Shame can ruin a person, it can make you feel 2 feet tall, it can make you lock yourself away to the furthest corner in the darkest room of the house you don’t find comfort in anymore. I think as a young teenager everyone carries around a cage of shame keeping everyone just far enough, so they don’t get trapped in there with you. The older generation will harp on about how we are the lucky ones, we don’t have the weight of the world on our shoulders, we don’t have the same troubles that they had. And they’re absolutely right. We have a different world on our shoulders. A world with judgment and ridicule, a world that makes girls and boys feel like shit six and a half days of the week. The people you bring into your shame cage aren’t supposed to leave, however Stockholm syndrome that appears to be, they are supposed to stay in there with you and help you dig out from underneath.
I was packing my bags for my first holiday away without parental supervision, seventeen-year-old me thought I was the dog’s bollocks. I was going with my best friend, my shame cage roommate, Kira. Her and I had been digging for many years together and with this trip just around the corner we were so close to the final escape. Kira, late as always, arrived 2 hours after the requested time with clothes in an assortment of different supermarket bags with options, because girls love options. Both with our hair tied back, trackies on and full oily faces, we tackled the suitcases.
Although Kira and I are known as a double act in the south east we had recently become a trio with Miss Emily Kirsch Mills joining the group, after all the strongest shape is a triangle. As this trip was a gift from my mother, there were only two tickets, and as Emily had been too recent an addition in my mothers’ eyes, the obvious choice was Kira. We made our peace with and it and Emily didn’t hold a grudge, I respected her for that.
I remembered that I had some last-minute shopping to do, so Kira and I jumped in the car and made our way into town to scope the Poundland holiday range. Whilst we were in the car on the way home, Kira got a call from Emily.
“Where are you, I’ve been standing here for fifteen minutes?”
Confusion washed over our faces, Kira’s response mimicked our expression and Emily became more enraged at our blank reaction. We were told, in no specific terms, to hurry the fuck up. We discussed a game plan as we made our way back home, deny everything, as luck would have it, this time we really didn’t know what she was on about.
We met with Emily in the market square where she confessed, she felt left out, that she had a front row seat to the Kira and Giulia show but wasnever brought up for audience participation. I felt horrible that I could make another person feel so isolated. But as Emily went on, I could see the anger build behind her eyes. Although Emily was a reasonable and fair judge her superpower was knowing your weaknesses and keeping them for a rainy day. She reared her ugly headand turned against Kira first telling her she was useless, thick, too focused on boys instead of building a personality. With a beat she faced me. Cold and stern. Emily knew my shame, the largest weight on my cage. I, for longer than I like to admit, was the other woman, knowingly, regretfully, but at the time unapologetically.
“Slut!”, “Disgusting!” and my personal favourite, “You’ll never be good enough.”
I could see the colour drain from her face, she realised what she had done. I consider myself a calm person 98% of the time, but that 2% became enough to snap her in half and laugh at the pieces that remained. I felt the blood curdle under my skin as I spat at her feet. As my arm wound back and my fist began to clench, I felt a touch. Kira brought me back to where I was, she told me to leave it, she wasn’t worth it. I looked her in the eye and told her she’d be nothing but a smear on my memories, the blank face I’ll laugh about one day.
I haven’t forgotten her face. But I don’t want to either. I act as if I was merciful on the day, but I was hurt. Hurt that a friend would turn on me like that with no remorse. Oh well, still got to go to Amsterdam.
Creative Non Fiction Writing at Reading 