The Difference Between You and Me(23)

I can safely say that this was one of the greatest afternoons of my life. And I wanted to tell Jesse about it so, so badly—it was all there, right on the tip of my tongue. This whole thing has made me feel so hopeful about everything, and I could see that hope was what she needed to feel right then, in the bathroom, more than anything, and I was just dying to tell her about it.

But at the last minute I kept it general, and just talked about my hope for the year without going into specifics about NorthStar. We don’t exactly have a great track record when it comes to talking about things from the real world, me and Jesse. We have the most amazing connection two people could possibly have, it’s almost spiritual what’s between us, but we don’t really have that much in common outside of that connection. A couple of times I’ve tried to talk to her about real stuff, and each time I’ve tried to explain about something I’m doing that I really care about a lot, she’s said something totally hurtful and negative to me about it. I know she’s not trying to be hurtful to me, she just doesn’t have the broadest mind of anyone I know, put it that way.

An example I could give is when I got involved last year in student council’s campaign to bring healthier snack options into school to combat obesity, which is a killer. It wasn’t my idea, it was Heather Hughes’s idea, because her mom has diabetes and she has seen firsthand what the obesity epidemic can do to a person. But as soon as Heather proposed it in session I got on board, and I spearheaded a proposal to the school administration to petition Handi Snak, Inc., the company that owns and maintains the snack machines in the cafeteria, to increase the selection of snacks they offer in the machines. I did all this research about what kinds of healthier options they could be offering the students at Vander, and this one Tuesday I was trying to tell Jesse how excited I was about the whole thing, and she had barely heard like three words from me before she interrupted and was like, “Why are you letting a corporation like Handi Snak tell you what’s healthy and what’s not? Why don’t you work with the people at the farmers’ market and bring in actual fresh fruits and vegetables from local farms, which would be organic and healthy and cheap?” And in my mind I was like okay, A) that’s a totally impractical idea because there’s no way to store the fresh fruits and vegetables, and also in the winter there aren’t any and also who’s going to be in charge of preparing and selling them, and B) thanks a lot for being totally negative and dismissive about this plan I worked on for like two months to do something positive for our school. I guess, like a lot of people in our town, Jesse has a tendency to just criticize things that she thinks are wrong—she doesn’t have any actual ideas or solutions for changing things she doesn’t like in the world. Personally, I’m not a whiner. I don’t believe in complaining about something if you don’t have a realistic plan for how to fix it. Organic fruit in the vending machines at Vander is not a realistic solution. Plus, that day when we got into the fight about the healthy snacks, we barely got two minutes of make-out time total, and I was just like, Okay, this is so not worth it. This is the last time I try to talk to her about anything from real life.

I’m sure she would have some crazy, weird objection to the NorthStar thing. I don’t even know what it would be, but I can just feel that she would be like, This violates the separation of church and state, or whatever. And I just didn’t feel like dealing with that from her right then.

That’s one thing I’ll say for Michael—I can talk to him about anything. If I come to him and tell him I just want him to listen to me while I work out a problem I’m having, he’ll do it. He’s the most perfect sounding board. I always hear girls complaining that their boyfriends don’t listen to them when they talk or don’t care about their lives or their feelings or their dreams, and I can’t help but feel bad for them. In this way, Michael’s one in a million. Most girls aren’t nearly as lucky as me when it comes to their boyfriends.

When I called Michael after the NorthStar meeting, I told him all about it, every single thing, what I was wearing and what kind of fizzy water the receptionist brought me to drink while I waited and all the amazing things Mr. Willette and Ms. Rinaldi said to me during our discussion, and how productive it all was and how great for Vander. And Michael just listened supportively to me, and when I was done he told me that he admired me so much, and that he thinks it’s amazing how much I care about our school. As good as I was already feeling, I felt a million times better after I got done talking to him. That’s what real love does—it makes you feel like Wonder Woman, like you can achieve superhuman feats. Not everybody has real love in their life, and I know how lucky I am to have it with Michael. It’s not something I would ever want to give up.