Phoebe Zodiac

My best friend asked me if I was depressed today.

“Why would you ask me that?” I stopped walking and turned to face him.

Drake looked perplexed, shrugging his broad shoulders, “You haven’t been talking lately and you barely look at me anymore”.

I bit my lower lip, starting to walk again slowly with him by my side.

“No, I’m fine”, I lied.

I could see the expression on his face that meant he was hurt that I wasn’t giving him the truth. I turned away from his disapproving eyes, why did he have to know me so well? I thought I was doing a good job at hiding my doubts of sanity from Drake, even though I shouldn’t have even tried. I’m not a skilled enough actress to hide my feelings in the real world, on-stage it’s so much easier to mask anger or sadness into glee, because you know you can be sad again later without pretending. When your sad or angry in the real world, it becomes much harder to mask, because it’s completely real and believable.

“Are you sure?”

I sighed, reaching up to stroke a stray piece of reddish-brown hair that had gone astray on his head.

“Yes”.

Drake nodded, biting his lower lip in frustration.

I was mad at myself for not telling him, and I don’t know why I didn’t in those moments, i really don’t. I trust Drake more then anyone else in my life, more then my mom even, and me and my mother are usually very close.

It’s not that I’ve known Drake Stanton for very long, in fact it’s only been four months, but sometimes when you have a connection with someone you just know that you’re going to get along, and after you spend all those four months together, you realize that person knows you better then you know yourself.

I have been analyzing that since this morning when Drake and I talked, how someone can know you better then you know yourself, and I think I know understand how that happens.

People make judgements about you the more they get to know you, they make their own opinions about who you are just by listening to you talk and seeing the accomplisments and mistakes you make, even if it is in the short period of time as our friendship has been. They notice things you don’t see in yourself. We rarely think about what our words tell about who we are as human beings, but they tell so much, and people see that when we don’t.

I could tell you the littlest things about Drake that he doesn’t catch: He’s the most contradictory person I’ve ever met. He’s pretty cocky but he doubts himself in school, he’s smart but he says some of the dumbest things you’ve ever heard. He loves soccer but celebrates when the seasons over, and he loves being Violet Blake’s my best friend, but hates being my best friend.

Apparently when I’m depressed I’m not Violet Blake anymore, and I turn into this hideous alter ego of myself, someone who hates life and is always trying to put people down. At least, that’s how Drake sees it. He even gave my alter ego a name, he calls her “Phoebe Zodiac”. I don’t know why or where he came up  with crazy idea that I’m two different people, but he says whenever I’m depressed I become “Phoebe Zodiac” and no one wants to be around me, not even him. I would suppose it’s because she’s not real and no one wants to be around an imaginary, depressed girl, but I think Drake may be a little on the crazy side himself, so maybe it’s just him.

I hate the way I feel like I can’t tell Drake anything. He’s never betrayed my trust that I have in him, and I do have some, but I am just so uncomfortable with myself when it comes to trusting anyone, that it makes me want to stab myself in the cornea of my eye with a pitchfork.

I could kill Phoebe Zodiac.