A Matter of Convenience

Forty-Five

~Ericson~

If I'm being honest, I didn't expect silence. I expected her to pop off and go off on a tangent, finally able to get everything off her chest. I look at her, and she isn’t even looking at me. She’s looking at the ground we are sitting on. “Well? Why do you hate me so much?”

“Why do you hate me?”

“I asked you first.” Isis scoffs and rolls her eyes. I lean back on my hands, waiting for her to answer.

“Ugh, fine!” I fight the smirk that is fighting to grace my face. I really want to know what her issue with me is. If we are going to be stuck here for a bit, now seems like the perfect time to find out. “I’ll start at the beginning.” I get comfortable, ready to hear what she has to say. “Remember when we sued to accompany our dads to meetings? One in particular, you took it upon yourself to make fun of a friend of mine.”

“Uh, what now?” Isis sighs.

“You made fun of my childhood friend, Myra. You called her a fat pig and when I saw you, you were holding court and acting it out.”

“She said that I called her that?”

“Yes, she pointed right at you.” I sit and let her words wash over me. The funny thing is that I really don’t remember the incident she’s referring to. “When I confronted you, I pushed you.” That ‘ah ha’ moment hits me, and my eyes get big.

“I remember that. I wasn’t even talking to her when you pushed me. I was getting on the boy who did call her that. I was talking about him.” I look at Isis, and she looks surprised.

“Well, uh, ok. Um, high school did nothing to fix my impression of you. Does the name Janet ring a bell?” Instant anger sets in, and I want to rip someone’s head off. “You had a relationship with Janet, yet played around on her. Why? Is it because she wasn’t a ranked member?”

“Where’d you get the idea that Janet and I were an item?”

“From Janet, of course. She spoke about you all the time. When we came to your practice, I was appalled at how ugly you spoke to her.” I sigh and shake my head.

“You know Janet was from my pack, right?” The surprise on Isis’s face is answer enough. “She left the pack because she became obsessed with me. Finding her in my bed, shower, tub, and closet was more than enough. She followed me around everywhere, and she was harassing the girls at school who even dared to look at me.” I hated that time, and when my father made her leave, I felt I could breathe a little easier. “I should have known that things weren’t over. Before that day you guys showed up at practice, she had been back to her old tricks and then some. She had placed dead animals in my bed. I still have no idea how she got on packlands, not definitively, anyway. I had just had an incident with her right before that day, which is why I reacted like I did.” So, her hatred of me is filled with misunderstandings. Interesting.

~Isis~

Blown away? I’m not too sure that covers how I feel right now. It seems that the impression I had of Ericson wasn’t completely accurate. How I got things so twisted is a wonder, but it seems I succeeded in doing just that.

I don’t even know what to say to him right now. I probably owe him an apology, but how the hell does that come off? I close my eyes and sigh, hating the situation I find myself in. I may not have anything to say in response, but maybe now is the time to clear the air on my side. “Uh, well, that’s my side. Why do you hate me?”

“You’ve always been so full of yourself. Always tried to be where you weren’t welcomed. Always loud and boisterous, rude and, just, everywhere. My father used to comment on it all the time, but I never truly saw it until that issue with Duante.” Duante? How the hell would I know who that is? “You look confused. Let me remind you. Duante was my best friend, and he came to a meeting with me. He went off to talk to you, and he came back hurt. You ripped him a new one, asking him if he knew who our dad was and stuff like that. You were a royal bi.tch to him, and for what? Simply because you thought you were better than him.”

“Ah, I remember now. Let me tell you about your little friend. He didn’t just come and approach me; he tried to put his hands on me.” The shock on Ericson’s face is more than enough. “He backed me into a corner and told me he wanted to see what my mouth did. He said that I should be grateful that I’m being allowed to talk to him, and I needed to show my gratitude.” So many emotions play out on his face, and he looks like there's more he would like to say. “Speaking of your little friend, where is he? I don’t want him anywhere near me.”

“He, uh, he left the pack. He was found harassing women, and he was kicked out.” I’m not even surprised in the slightest. I knew that he was a little pervert, and I was right. If I ever see him again, I will give him a piece of my mind.

“Do you still see me like your father has since I was younger?” Ericson looks at me but doesn’t say anything for a while. I don’t like the silence, but I know that now isn’t the time to push the issue.

“I think in the limited time that we’ve been dealing with each other, I’ve learned that he didn’t know much about you.”

“So it seems that we both had the wrong impressions of each other. Where do we go from here?” Before he can respond, the door flies open.

“A bit talkative, I see.” A rogue stalks over and yanks Ericson up, leaving me in the room alone.