Never Just Friends

by Lily Craig

  Gazing at the fireplace while sipping her beer, the holidays seemed real now. Madelyn pictured Georgie bending down over the hearth to start a fire—something Madelyn knew Georgie would be far more skilled at than she was. She’d wait until tomorrow for a fire.

  She carried her bags up to the second floor, climbing the wide staircase in awe at the proportions of the cabin. It was spacious enough for a whole family to gather for a Christmas celebration, and for every member of that family to have their own room. Since Madelyn was first to arrive, she'd have her pick of the bedrooms.

  She chose the smallest room at the back of the cabin. Its window faced the stand of trees nearest a rustic picnic table covered in snow. Small birds, whose feathers hardly seemed adequate protection against sub-zero temperatures, flitted around in the branches. On the bed, there was a thick wool blanket in Hudson Bay colors.

  She'd claimed this space because she knew Georgie would be tired; it was best to leave the King-sized bed to her, allow her the comforts her daily life probably lacked. Affection surged in Madelyn's chest while she contemplated that bed, that room. Maybe she'd be able to share it. If she were lucky, if things went as she hoped they might.

  Another sip from her beer fizzed in Madelyn's mouth while she unpacked her things, stacking them carefully in drawers while she thought about Georgie. Already, the daylight was thinning into late-afternoon darkness, an inescapable trait of Canadian winters. She wondered if there were television channels with movies available for her to watch tonight.

  Closing the top drawer full of sweaters and socks, Madelyn bent down to open the bottom drawer. The wooden scraping sound was accompanied by a different, more distant noise. She stood up, alert. Her joke about the horror movie setting now rattled her nerves in earnest. All alone in the woods, concealed in forest and miles from the nearest town.

  This was how scary movies started.

  Madelyn stayed put, frozen in position, while she listened. Her heartbeat pounded her ribcage like a prisoner desperate for escape. Sounds made it past the interior hammering: someone was coming up the driveway.

  The first thing Madelyn wished was that she'd taken a self-defence class like Georgie had suggested. It was a good way to dispel nerves, Georgie had argued. Even if you didn't think you'd need it. Then you'd know a bit more about how to handle yourself.

  Barring the self-defence option, Madelyn rushed downstairs to lock the door. Maybe she could spot who it was before they got up the stairs to the deck and then she'd be able to tell if they were a harmless visitor or some weirdo coming for strangers in the woods. She had no cell service here, only a dusty landline in the kitchen corner that for all she knew didn’t work.

  Socked feet sliding on the wood of the floors, Madelyn raced along the lofted corridor, down the impressive staircase, glancing out the wall of windows to see the front forest and car tracks in the freshly falling snow. Footsteps began to sound their way up the exterior stairs, deck creaking under the person's weight.

  She dead bolted the door and then shuffled to the side so she could peer out the window. It was getting dim enough she wasn't sure who she was seeing, just a solid figure in a puffy coat with the hood up. Fur lining on the hood made the person look even bigger, and the thick sound of the mitten knocking on the door struck its way through Madelyn's nerves.

  It had to be a good sign that they didn't simply try to open the front door, right?

  She hesitated, unsure of whether there was a light she could turn on in the front that would allow her to see the person. Right now, the front peephole showed a person-shaped shadow looming in the dusk. Madelyn scrambled, flipping lights on and off until she found the right one.

  The figure knocked again, double-time, the mittens dampening the blow in a way that somehow added more resonance to the knocks.

  Madelyn found the right switch just before the person knocked again with one hand and reached into a pocket with the other. A cell phone, it looked like. Madelyn's eye darted back up to the scarf-covered face and recognized the eyes set above that plaid fabric.

  "Oh my god!" she breathed, laughing at her fear now that it seemed superfluous. Madelyn unlocked the door and opened it, widening her arms to ready for a hug. "Georgie! You're here early!"

  Her friend hesitated for a second and then stepped into her open arms. Their embrace rivalled what that stuffed bear could likely offer, fierce and warm and strong. When Georgie and Madelyn finally parted, Madelyn felt her stomach plunge like the loss was too much to cope with already.

  "Sorry to surprise you," said Georgie, pulling down the scarf from her nose and mouth. Even without the covering, her voice continued in its characteristic muffled way, each word a soft mumble that only good listeners could fully appreciate. “Job let me take today off by surprise.”

  "No, it's ok—better than ok… amazing!" said Madelyn, ushering Georgie inside. The falling snow had picked up its tempo, swirling in busy-looking eddies amongst the trees. Her heart fluttered alongside the snow, an inner tempest that Madelyn could not ignore.

  Tomorrow she would tell her friend she loved her.

  2

  Age 5

  "Georgiana!" called her mother, voice cheery. The idea of her first day at school had excited Georgiana weeks ago, back when the notion was theoretical. Like when she played with her Lego blocks and imagined she could build the tallest building in the world with them. Kindergarten had taken up a fictional part of her brain and settled there sweetly alongside thoughts of candy and construction.

  Now that the morning had arrived, and with it the need to follow her older siblings into the school, backpack in tow and lunch safely packed, Georgiana wished for nothing more than another year to be home, playing. She snuggled deeper into her blankets despite the growing warmth of the day, hoping that if she buried herself carefully enough, no one could ever find her.

  Instead, her mother opened the door and crept inside, approaching the side of the bed with a cheerful smile.

  "Wake up, sleepyhead! It's your first day of school. Time to get ready, sweetie," she said.

  And so, Georgiana got out of bed, pretending she'd been asleep for the last twenty minutes, and rubbed her eyes while the dread in the pit of her stomach strengthened. School was unfamiliar. Kids went there—big kids. She didn't know what she would do if she had to go to the bathroom, and when her older sisters had talked about the things they learned at dinner time, she'd always been amazed and a little frightened.

  What if she wasn't good at school?

  What if her teacher sent her home after the first day, carrying a note that said she was too stupid to learn and ought to be kept at home?

  Georgiana said nothing, whirling in her private fears while her mother helped her into a light pink outfit, purchased the weekend prior to perfect her first-day-of-kindergarten photographs. The fabric was rough despite its feminine appearance and Georgiana squirmed.

  "Hold still, dear," said her mother. Caroline Brewer was an efficient mother, having already raised two punctual, well-dressed children into little versions of herself. They were downstairs now eating breakfast while Caroline helped Georgiana into her dress.

  "I don't like it," Georgiana said, the words escaping her like air from a balloon, involuntary and breathy.

  "You look wonderful, sweetie. So precious," Caroline said. She had already turned away to pluck hair ties from her purse, tying Georgiana's glossy brown locks into pigtails.

  The clenching feeling in Georgiana's stomach worsened.

  Maybe she was dying.

  At least then she wouldn't have to go to school. With a little cough, she excused herself to the bathroom. Caroline went downstairs to attend to the older children and left Georgiana frilly and itchy upstairs.

  When Georgiana stood on the stepping stool and looked at herself in the mirror, she knew she wasn't dying. But she almost wished she were. Anything would be better than plunging into the unknown world of school with this dress on. Her pigtails swayed jauntily as if th
ey wanted to laugh at her woes.

  Georgiana fixed her soft brown eyes on her reflection, and before she had time to pause and rethink her plan, she grabbed nail scissors from the drawer where she knew her father kept his things. A cut. Then another. With each snip, she took chunk after chunk of hair out of her pigtails. By the time her mother came up to check on her again, tapping on the bathroom door crisply, Georgiana had felled an entire pigtail.

  Wisps of hair carpeted the area around the sink, clung to the ruffles of her dress, and floated down to the stool, floor, and bathroom rug in rings around her. When she moved to start on the other side of her hair, her mother's knocking grew more frantic.

  "Honey, are you ok?" she asked, voice rising an octave.

  "Just a minute," said Georgiana, saying the phrase she'd heard her father use so many times before. Her mother did not respond to her like she would her father.

  "What are you doing, Georgiana? Let me in there, young lady."

  Snip. Snip. The sounds of the scissors making their way through her hair was satisfying, and the sight of the pigtail growing short and ragged felt like a weight was being lifted off Georgiana's chest.

  "I'm almost done," she said to her mother.

  "Done what?"

  But Georgiana was too focused on her work to respond, so the question hung in silence.

  "Georgiana, done what?"

  Caroline's rattling of the doorknob suddenly ceased, and a peculiar shuffling replaced it. Tiny scratching noises and a muffled word Georgiana knew you weren't supposed to say joined in. Then, just as Georgiana cut the last long strand of her right pigtail, scissors still held aloft up by the side of her head, her mother burst through the door, bobby pin in hand.

  "No!" she shrieked, responding to the sight of hair around Georgiana as if it were a pool of blood. Caroline rushed to her and took the scissors from Georgiana's hand. "Oh my word, what have you done?"

  I didn't like it, thought Georgiana.

  The hair, the dress, the school. None of it.

  Maybe now she wouldn't have to go.

  Hope filled Georgiana while her mother fluttered around her, loosening the ribbons in her hair to assess the damage done, and then taking out a different, larger pair of scissors to try evening out the cuts. Downstairs, Georgiana's sisters clamored for lunch box snacks, a ride to school, any form of attention they could acquire.

  It was fifteen minutes before Caroline's shaky hands calmed down, at which point Georgiana's hair had been modified into a clumsy bowl cut. In the Brewer family, hair was an emblem, carefully tended by professionals. It was not something you subjected to an amateur hand, except in clearly mutinous situations like these.

  Caroline bundled the girls into their sleek black car and she drove them to the school, turning corners a little too sharply.

  "Good job, Georgie," said Portia.

  "You made us late," added Ariel. She frowned a pretty pout that failed to elicit sympathy from Georgiana.

  "Girls, please," murmured Caroline, but her attention was still focused on the road. She pulled up to the curb by the school and ushered them out, dabs of mascara streaked underneath her eyes from where the tears had spilled while she'd fixed Georgiana's hair.

  Tried to, at least.

  Georgiana felt the edges of her hair, now much farther up her head, and relished the breeze that flowed on her skin. Other kids were trotting towards the school doors, some waving back at parents to say goodbye while others were absorbed into the current of movement. Ariel and Portia left quickly, pecking Caroline on the cheek dutifully before they wandered into the crowd to find their friends.

  Georgiana was left alone with her mother. Her throat tightened. She knew she was in trouble; her mother cared so much about keeping things neat and pretty. But it was her hair, wasn't it?

  "Have a good first day, love," said Caroline. She hugged Georgiana and the trespasses of having shorn herself of her pigtails dwarfed in comparison to the terror of leaving.

  Georgiana lingered in that hug, hoping that if she just kept on embracing her mother, the rest of the day wouldn't progress. She wouldn't have to show her face in a roomful of strangers. Wouldn't have to learn things or find out that she was the smallest kid. Her sisters always laughed at how tiny she was, telling her she'd understand things when she was older.

  But they'd always be older than her, always just out of reach so that when she thought she’d caught up, there was new territory to enter.

  Caroline kissed Georgiana's forehead and gently pushed her back, ending the hug with loving insistence.

  "Time to go, dear."

  "Do I have to?"

  There was nothing to say, just a nod from Caroline while the school bell rang. Georgiana's mother led her to the classroom, spoke a few words to the teacher—maybe warning her of the haircut this morning—and waved goodbye as she strode out.

  Georgiana was alone, except for the twenty other children sitting in their small desks. The teacher smiled at them generously, looming at the front like a beacon for their attention. Only, Georgiana couldn't stop staring around her, conscious of the way the other kids were smaller, just like her. Maybe being the same age as her classmates would be nice.

  Her sisters hadn't prepared her for that possibility.

  Maybe sisters weren't always the best judges of things.

  A lesson on the letter A and how to sing the classroom clean-up song later, a bell rang. Recess. Georgiana moved slowly, like she was forcing her way through a pile of blankets to get out of bed, and when she reached the playground all the other kindergarteners had taken up the swings and sand.

  She walked up to a boy near the edge of the playground whose name she'd heard and forgotten during the morning's lessons. He had a mop of sandy curls and a half-falling Band-Aid on his left hand.

  "Can I play with you?" she asked, remembering the phrase from her mother's preparations the night before. If she asked, someone would say yes. That was how you made friends.

  The boy didn't go along with the script, though. He squinted up at Georgiana, lips pouting while he took in the frilly dress, ragged hair, and plaintive look on her face.

  "Why?" he asked.

  She wasn't prepared for this, her stomach responding with immediate, cramping panic. Georgiana had already started to back away from the playground when the little boy continued.

  "Why do you have boy hair?" he asked. There was a hint of anger in his voice, frustration at being unable to categorize Georgiana by her hair or clothes. The dress seemed obviously, aggressively feminine, but her DIY haircut had dampened the overall girliness of her look.

  That had been part of what she liked about it.

  But on the playground, facing this disdainful boy's question, Georgiana wished she'd stayed home, pigtails intact. Or that she'd asked her mother if she could go to kindergarten another year, or at another school.

  Apparently, the boy was friendly with a couple of other kids in her class, because he tugged on the shirt of a girl nearby and pointed to Georgiana.

  "Is that a boy haircut?"

  She wanted to shrink down into a Georgiana the size of an ant. Or escape to a garbage can and put the lid down on top of her new haircut. Something, anything to rid her of the stinging embarrassment from two, now three kids staring at her, completely confused by her.

  It wasn't clear who started the cascade of laughter, but it crashed down on the playground within a few seconds of the initial pointing, so that Georgiana was caught on a pathway between the school and the jungle gym, visible from all angles as she was mocked.

  She'd thought that her sisters were the meanest people she knew, but she saw now that she was wrong.

  Other kids were all mean.

  Terrible, horrible creatures who'd humiliate you, crush you on your first day of school.

  Why bother going to school if this was what it felt like?

  They were saying things now, mean things she was glad she could barely hear over the panicked roar of her own hea
rt, bloodstream rushing wildly to flood her with adrenaline. Tears burned at her eyes, salty and ready to spill if she blinked again.

  Georgiana stared at a point in the sky, wishing she could fly away. If her arms became wings and she flapped them hard enough, none of this would matter. Her hurt feelings would be left behind on the playground, scattered in a puff of feathers and wind.

  Finally, she closed her eyes and let the tears fall, her ears still buffeted by the laughter of the group in front of her. While her eyes were closed, though, a soft touch of skin on her right hand startled her out of the vision of flying into the clouds.

  "Hey!" whispered a girl with mussed sandy-blonde hair. Brown eyes stared at Georgiana from beneath a fringe of homemade bangs, and a smudge of what looked like chocolate icing was on the girl's cheek. It almost matched the color of her eyes, and the thought made Georgiana smile despite herself.

  Chocolate eyes.

  "Stop it!" shouted the girl, facing the laughing children on the playground. "It doesn't matter, because we’re friends!"

  Though the peals of laughter continued, Georgiana's chest tightness eased. Her embarrassment was now a load being borne by two, not one. The girl squeezed Georgiana's hand and tugged her away from the playground. They trotted to a bench near the back entrance of the school and now all that Georgiana could hear was the crunch of gravel beneath their feet.

  Sitting down, they parted hands. Georgiana missed the warmth of that palm against hers.

  "I'm a girl," she said quietly. “I cut my hair myself.”

  "Oh. I'm Madelyn," said the girl. She stuck out her hand to shake, clearly instructed by parents that this was the polite thing to do when you met someone. Georgiana mimicked what she'd seen her father do with friends coming over for dinner and shook back energetically.

  "I hate school," said Georgiana. She wiped at the tears on her face with the edge of her dress, an inelegant motion that left wet spots on the fabric. Her mother would have been angry if she’d seen it.

  Oh well. Georgiana was angry that her mother had put her in this dress, made her into a frilly spectacle when all she wanted was to wear the same thing she did every day: a blue t-shirt with a shark on it and the well-worn jeans she'd inherited from Ariel.