that I was OK with us being friends again. But apparently he, being the freak that he is, decided that that meant it was OK to lie and tell everyone we’re going out.”
    The more I thought about it, the angrier I got, and Sarah was backing me up one hundred percent.
    “What a complete shithead!” she raged. “I mean, what’s his problem , anyway? First he practically stalks you, then he completely insults you by telling everyone you’re with him! Like anyone would actually lower themselves to his standard.”
    Never mind the fact that three months previously I had gushed to her about how nice , how considerate Graham was. She was kind enough not to mention it. Selective memory should be exercised among friends. Just like me conveniently forgetting about how she’d raved about Kieran a few months before when she was ranting about how awful he was.
    The next day was Confrontation Day. It should have been pretty simple. I was in the right, wasn’t I? I would confront him, he had no other option but to admit to being in the wrong, I would yell for a while and then leave, still angry but minus one lying bastard in my life.
    Things didn’t exactly go as planned. It was more like, I confront him; he acts puzzled and confused, denying any knowledge of these events; he then makes some stupid comment like “Why are you always so hostile?”; he follows this by accusing me of treating him badly even though he has always been there for me. What the . . . ?
    He starts actually listing off occasions when I have apparently not been a good enough friend to him. I am so taken back by this that I don’t know what to say. I don’t argue with him.
    When he finally takes a breath I mention the fact that he makes me feel worthless. He demands examples.
    Gosh, Graham, unlike you, I don’t have an encyclopaedic mind which stores every single sentence ever uttered. And I certainly can’t think of one offhand when you’re yelling at me even though you’re the liar here, you’re the bad guy.
    He smirks. He is triumphant. He believes himself to be the hero.
    He is completely twisted.
    He calls me two weeks later and says that he is willing to forgive me. I slam down the phone, but he is such a master of manipulation that I actually feel bad about doing it.
    I hate him. More than Leanne, more than the Bleach Brigade. More than me, even.
     
     

Chapter Seventeen
     
    Dinner in the Evans’ house.
    Greg: “Football. Football football. Football?”
    Mom: (nodding and being an interested, involved parent)
    Dad: (reads newspaper. He is the involved parent on Thursdays and Saturdays. Now he wants to catch up on the day’s events.)
    Greg: “Football football football.”
    Jess: (rolling eyes) “Shut up about your stupid football!”
    Mom: (on automatic pilot) “Don’t say ‘shut up’ to your brother.”
    Jess: (assuming the role of rebellious teen, since Abi is too busy rebelling by not being a rebel) “But he’s boring. I don’t know why you bother listening to him.”
    Mom: “Eat your dinner.”
    Jess: “You never listen to me. It’s always him . You hate me.”
    Mom: