by Kit Frick
On her porch, I ring the bell and wait to see who I’ll get. I can hear the TV blasting inside, some little kid’s show. I’m about to ring the bell again when I hear footsteps on the wooden stairs that connect the second floor to the entry hall. The door opens, and Jenni’s stepmom is standing in front of me holding a stuffed frog. She looks a little harried.
“Ellory. What a . . . surprise.” Her words are clipped, guarded. Like she’s afraid of me. “Jenni’s not here.” She tilts her head to one side, probably trying to remember the last time she saw my face. Do I look different now? Troubled? Altered? I can only imagine what Jenni must have said about me at home. She gestures apologetically and starts to shut the door.
“Wait. Please.” I smile big, going for my best impression of normal. “I know Jenni’s at the Showcase. She just wanted me to drop off a few things.” I slip the tote bag off my shoulder and hold it out, letting the small lie hover between us. “Would you see that she gets this?”
Jenni’s stepmom sets the stuffed frog down on the hall table and slowly reaches for the bag. “I didn’t realize you and Jenni were still . . .” Talking? Friends? Her face is clouded over in concern. It’s clear she doesn’t want me anywhere near her impressionable stepdaughter.
“These are some books of hers,” I say. “Some sunglasses. I just wanted to give them back.”
“I see.” Her face softens for a second. “That’s very responsible of you, Ellory. I’ll put this in her room.”
“Thanks, Mrs. Randall-Collins.”
For a moment we stand there, just looking at each other. Unless I run into her at graduation, this is probably the last time Jenni’s stepmom and I will ever speak. It’s definitely the last time I’ll ever drop by her house. I have so many memories here. Knowing that this will be the last time feels hard and strange in a way I hadn’t quite expected.
“Well, it was nice seeing you, Ellory. We’ll keep you in our prayers.”
The sting in her words catches me off guard. It’s like that thing some southerners say, bless your heart, when they mean anything but. I never knew anyone in Jenni’s family to be religious; Jenni’s summer with “the born-again Randalls” must have had a persuasive impact. It blows my mind that anyone’s newfound devotion could have something to do with me.
“Thanks,” I mumble. “It was nice seeing you too.”
I turn and start back down the stairs. The wind is whipping icy ropes of snow against my cheeks, and the sky looks like it’s about to black out completely. I slide behind the wheel and start the car. As I wait for the heat to kick in, my mind travels back to a day last March, winter dark and icy cold like this one. A day long before Jenni found God, the day she crossed the line with Ret.
Bex and I had pulled up outside Jenni’s house, but we were still sitting in the car with the heat blasting, waiting for the wind to die down. Ret and Jenni were already inside; I’d picked Bex up from her dance studio before driving over.
“What’s with Jenni?” I asked. “She was weird today, right?”
Bex played with a piece of hair and stared out the window into the swirling snow. “She didn’t tell you? She asked Ret for her blessing, but Ret shot her down hard.”
“Her blessing?”
Bex shrugged. “If Ret doesn’t want Jonathan, I guess someone should have him.”
I tried to think back. If Jenni had had any interest in Jonathan Gaines before, she’d done a good job hiding it. “They just broke up,” I said. Not that we had a lot of ex-boyfriends in our small circle, but dating your friend’s ex was a universal taboo. Everyone knew that. “What was she thinking?”
I knew Ret was right about this. Even if she had pushed Jonathan away. Even if she was scared. That didn’t give Jenni the right to just move in. Bex pulled her snow cap down low over her ears, refusing to take the bait.
“Let’s go in,” she said. “They’re waiting.”
The heat kicks in, nudging me back into the present, and I angle the car into the road, turning it around in the cul-de-sac at the end of Jenni’s street. In that moment, I had been so certain. It was uncomplicated, girl code. It’s hard to imagine being so sure of anything anymore. As I drive, the world swirls into a dance of white and gray. The wipers do their best to keep the windshield clear, but it’s a losing battle. I drive slow. As Jenni’s house disappears into the background, I imagine her coming home after the Showcase, reading the note tucked inside the tote bag.
Jenni,
I’m returning your stuff because I don’t want to owe you anything. So here we are, totally debt free, down to the very last magazine.
You know it was an accident. That’s what everyone calls it, and as much as I hate that word, it’s true. But those things I said—I didn’t mean them, but I can’t take them back. And I’m so sorry for that.
I take full responsibility for my actions last year. I’ve never tried to claim my innocence, and I won’t start now. But, Jenni—we both know I wasn’t the only one to blame. I live with it every single day, with or without you. Don’t you get that I’ve punished myself more than you ever could? So you can keep on hating me, that’s fine. But I’m done shouldering it all. I’m done letting you do that to me.
Take care,
Ellory
I pull into my driveway and step out of the car. As I walk up to the front door, I picture Jenni’s face, her red hair bright against a black balloon. I hold the string tight in my hands until the wind picks up. It doesn’t take long. The string bites into my flesh, and I gasp. Then I let go, let it carry her away. Goodbye, hard tile beneath my hands. Goodbye, scream trapped like a wild animal between my ears. Goodbye, hard flash of her eyes—an accusation, a blade cutting me in two.
Goodbye, Jenni.
29
FEBRUARY, JUNIOR YEAR
(THEN)
“How did you know Jonathan was the one?” I finally asked, dropping the paperback I’d been not-reading down beside me on Ret’s bed. While she reorganized her vinyl collection by album title, I’d been skimming the same three paragraphs over and over. Something about two sisters driving cross-country. They were having an important conversation, but every time I got to the bottom of the page, I still had no idea what was going on.
“Huh?” Ret looked up from the floor, where she was surrounded by the A’s. Acid Tongue, Adore, Amnesiac, Automatic for the People. She was humming something beneath her breath, harboring it like a secret.
“When you decided to sleep together. How did you know?” What I really wanted to ask about was what I’d seen the other day—Ret getting into the back of Dave’s car and driving away. Driving downtown with the guys, without me. Without Jonathan, either. But asking would have meant admitting I was there, following Matthias, watching like some creepy stalker. So I asked about Jonathan instead.
“It just kind of happened, I don’t know. I didn’t decide in advance and wear my special panties or anything. The first time, we were fooling around at his place after school, and I just wanted to. It wasn’t some huge deal.” Ret blew a stream of breath straight up, fluttering through her bangs, which were streaked with Atomic Turquoise this week.
“So he’s not the one?” I asked. Come on, Ret. Take the bait.
“Since you asked,” Ret said, her voice almost a whisper, “I think things are winding down with Jonathan. The sex is fun and all, but I’m kind of into someone else.”
“What!” I sat up straight, feigning surprise. “You did not tell me this.”
Ret reached behind her, into her top dresser drawer, and pulled out a black flask decorated with a pair of crossbones and the face of a pink cat wearing an eye patch. She unscrewed the cap and took a sip.
“Not much to tell. I’m still with Jonathan, for now. You want?” She held the flask out toward me.
I took it from her and tipped it back. The warm liquid burned my mouth and throat. “What is this?”
“Whiskey.” She grinned. “Veronica’s finest.”
I passed the flask back to
Ret and sank into the mountain of black and silver pillows. “Must be something in the air.”
She cocked her head to one side, waiting for me to continue. I had to give her something. A tidbit about Matthias in exchange for her secrets. You are mine, and I am yours.
“Things aren’t so great with me and Matthias either. You can’t say anything, swear.”
Ret took another sip, then tossed the flask back inside the drawer. “Swear to Maude. But it’s a little obvious.”
“Did he say something?” Was that the only time you’ve gone out with Matthias and Dave? Does Jonathan know?
Ret looked me straight in the eyes. “Ellory May, you’re my best friend. You’ve been moping around for weeks.”
I ran my thumb against the edge of my book so the pages flipped out into a fan. Part of me wanted to tell Ret everything. About Portland, the eggshells, the special misery of dialing it back, a phrase I now loathed to my very core. As it turned out, dialing it back meant living in a perpetual state of ambiguous, unintense limbo that was killing me slowly from the inside. I wouldn’t have wished it on my worst enemy.
“I really hate to see you so blue,” Ret said.
The other part of me didn’t want to talk about Matthias at all. Today marked the end of week six of perfect girlfriend Ellory. It was like he had removed his heart and stored it away in a tamper-proof vault. And I was expected to do the same until he was ready to be normal again, no questions asked.
“So tell me about mystery guy,” I said, steering the conversation back on track.
“Mystery guy,” Ret mused. “That’s good. He definitely has a dangerous edge.”
“What does that even mean?” I couldn’t just admit that I knew. I played along, letting her make it a game.
Ret considered my question. “He has a dark side. He’s the anti–Jonathan Gaines.”
That was for sure. Did she know what a dick he really was? I studied her face closely. The delicate curve of her lip. The deep lapis blue of her eyes. She looked impossibly proud of herself.
“You are so not subtle,” I laughed. “You’ve been crushing on him since before that party.” I bit at the inside of my lip. Maybe she already knew Dave was dealing, but she didn’t know about Matthias’s dad. She was my best friend; she deserved to know the truth. But I couldn’t betray his trust like that. The one big secret he had actually told me. “Look, I know he’s all edgy or whatever, but that drug stuff is no joke. The bathtub full of coke, the contact high from licking Dave’s walls? Those rumors come from somewhere.”
“What are you, Miss Straight Edge all of a sudden?” Ret picked up a fresh stack of records. “You don’t need to worry about me, Ellory May. I can handle myself. Besides, I never said it was Dave Franklin.”
“Sure.”
“Jonathan’s a total peach, but he’s just not the one. Onward and upward. And Ellory, this is just between us. I can’t have Jonathan hearing that we’re over, and I’m just not quite ready to break him yet.”
At first, I thought she’d meant that she wasn’t quite ready to break up with him. But Ret knew exactly what she was saying.
“So it’s our secret, right?”
“Swear to Maude.”
“Before I forget.” Ret reached back into her dresser and pulled out a little red leather notebook. She didn’t keep a real diary, but she always had a notebook going—ideas, quotes, lists, lyrics to songs she started writing and never finished. “Veronica’s been snooping again. I left the others with Jenni, but I missed one. Hang on to it for now?”
I took the notebook and slipped it into my bag.
“I’ll get it when the dust settles. A thorough snoop usually satisfies her motherly urges for a few months.”
“Just pick it up whenever.”
Ret reached toward me with a stack of records. “Now, are you going to help me alphabetize, or what?”
I took them and slid down off the bed. “Why are we doing this again?”
“Because sometimes, a girl needs to change things up. And the whole alpha by artist system is so passé.”
For a moment, we sorted in silence.
“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—”
Ret looked up, surprised. When she spoke, her words were dripping with intrigue. “I took the one deep into the darkest woods in the middle of the blackest night. And I never, ever returned.”
Then she cracked a smile and put a record on the turntable, some old David Bowie track. If Ret wanted to trade in her totally devoted boyfriend for Dave Franklin, another deep, dark trophy to add to her collection, fine. Ret could make her choices, and I could make mine. And I chose Matthias. There were a thousand art schools, and college was still light-years away. In the meantime, I was not going to sit back and let us fade into oblivion. I was going to fight.
30
MARCH, SENIOR YEAR
(NOW)
I spend the next two weeks cleaning out my room. I haven’t figured out what to do next, but at least this feels like doing something. Jenni’s stuff is gone—what else can I get rid of? Old books from elementary school? Library donation box. Clothes I haven’t worn since freshman year? Goodwill. Old magazines and hair clips and lanyards from summer camp? Trash, trash, trash. It feels great.
On Wednesday before school, I’m up early on a cleaning jag, going through the laundry basket of shoes I never wear anymore. I’m almost to the bottom of the basket when I see it: Under a pair of eight-hole, wine red Doc Martens is Ret’s notebook. The red leather blends right in.
I sit cross-legged on my bed and flip through the pages. The paper feels illicit beneath my fingers. Like I shouldn’t be allowed to have Ret’s book, even though she gave it to me. Even though she never picked it up. Separate the past from the present, Ellory. Move forward. Don’t look back. I know I shouldn’t indulge my fixations, but I can’t help it. I keep turning her pages. Pine Brookians Most Likely to Peak in High School. The Authoritative, Annotated Guide to the Best Record Stores in PA. We used to make these lists together. I stop on the last one we made, last winter, right before everything went to shit.
Hot Topic Customers Who Are Totally Secret Psychos
1. Blue goatee guy muttering under his breath in the CD aisle. Creepy AF.
2. Blond Penn State chick—third time this week. Not your scene, princess.
3. Maria Hidelman’s dad. What the hell is he doing here!?!?!
Underneath item three, there’s a sketch of Mr. Hidelman and his giant dad glasses. I remember drawing that while Ret tacked a new Velvet Underground poster to her wall.
I flip through the rest of the notebook. Mostly other silly lists, quotes from The Outsiders and The Catcher in the Rye, a whole page of dates logging every time Mr. Morris said okalie-dokalie during class junior year. (Twelve times in October—a record.)
The entries stop about a third of the way through. Part of me wants to keep the notebook, tuck it back beneath the Docs and forget about it until inspiration strikes. Another part of me wants to give it back to Ret, even though we haven’t talked in months. Maybe I’ll just toss it into the trash, pretend I never found it. But I can’t stop flipping through. On the next to last page, after a section of blanks, I find what looks like lyrics to one of Ret’s half-written songs. The words are upside down, as if she had made some weak attempt to keep the lyrics a secret. I flip the notebook over and start to read.
So many things
I’ll never say to you
My touch is a drug
And you’re so clean
So I can’t touch you
Not anymore
Can’t be around you
Can’t let you love me
Anymore
My words are drugs
So I’ll just be mean
I won’t say how
You + me
We’re honey + poison
Poison poison
Gotta save you from
My poison
The page is dated last February, just ov
er a year ago, the week Ret gave me the notebook to hold on to. That seems about right.
Then it hits me—this is my next move. I tear out the page and shove it in my pocket and return the little red book to its former hiding spot beneath my boots. Then I grab a banana and last year’s school directory from its spot on the kitchen counter. Dad gestures weakly at the boxes of cereal on the dining room table, but I’m in a hurry. I kiss him quickly and run out to the car.
I plug Jonathan Gaines’s address into Google Maps. He lives less than five minutes away, but I’ve never been to his house before. When he and Ret were together, I always got the feeling that he wanted her to bring her friends around, let him into her life. But she never did. And now, it’s been almost a year since I’ve seen Jonathan. Since my suspension last April. Since he transferred to Saint Anne’s this fall.
I glance at the clock on the dash. Hopefully, I’m early enough to catch him before he leaves for school. I park in the driveway and ring the bell, steeling myself for one of his parents to come to the door, but Jonathan opens it, looking surprised. The pressed khakis and navy blazer suit him.
“Hey, Ellory. Did you want to come in?” He’s only asking because it’s the polite thing to say, but his smile looks genuine. I take a deep breath.
“That’s okay,” I say. “This will just take a sec.”
I reach into my coat pocket and touch the slip of paper. Jonathan seems totally fine. Bright smile, fresh haircut. Giving him the song might do more damage than good. On the other hand, he deserves some kind of explanation, an everything-is-illuminated moment, even if I never get one. I hesitate.
“It’s been a while,” he says, watching me waver. He was always too kind to Ret. Now he’s being too kind to me.
