If I'm Being Honest(87)

Charlie and Abby ignore me, playing their board game. But Paige, who’s sketching early designs for her Comic-Con costume—a porg dress—glances up. “For Kowalski?” she asks.

After winter formal, Paige didn’t hesitate to deliver a couple very direct speeches about how I blew it with Brendan, the best guy I could ever hope to find in my entire life. But when I told her what I’d been going though that night, Paige understood. I explained everything to her. Trying to win over Andrew, my “self-taming” plan—which of course she’d kind of figured out, other than the Taming of the Shrew inspiration. Now that I’ve definitively proven I’m not into Andrew anymore, Paige has stopped doubting our friendship. We both know it’s real.

“Yeah,” I say from the couch. “I’ve done, like, a hundred rewrites. I can’t read this essay one more time.”

Paige drops her charcoal. “Give it here, Bright.” She holds out her hand.

“No offense, but you have a B-minus in English.” I cut her a look. “I don’t know if you’re the one to help.”

She rolls her eyes. “I was straight with you about your terrible UPenn essay,” she shoots back. “I’ll let you know if this one is trash.”

I hide a smile. “Fine,” I say, handing over my computer.

She starts reading, her expression growing serious. Her brows join in what first looks like puzzlement, then . . . worse than puzzlement. She sighs, she grumbles, she shakes her head at the page. My stomach sinking, I prepare to fight or discount whatever criticism she hits me with.

“‘The Taming of the Shrew should be considered one of Shakespeare’s tragedies, not one of his comedies. Katherine faces an impossible choice between being herself and ending up alone, or completely changing herself to find a partner,’” she reads from my essay, looking up with disbelief.

“Right,” I say. “That’s my thesis.”

“That’s bullshit,” Paige declares.

Well, I won’t pretend I’m surprised. “You read the body paragraphs, right?” I say weakly. “I think I supported my thesis well enough . . .”

“Cameron, you don’t have to change yourself in order to be loved, or liked, or whatever.” Paige watches me with careful concentration. I squirm in my seat, self-conscious.

“It’s just an English essay,” I say.

“We both know it’s not.” Paige’s voice becomes gentle. “You’re not really writing about Katherine. Is this why you haven’t tried to win my brother back? Because you think you’re like Katherine and you have to be a different person for him?”

I open my mouth, wanting to find a quick and decisive denial. But I don’t.

“I know you think Brendan only liked a fake version of yourself. But it’s not true,” Paige goes on. “I’ve hung out with you for a while, Cameron. You’re really no different. When you were with Brendan you weren’t exactly the delicate, cuddly person you think you were pretending to be. You’re biting and honest and funny, and it’s awesome. I know Brendan liked that about you. Likes that about you.” She raises her eyebrows emphatically.

I try to force down the hope I’ve done my best to destroy this week. But I feel the truth unfolding inside me. Paige is right. I was myself with Brendan. I was honest and open. It’s why he liked me and why I liked him. Why I possibly loved him.

With that realization comes another, clenching and cold.

“I hurt him too badly,” I choke out.

“Well,” Paige replies, “then give one of those famous Cameron Bright apologies. You never know what might happen.”

I feel doors and windows open in my head. I’ll do exactly what Paige says. I’ll put myself on the line. I’ll fight until Brendan knows everything I feel for him.

“But first,” Paige adds, “rewrite this shitty essay.”

I take my computer back, grinning. “You’re the worst, you know that?”

“Whatever,” she says.

“Whatever,” I repeat like I’m pissed. But I’m not.

I’m grateful.



* * *





Before I can focus on Brendan, I have to rewrite my essay. For the rest of the week, I feverishly rework my thesis, reconfiguring my textual evidence. By the time I’m done, an unexpected feeling comes over me. I’m . . . proud of an English essay.

I retitle the paper “Katherine, the ‘Villain’ Mischaracterized.” Then I proceed to crap on Shakespeare. But he deserves it. He wrote a bitch who’s nothing but a bitch, nothing but the sixteenth-century version of a one-dimensional mean girl. Katherine is completely evil, giving audiences no reason to question whether her rudeness or her temper might come with good qualities, or even reflect them. He writes Kate off—into contempt, into comedy, into humiliation—instead of writing a woman who’s complex and who changes on her own, respectably and without entirely erasing her personality. Who’s both good and flawed, who can recognize and right her wrongs while not giving up her strength and independence. Who’s kind without being weak, powerful without being awful.

And in brutish frat-boy Petruchio, who literally starves and beats Kate into submission, he gave readers permission to forget the real, cunning, invisible ways men tame “shrews.” With judgment, with terminology, with effortless, biting words.