Backstory

Me: a 17 y/o theatre nerd posting about this on mobile, sorry if the formatting gets weird

Possible Asshole (PA): girl in the grade above me, also a theatre nerd. She has been getting on my nerves recently by exaggerating events that we both were present at to make herself seem cooler or whatever. She also has been doing this thing where if we work on something together and it gets messed up, then she’ll say “oh I knew that would happen”. Then why didn’t you say anything!! It just is really insincere. 

Yesterday we were both at a build for the show, working really hard to construct the set. I had woken up with a swollen throat and a throbbing headache. Not feeling amazing to say the least. In my rush to get to the build, I had only grabbed a poptart and some water; meaning by the time we broke for lunch, I was FIENDING for some real food. PA and I are friends, so I asked her what she was doing for lunch. 

Me: I have a gift card to Panera and could really use some real food. 

PA: I was craving Panera too! I’ll drive there

Me: Perfect! Would you pick me up our usual?

At this point it is important to note two things. 1) she is also 17, and in my state a 17 y/o is not legally allowed to drive more than other 1 person. Plenty of people break this law but I got into a car crash a few months ago and have been trying to play it safe. 2) when I say “our usual” I mean that she has both picked up panera for me before AND we get the same thing as each other. It wasn’t like she had to remember anything different. 

I handed her my gift card which had $25  on it and told her she could use some of it but I’d prefer to have some money on it for next time since our order costs about $10 each. She agreed, and then gathered the group of people that were going with her (4 other people). 

It’s about 20 minutes into our hour long break and I’m feeling okay. I continued doing work (cleaning up from the pre lunch activities) while I waited for her to come back. As I’m sweeping up I get a call from her

PA: Heyyyyyy

Me: What’s up?

Her: So everyone in the car voted and we’e going to Wendy’s. 

Me: Really? But I gave you my gift card! 

Her: Sorry, everyone voted and I believe in democracy. Do you want anything from Wendy’s? 

Me: No, I’m lactose intolerant and don’t have cash. Plus I wanted real food. 

PA: Sorry. Sure you don’t want anything? Bye then*hangs up*

Here’s where I start getting frustrated, because Wendy’s is 10 minutes away without traffic and panera is 5 minutes away with traffic. Plus there’s a Burger King in the same lot as Panera so they could have gotten pretty much the same thing there. I ask my sister to go out to get it since she has a longer lunch break and panera is 15 minutes walking distance so I wouldn’t have made it back in time. 

PA returns with 20 minutes to eat and while I sit moping, waiting for my sister. One of the girls who went with PA overheard me in a hangry rant to someone else there and informed me that PA was the one to bring up Wendy’s and everyone was pretty indifferent to it. This particular passenger quietly preferred Burger King because she wanted to get back quicker, but a ride’s a ride. 

I wander over to where PA’s group is to get my gift card back and to understand why she did me dirty. This group is basically her cult followers as they are two years younger and can’t drive so they look up to her like a god. They repeat the line of “democracy man” back to me, but PA is not here to defend herself. 

In fact I didn’t see her at all after lunch. Apparently she left without talking to me or giving me my gift card back. By the time my sister returned with my lunch, the break was well over. 

I have little faith that I’ll ever see that gift card again because I lent her two books for a research project and she gave them back to me 2 years later after vigorous prompting from me for about 1 and a half years. 

Am I the Asshole here? Am I justified in thinking she should give me my gift card and a sincere apology? How should I approach the conversation of giving my gift card back in the first place?