Walking to meet them, Evie was almost giddy with anticipation. Sure, it would be uncomfortable initially, saying everything that she wanted to say, but she felt the sheer intoxicating thrill she would experience from telling them exactly what she thought of them would be worth it.
She had known them since school, and had been, up until recently, as close with them all as you can imagine. They would often turn up unannounced at her house, to simply see if she was around, and her parents viewed them more as siblings, such was the frequency of their visits and the intangibility they had on each other’s lives.
But the reality was, she was tired of the old crowd. The conversations were stilted, the topics always the same. Opinions never shifted. There was no growth, no stimulus. She felt that her friends had not moved with her, as she gotten older. They had stayed in the moulds they had crafted as teenagers, seemingly already fully formed, and the status quo bored her.
“Do you remember that night at leaver’s ball?” They would ask. “How drunk we all got?”
No, she felt like screaming. We were 17. I barely remember it. Has nothing interesting happened to you, to any of you, in the intervening years since?
She had been happy until she had seen how good it could be. She had made new friends, at her new job. They all lived in the next town, but crucially, none of them were born there. These were people of ambition, and real purpose. They had different viewpoints, completely separate experiences. This new friendship felt as though it was forged from something other than mere circumstance. She had instead attracted these people by the force of her own personality, individuals who wished to challenge each other, and not just prop one another up. The nights she enjoyed with her new friends instead of the old ones had felt like a rebirth.
One evening she made a radical decision. She no longer wanted to participate in the menial interactions with her childhood friends, and so decided that, the next Friday evening, she would cut them all out of her life for good.
It was no use merely turning her phone off, deciding not to visit them anymore, and offering no explanation to her absence. Instead, she felt it necessary to tell them why she was leaving them, how much they bored her, and why that had forced her to break away from them entirely.
As soon as the thought was in her head, it delighted her. She couldn’t stop laughing to herself all throughout the Friday work day, to the point where her bemused new friends asked her what was the matter.
“Nothing much,” she replied, “I’m just doing something tonight that I’ve been meaning to do for a very long time.”
Her new friends left her to scheme. She had it planned all methodically in her head. She would arrive first as she always did, at the same pub they always went to, and buy herself a solitary drink instead of the expected customary round. As her old friends would come, one by one, oblivious to the social graces of punctuality, she would unleash everything that she had been growing inside of her, a calculated torrent of vicious, personal attacks.
Aaron was a snivelling push over who needed to grow a backbone.
Lottie’s dreams of being a fashion designer were the unrealistic ambitions of a child.
Claire needed to leave him - he didn’t love her, he would never love her.
Neil was overweight, and should stop complaining about it unless he was actually going to act on it.
After relaying everything to each individual, she would tell all of them what the overarching problem with the entire crowd was; their lack of adventure, their willingness to just accept their monotonous lives, their sinking, woeful stagnation. It would be glorious, enriching, a burning of the bridges she no longer wished to cross.
7pm at The King’s Head, she wrote in the group chat, to thumbs up and love heart symbols as opposed to a composed reply. This laziness on their part to not join in with an adequate only strengthened her decision. It was not the mere lack of conversation, but the lack of substance. As she drove home from work, she was positively ecstatic. The rest of her evening chores felt far longer, as she ached for the invigorating release she would experience from cutting off the dead weight from her life.
She arrived at The King’s Head dead on 7 and swanned to the bar, her head held aloft . The barman recognised her, and gave her a smile, which she did not return. To her, the publican was only another person she would never have to see again beyond this evening.
“A double gin and tonic, please,” she asked, choosing something more expensive and grandiose in place of her usual pint. To her friends, it would be a subtle signifier in her change of attitude. The whole evening was to be a magnificent performance, meticulous and precise in its design. She expected tears, stunned silences, outraged words spoken in anger, but resolved to let all of these wash over her, to ignore it all, and to leave it all behind as she strode confidently towards the possibilities of her new life. Grabbing her drink, she wandered over to the usual table, only to find her friends were already there. She looked at them, puzzled. They rarely would arrive together, as they lived on separate ends of the town, and in the entire time she had known them, she had always, always been the first to arrive. Neil even had the gall to glance at his watch, as though they had been waiting for a long time.
“Hi Evie,” Aaron began, his voice flat and unemotional, “Please sit down.”
Evie did as she was told, half-amused by this sudden formality. She was normally greeted with a smile, a light bit of intolerable banter, or the stupid football chant Neil would sing with the syllables in her name.
Evie, Evie, Evie, Oi Oi Oi!
Now, there was nothing. She was met with silence. All of them were morose, grim-faced and quiet, a far cry from the normal inane joyful repartee the group experienced when meeting for drinks. She was just about to begin speaking, before Aaron cut her off.
“I’m glad you’re here,” he began, “We’ve been meaning to speak to you for some time.”
She glanced at the others at the table, who were all looking at their drinks, unwilling to meet her eyes. They had clearly elected Aaron- Aaron of all people - to be their official spokesperson. Evie took a sip of her drink, hoping the uncomfortable silence they had created would last long enough for her to begin her tirade.
“Look, there’s not an easy way to phrase this,” Aaron continued, “God knows we’ve tried. But we just think, collectively, that maybe it would be for the best if you didn’t hang out with us anymore.”
Evie was stunned. Her mouth hung open.
“It’s just, I think we’ve all just grown apart slightly. Like the only thing we have in common with you is that we all grew up together.”
The gin suddenly tasted bitter, and she longed for the familiar cold foam of the amber lagers she usually enjoyed. No better way to wash away a bad taste in your mouth than to rely on an old favourite. But Aaron hadn’t finished.
“We just don’t think you’re adding anything anymore to the group, and it’s not fair on us to keep making all the effort, carrying the conversation, organising everything. It isn’t fair on you either.”
This comment struck her as particularly cowardly, with them making out they were doing this for her benefit rather than just their own comfort. It was a false sense of altruism, a dishonestly. As these thoughts circulated, Evie looked up again at Aaron, who was looking at her expectantly. They were awaiting a response.
Perplexed, Evie didn’t know quite what to say. She was distracted by the way they had all finally looked up, freed from their shackles of shame, liberated by the fact Aaron had taken charge and vocalised what they were all thinking. At once, she felt exactly what she was to them, an uncomfortable, unwanted presence.
“If that’s what you think would be best,” she said.
“I do,” Aaron said, his tone weighted and definitive. “We all do.”
Everything she had wanted to say had gone. She was sure the carefully planned statements would return later, once she was alone, but what use were they then?
They had already ended their association for her.
Her crowning, jubilant victory had been spoiled by the machinations of usurpers.
She rose from the table, feeling her face redden with embarrassment, though she didn’t leave the pub completely. Instead, she waited at the bar, ordering herself another drink to try and calm herself, watching the table of old friends with suspicion. This must be some kind of elaborate, childish prank. They had form for this kind of behaviour before, ignoring someone for part of the evening, or calling them by the wrong name, before exploding into fits of laughter as they explained that it had all been done in the spirit of good fun.
And so she waited. Her gaze never left the table, waiting for the tell-tale sign of a quick glance in her direction, or a barely concealed grin. But they paid her no heed. It wasn’t as though they were actively ignoring her, more that they were just continuing to talk in her absence. She strained to listen into the conversation, bristling slightly as she did so, not wanting to concede that she felt slightly excluded. There was no mention of her name, or the intervention they had just staged. No “isn’t it a shame” or “was that a bit harsh,” no comment in any way that they had just expelled a member from their group.
Instead, it was just the same as it always was. Neil made a self-deprecating comment about his body, Lottie talked about how she might apply for a foundation art college course next summer, and Claire lamented the lack of effort her boyfriend had made for her birthday celebrations.
Only Aaron had changed. Aaron spoke with a new authority. He had seamlessly stepped into a leadership position that was left void in the group without Evie’s involvement.
As the gin became warm and diluted with the melting ice cubes, eventually, she realised they were not going to talk about her, and left the pub entirely, hoping to claim some small victory should any of the group look at her as left, but their eyes never left one another. They were wholly, completely engrossed in each other’s company.
This was fine, she told herself. This was exactly what she wanted.
It was a clean break, a severance.
It was better this way, kinder. It would have been an unnecessary extravagance to list all her grievances towards them, without the luxury of their continued outrage, or the ripples and delicious drama it would have created.
As she walked home, she noted the lack of cruelty in Aaron’s swift dismissal. It had been methodical, certainly, almost brutal in its speed and efficiency, but he hadn’t stopped to gloat. It was a clean, painless removal, quite unlike what she herself had planned.
She felt a surge of anger as tears streamed down her face, betraying the apathy she felt for them. She took out her phone, to see what her new friends were up to. They responded almost immediately, inviting her to some kind of dinner party, where they would engage in games and debates, talk about new music and overrated films.
Evie wiped her tears, pleased she would fill this new silence, that she would spend her time with people she actually felt matched her intellect and sensibilities. She allowed herself a moment of respite, glad that she had finally separated from this weight, trying to silence the persistent thoughts that were bothering her. Perhaps it was the fact that the autonomy of her decision to leave the old crowd had been pulled from beneath her, that they hadn’t even talked about her afterwards.
It was the lack of satisfaction, mainly.
It didn't feel as sweet as she’d hoped.