I showed up at your party

When Taylor Swift released folklore, I did something kind-of weird: I essentially wrote a piece of fanfiction around the song "Betty" and its sister songs, "Cardigan" and "August."

It was a moment where I felt like I knew exactly what those songs were about. I saw the movie of these characters' lives in my head and I had to get it out into a document. It wasn't my story, but I had something to say about it.

I put it up on a website where I knew few people would see it because I felt silly about it. But today, having watched Folklore: The Long Pond Sessions, I feel differently. "Betty" is about something completely different to the people who wrote it – and I kind-of love that.

I have a tattoo on my wrist from a passage in The Perks of Being a Wallflower. It goes like this:

"I thought about how many people have loved those songs. And how many people got through a lot of bad times because of those songs. And how many people enjoyed good times with those songs. And how much those songs really mean. I think it would be great to have written one of those songs. I bet if I wrote one of them, I would be very proud. I hope the people who wrote those songs are happy. I hope they feel it's enough. I really do because they've made me happy. And I'm only one person."

The absolute best thing about music is that every song in the world has the capability to feel different to every person that hears it. How cool is that?

So, to me, James is a teenage girl in love with her best friend, Betty, who loves her back but is afraid for anyone to know. So, James spends a summer with a girl named August, who isn't afraid. August is wonderful – but she isn't Betty.

Here's the silly little thing I wrote, inspired by a song someone else wrote:

It wouldn’t be true to say it didn’t mean anything. It did. August was a real person, with a real heart. But she wasn’t Betty.

But maybe Betty isn’t James’s anymore.

//

James had gone away for the summer, to London to stay with her aunt, the one whose apartment was basically a greenhouse and who made weird paintings of fruits for a living.

While she was there, she met August. August, who made James forget she missed Betty. August, whose tangled hair trailed down her back. August, who took James to underground clubs, where they’d drink too many shots they didn’t pay for, dance too close, smile too much, knowing it was ok because they didn’t know anyone, not even each other. August, who looked like an angel when she danced under the streetlight in her jeans, her shoes in one hand, a stolen bottle of champagne in the other. August, who kissed James in alleys behind malls, in theaters, in tube cars, in between sheets – who made James feel like she was her favorite.

But August wasn’t Betty.

Betty, who James had loved her whole life. Betty, who would look up from her books and smile the smallest smile at James, like every moment was a special secret between them. Because it was. Betty, who put the Band-Aids on James’s scrapped up knees, when they were little and even now. Betty, who told James she looked like an angel in her garden. 

Betty, who would move away from James when an adult came in the room. Who would tell people they were too busy for boys. Who James loved but couldn’t love out loud.

Betty, who wasn’t speaking to James because of August.

They had been inseparable for as long as James could remember. Same homeroom, James’s desk behind Betty’s. Betty’s house was James’s too, where she didn’t have to knock, where the garden gate was always open. Now, James has a class or two with Betty. She skates past Betty’s and knows she can’t go in, feels the breath leave her lungs even before she hits a pothole and slides across the asphalt. It’s her fault, the fall – both falls. 

She wasn’t thinking.

James can’t be mad at Inez for telling Betty, even though she wants to be. Inez is a gossip who lives for other people’s lives, but she heard about August and what she heard was true. And Betty deserved to know, but she didn’t deserve to know like that. James would’ve told her, could’ve told her better, she could’ve explained and it might’ve been ok. But now she’s a liar too because she didn’t get to Betty first.

And maybe James has waited too long to apologize. She wasn’t in the gym for the Homecoming dance when Betty’s song came on, wasn’t there to squeeze her hand once and let her smile that small smile, like they always did when that voice sang to them. She decided to come too late, she walked in too late, Betty was already dancing. On the floor in a pretty dress with a boy. James thought maybe Betty wanted her to see but she also thought maybe Betty hadn’t thought of her at all. 

Betty is having a party on Saturday. Inez is supposed to be there. James is not.

She has half a mind to show up anyway. To make a big scene. To burst into Betty’s bedroom during “Truth or Dare,” to tell Betty the truth, to dare her to forgive her. To say, “I want you, do you want me? I love you, do you love me? I don’t know why I did what I did, I don’t know anything.”

To say, “It’s been weeks without you and it feels like years.” To say, “They don’t matter, none of it matters.” To say, “Kiss me here, kiss me now, kiss me always.” To say, “Betty, I miss you. Do you miss me too?”