A Tale of Two Besties

by Sophia Rossi

  I decided to ban myself from Internet stalking. Seriously, I was going to take a time-out. Or a “cleanse,” as Rachel would say.

  Still, whatever I called it, a crucial problem remained: I’m basically the Sherlock Holmes of the Internet. I can tell you what it means when two people follow each other (mutual crush) or when two people un-follow each other (totally done). I know what it means when someone’s photo “like”s suddenly go down by one (the dreaded accidental “like” of a creeping ex, or possibly their new significant other using their account), and I know what it means when someone subtweets a passive-aggressive Beyoncé lyric (she hopes her ex sees it and regrets his loss, but he doesn’t).

  And I knew what it meant when I saw Derek Wheeler’s new Facebook status of “It’s Complicated with Kendall Donahue” (because I’m not an idiot), or his stupid Robert Frost quotes about “the roads not taken” (we get it, you’re soooo original and also terrible at paraphrasing). Not that I even cared anymore—Derek had shown his true colors with that SchoolGrams video. But then on top of everything, in the four days since the F³ re-launch party, there were approximately one million photos on Instagram and Tumblr and Facebook of everyone having such a good time, and I just couldn’t.

  “Those Pathways kids dress like middle-aged corporate hippies,” I declared while walking with Stephanie on a Wednesday after-school trip to Melrose. She was in search of this perfect denim jacket she had seen in the Kill City window over the weekend, but which her mother said was illegal to wear since it had the American flag on it. (“But it’s not like I’m going to burn it,” was Stephanie’s argument. Seemed like sound logic to me.) “You should have seen them—they all look like middle-age Burning Man attendees in teenage bodies. Of course their quote-un-quote ‘fashion’ party would be covered on the Internet. The Internet loves weirdoes.”

  Steph laughed and I instinctively felt my hand beginning to wander back to the pocket of my frayed shorts, in search of the iPhone I’d started leaving at home during school. It was an odd sensation at first not to have it, like Phantom Limb Syndrome, but I’d actually begun to enjoy the perks of an off-the-grid existence, such as the fading desire to capture every single cute moment and put it on Twitter or Instagram or the pleasant realization that my attention span is longer than thirty seconds. Sunsets, it turned out, didn’t need filters. Food actually tasted better when I ate it before it got cold as I tried to find the best angle to photograph it from. Who knew?

  Across the street, I saw a little girl in a tutu was holding her mom’s hand and “blessing” cars with a stick, and I felt a not-so-little rush of familiarity.

  “So . . . did Lily look good when you saw her?” I had grilled Stephanie in about a billion different ways since she told me she’d run into my former bestie (god, was that what I was going to have to start referring to her as now?) on Sunday, but elaboration wasn’t really one of her strong suits. Most of the time, stuff fell into one of two camps for Stephanie: dope or sick. It wasn’t all that dissimilar to the way she and Jessica used to describe the world together.

  Stephanie shrugged, pushing up her oversized sunglasses and chewing the straw of her iced chai. “Yeah, she seemed okay. Maybe a little. . . .” She paused, as if to search the storefront signs across the street for the word she was looking for. “Busy.”

  “Busy? Busy how? Good busy?” I couldn’t even pretend to play it chill.

  We approached a park bench and Stephanie gracefully jumped onto it and into a crouching position, observing the midafternoon scene like a large, somewhat lazy cat. “Hey. I know what you’re going through, kind of,” she said, motioning for me to sit down. “It drives you crazy, doesn’t it? Wondering where they are all the time, who they’re with, what they’re doing.”

  “It sucks,” I confirmed, taking a seat beside her and throwing my head back. “It’s like, I want her to start calling me again, but not because I want to talk to her. I want her to call me and then I want to not pick up the phone, and I want that to keep happening until she somehow understands what I’m going through.”

  Stephanie nodded, pulling down her glasses again. “I felt the same exact way when Jessica and I broke up.”

  Suddenly, an urgent, keening sound blasted through the air and I jumped, startled. The little girl with the imaginary wand accidentally set off a car alarm.

  “Sorry. Wait, what about you and Jessica?” I asked, refocusing.

  “Come on,” Stephanie stared at me, like she was waiting for me to tell her I was putting her on. “You did know we were dating didn’t you?”

  I shook my head, stunned by my own obliviousness. God, I was such an idiot! I replayed the last ten years of my friendship with those two, looking for signs I might have missed, but my brain was too overloaded with feeling absolutely humiliated and hoping I hadn’t offended the one friend I had left. (Well, besides Tim. But Tim was less like a friend and more like . . . something else.)

  Stephanie rolled her eyes and smirked at me, yanking her red beanie to one side. “A-ha! What are you, new?”

  I shook my head, mystified by my own lameness. “I guess . . . it never crossed my mind.” How often had I seen those two hair-cream twins run down the hall holding hands, giggling secrets to each other? And as we got older, the smaller, tender gestures: Stephanie tucking back in a tag that had flipped up from the collar of Jess’s tennis dress; Jess nonchalantly tucking an errant wisp of blond hair loosed from Stephanie’s bun back behind her ear. At the time, I thought they had just become good enough friends that they shared one brain between their two bodies, like the opposite of conjoined twins. But now that I thought about it, it was totally obvious. “Well, what happened to you guys?”

  “Same old boring thing that always happens.” Stephanie sighed, her hands on her scratched-up knees. “I got jealous that she was spending so much time with some guy. She said she was confused and needed some space to do some growing. Then we kind of . . . made our issues public. Accidentally.”

  “The SchoolGrams video?”

  “Yup. You’re not the only one who’s Internet famous.”

  “Stephanie, wow. I really didn’t know. I’m sorry if I ever seemed insensitive about it. I just figured you’d had some big BFF breakup and didn’t want to talk about her.”

  “It’s okay.” For once, Stephanie’s blissed-out Cali vibe seemed a little strained. She laughed hollowly. “I mean, it was less okay when she told me she’d asked her mom to transfer to a boarding school in France. Just ’cause, you know, she really felt that France was the best place for her to ‘get her thoughts together.’”

  “Wow.” We were both quiet for a minute. “Wait. Does Jessica even know French?”

  “Absolutely one hundred percent not,” Stephanie laughed, then loosened up with a long, drawn-out sigh. “We still email sometimes. She seems to like it there. It turns out French boys have a thing for girls who sometimes like other girls.”

  “Uh, so what she means is, French boys are exactly like every other kind of boy on the planet?”

  “Apparently,” Steph’s eyes were unfocused as she stared straight ahead: Even though she was with me on Melrose, she was a million miles away. “I couldn’t believe it when she wrote that, actually. For me, I always knew that I liked girls. Only girls. I mean, I came out to my parents when I was like, eight or something. I told them that I wanted to grow up and marry either Jessica or Chloe Sevigny.”

  “Oh my god!” I laughed, trying to imagine the tightly-wound Mr. and Mrs. Adler reacting to their pre-tween daughter’s declaration of lesbianism, especially when Stephanie’s mom was the head of the local church youth group and the PTA. “I bet they loved that.”

  “Actually, they did.” Stephanie seemed to shake out of her trance. She cracked her neck—first to one side, then another—with a loud popping noise that made me wince and worry about permanent spinal damage. “My mom said that I was blessed to kn
ow my heart at such a young age . . . and my dad just asked if Chloe was that actress from Big Love, and if so, I had ‘great taste.’”

  Stephanie yawned and stood up from the bench in an exaggerated stretch. “Come on,” she said, reaching her arm out to me. “I could use, like, a million shots of espresso,” she said. “Let’s go.”

  I wanted to say something insightful about everything Stephanie just told me, especially since she’d been so brave to open up to me like that, but my mind was like an old computer that needed extra time to process all the information it had been given. “Okay . . . well . . . hey. Thanks for telling me, Stephanie,” I said solemnly.

  She laughed her easy laugh and slung a flanneled arm around my shoulder. “Oh, Harper, you’re probably the only person who didn’t know.”

  When I got home, I allowed myself my one web session of the day (quitting cold-turkey is dangerous!), and found a mysterious email in my Inbox.

  I looked at the time on my laptop. 4:50. I quickly sent my own response.

  I waited and waited, but no response came.

  Was it weird that I felt a little thrill over Tim’s messages?

  If I hustled—and if Rachel agreed to drive me—I could possibly make the six p.m. deadline. I threw on whatever was within reach around my messy room—okay, so I may have had that floral crop top paired with my Alice + Olivia black pleated skirt ready to go in my closet. I checked myself in the mirror and at the last minute I took out the pink plastic barrettes that I decided made me look too much like a kid.

  Rachel smirked when I charged into her room. “Going somewhere, baby doll?”

  “You need to drive me to the pier,” I said matter-of-factly. “It’s a surprise.”

  “For me?” Rachel was faux-thrilled. “How lovely.”

  “Come on, Rachel! This is important.”

  “You’re so lucky I’m nursing a broken heart right now. Otherwise I’d simply be too busy for your childish stunts.” Rachel put her shoes on and followed me down the stairs.

  “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” I trilled, never so happy in all of my life to have a big sister.

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just remember: You owe me.”

  I blew Rachel a bunch of air kisses and told her I’d text her when I was ready to come home (I know, I totally caved on my tech-diet. But this was important!). I waited for Tim on the shore by the Ferris wheel, just where his email told me to. It was almost the exact same spot where, less than a month ago, Lily and I had pledged our undying friendship to each other.

  That memory ached like a leg muscle cramp in the middle of the night. But there were no potassium-rich BFF bananas in sight, no friendship-fixing electrolytes that could make the pain go away. I would just have to survive on a diet of terrible metaphors. Tasty.

  “Harper?” A voice emerged from underneath the boardwalk, and was then followed by the sight of a small figure walking toward me. Not Tim. A girl.

  It took me a minute to recognize her without her wings.

  “Hi” might not seem like the bravest word in the world. Anyone can say “hi.” You could go up to someone you don’t like or even know right now and say “hi,” and basically the worst thing they will do is roll their eyes and pretend they didn’t hear anything.

  No, “hi” isn’t such a hard thing to say. Or at least, it shouldn’t be. And yet. . . .

  “Hegh!” I said, walking toward Harper on the beach. I cleared my throat and tried again. “Hiyam?”

  “Lily?” Harper started toward me, took half a step, then settled back on the balls of her feet, resolved and confused all at once. “What are you doing here?”

  “I . . . I called Tim,” I said, forcing myself to speak normally. It helped if I didn’t try to make eye contact, so I addressed Harper’s Free People sandals instead. “Actually, I asked him to get in touch with you . . . to tell you to meet him here.”

  “Oh,” she said as I stared at her left foot, which was busy scratching her right shin. “So . . . Tim’s not coming?”

  I shook my head, still forcing myself to focus on the small details, which could tell you so much. Harper’s toenails were lacquered in a bright, hard red: Rachel must have convinced her to get a gel pedicure.

  “Oh,” said Harper’s feet, wiggling and then turning to go. “Okay, well . . .” I watched them take one, two, three steps before I found my voice again.

  “Hey!”

  “What!” The sandals made an indentation in the sand, like snow angels. “What could you possibly say right now that I’d want to hear?”

  “I’m sorry Harper,” I said. “I’m really, really sorry . . . about everything.”

  She pursed her lips and studied me silently. I was purposefully not wearing my wings today, and not only because they were basically just threads of fabric at this point. I’d also dressed more “conservatively” than what I’d started to think of as my Pathways Uniform: all bright colors and beaded accessories. Today I was just wearing a dark blue blazer with a poppy colored patch pocket over a T-shirt, and old, beat-up Adidas sneakers. Though it was still kind of a kooky outfit compared to Harper’s effortlessly chic skirt and flowered top ensemble.

  “I’m sorry about the way I’ve been treating you ever since I started Pathways,” I said, looking her right in the eyes this time. “And for flaking on your PuppyBash. And I’m sorry for not planning a real birthday party and for dragging you along to my thing.”

  I took a deep breath, because the next part was hard. “And I’m sorry . . . I’m sorry I was talking about you to Nicole. I’ve been an awful friend. Full stop. I got really caught up with Nicole and NAMASTE, and I guess it was just really exciting to feel like I finally fit in somewhere. That I was expressing myself, and that everyone liked it so much that they wanted to be just like me. I’ve never felt like I had anything that anybody else wanted, you know? Except a lot of that stuff you heard me say on Saturday . . . that wasn’t me. That was Nicole.”

  I forced myself to keep looking Harper in the eye, which was difficult because of how bad I was tearing up. I needed her forgiveness so badly I felt like I was burning up inside and my eyes felt like they were being rubbed with sandpaper.

  “The thing is, Lily, I just don’t believe you.” Harper cocked her head, and I felt the familiar squeeze of anxiety in my stomach. “The things you said were really mean, and really specific. I would never even think those things about you let alone say them out loud to a group of mean bullies who I was trying to impress. Don’t you see, Lily? This is exactly what we promised each other we wouldn’t do!”

  “I know that now! It was just all very confusing! Please, give me another chance!” Part of me was still a little frustrated that Harper refused to acknowledge the tricky situation I’d been caught in that had made me feel guilty about our pact in the first place. I hadn’t changed what I wore to fit in! But I realized now that BFF pacts didn’t extend to just your accessories. It was about staying true to ourselves, yes, but that meant letting others stay true to themselves as well, no bullying people for not wearing wings—which, now that I thought about it, was CRAZY-PANTS.

  And, oh god, Beth-Lynne . . . I sighed to myself out of sheer memory-based embarrassment.

  “Hmmm?” Harper had turned around, luckily missing my gasp of humiliation for poor Beth-Lynne.

  “Harper, you’ve got to believe me,” I begged. “I will make it up to you a million times over. I . . . I am going to drop out of NAMASTE.” I didn’t even know that myself until the words were out of my mouth, but as soon as I said it, I knew it was true, and I marveled at how simple it was all going to be from now on. I was done with Nicole and her faux-dictatorship. Viva la revolución!

  Harper seemed to be weighing my outburst against some internal scale. “But you missed everything,” she said finally as the wind picked up. “You missed my first kiss. You didn’t even ask about i
t. That’s not what a friend does. That’s definitely not what a best friend does.

  “And then there was this video, and it was a whole thing. . . .” Harper hugged her skinny arms around herself and stared off into the ocean. “That night at Murphy’s Ranch . . . I acted like a total moron, and the one person who could make me feel like I wasn’t the worst person in the world didn’t even seem to care! Lily, I pretended to be drunk. On camera. In front of the cops. And as nice as Tim Slater is, and as chill as Stephanie is, and as . . . eccentric as Rachel is—they’re not you. They don’t know how to make me feel better just by being themselves. They don’t know how to reassure me that that one big slipup won’t make me a pariah for life.”

  “What?” I said, surprised at my own stupidity. Harper and I had needed the exact same things from each other the entire time. I had to come clean. “Harper, I had no idea . . . I’m so sorry. The thing is . . . part of the reason I’ve been so . . . so . . .”

  “So . . . zombie-ish? So creepily cheerful?”

  I sighed. She wasn’t wrong. I collected my thoughts and started again. “Part of the reason I’ve been so not myself is because I did something—a couple of things—that were bad. Harper, I know I said I wasn’t sure if I broke our pact, and at first, I really wasn’t. But then, I did something . . . I did something that I’m really not proud of. And I guess I was too embarrassed to talk to you afterward, because I knew you’d see right through my fake-happy act into what a gross monster of a person I’d actually become.”

  “What do you mean? Lily, I could never think you were a gross monster! No matter what you’ve done!” Harper said, a glimmer of her old, sweet, concerned self shining through the disappointment in her eyes.