Bad Best Friend

by Rachel Vail

  “I didn’t—sorry,” I said. “Sorry. That’s mostly what I said, actually. Sorry.”

  “‘Sorry’? You said ‘Sorry’?”

  “Yes! He kissed me hard, like a punch, and I was like, Sorry! Isn’t that so dumb?”

  “Why would you say sorry if you hadn’t done anything wrong?”

  “I know it, right?” I sniffed. The pukey smell was gross but it was mixed with the strong scent of honeysuckle from the yard and the salty cool air coming up from the creek. I tried to focus my smelling on the honeysuckle and the salt.

  “No,” Ava said. “I mean, it doesn’t make sense. You must have known you’d done something wrong, if you were apologizing.”

  I shook my head. “It’s a bad habit of mine.”

  “Or you knew you’d been flirting with him, doubling over laughing so hard, flicking your hair around. God, I’m so dumb. I thought you hated him.”

  “I do,” I said. “I mean, I don’t hate him, if you like him, I just . . .”

  “I thought you were helping me flirt with him.”

  “I was!” My whole body was suddenly freezing cold, shivering. She’s sad and needs my support. That’s all this is. A test. I’m usually good at tests. FOCUS. “Ava, you know I was helping you flirt, not that you needed anybody’s—I mean, not that you were overdoing it, at all! Just that, I mean, you’re the cutest girl in the whole . . .”

  “I am not.”

  “You are. And the most fun, the funniest, if he doesn’t see how amazing you are, he’s just dumber than a pounded thumb!”

  “You think he’s dumb.”

  “No, Ava, no. I’m just saying anything now to make you . . . I’m just . . .” Ugh, I sounded just like my mother, soprano and rambling, pleading, desperate. BE REAL. BE CLAM.

  “I thought you were my best friend,” Ava said.

  “I am,” I said. Everything I am saying and NOT saying right now is because I am your best friend! I screamed. But only inside my head. The words that came out were just, “Ava, come on, you know I am. . . .”

  “I can’t believe you,” she said. “This whole time I thought you’re too wholesome and pure and babyish for me. But that wasn’t the problem at all. I can’t believe I didn’t realize what a fake friend you’ve been, this whole time.”

  “Fake?”

  “You hate him, you don’t hate him, you kissed him, you didn’t kiss him. You’re just saying anything. . . . Did you just use me to get with Chase?”

  “Hundred percent no,” I said. “Ava. I think I like Milo. Like him, like him.”

  “Well, you suck at flirting, in that case, if you’re making out with the boy I like instead. Everybody warned me, but I was like, No, you don’t know Niki like I do.”

  “Wait, what?” I asked, wrapping my arms around myself. “What did everybody say?”

  “Of course, that’s what you care about,” Ava said.

  “I don’t! Ava, I’m telling you what happened, and I’m really shook, and I need . . .”

  “You need,” Ava said. “And that’s all that matters. The world has to revolve around whatever you want? Why don’t you call your mom?”

  “Call my mom?”

  “She’s the one who taught you that the only thing that matters is what you want, right? That’s how your whole family acts. But the problem with that is, you and Danny—this is exactly what everybody says, if you really want to know the truth. This, exactly. You have to be the center of everything. You need all the attention.”

  “I so don’t,” I said. “And Danny? Danny isn’t the center of anything, so—I don’t even know what you’re—what?”

  Ava shook her head. “It’s just a coincidence that as soon as I mention I might like somebody, you’re the one kissing him? How is that friendship? And you can’t even just try to steal him from me, you have to make it more drama, like, what, like he ‘sexually assaulted’ you? Should we call the police because a boy kissed you, is that what you want? So now you can be such a victim and be famous on the news, like you always say you want to be? Don’t lie, you know I know everything about you. That’s what you want, you always say it. You want to be famous, and on the TV, like my mom was. But this is just sad, Niki.”

  “Ava, no . . .”

  “Why are you so desperate for everyone’s attention right now, is my question. Is it because of your big exaggeration about going blind like Laura frigging Ingalls and poor you, your brother is a freaking weirdo the whole town is talking about because the garbage men came to his birthday party and it was in the newspaper?”

  “It was?” Don’t say actually it was Mary not Laura who went blind in the Little House on the Prairie books, don’t be that person. “Wait—what was in the paper about Danny?”

  “Like you didn’t know about the story of his tearjerker birthday party. Your name was on the photo credit. Come on, Niki, don’t play innocent. But even all that didn’t get you enough attention today? How much more do you need?”

  I shook my head. “Ava, I swear I don’t . . .”

  “I know you’re having a crappy childhood because all the attention is focused on your brother, but . . .”

  “What? I’m not having a crappy . . .”

  “Of course you are, and everybody feels sorry for you about it. But, come on. Boo freaking hoo. Everybody knows all the attention in your family is focused on your brother’s issues and that’s why your mom lashes out at everyone and ignores you. We all feel bad for you about it, and for having a brother like that. But you’re like an addict. Enough.”

  I just stood there blinking at her. I wasn’t even insulted for myself anymore but for Danny, and my parents, and, well, okay, also for myself. A little. Maybe. Crappy childhood? No, the thing about me is the opposite of that; I have to check my privilege because I have it the easy way, everything is easy and good for me WHAT?!?!

  I was so confused.

  I wasn’t hurt, or sad, or sorry for her anymore. I didn’t even know what I was feeling. Cold. Just cold.

  For having a brother like that?

  “Danny is great,” I said.

  “Yeah, sure,” Ava said quietly. “I tried. I tried helping you hang out with the popular kids. But honestly, Niki, now I’m just done.”

  She stepped carefully over my pile o’ puke and smiled big, dimples deep, as she opened the sliding door. She stepped through and closed it behind her.

  I realized there were tears streaming down my cheeks, even though I honestly just felt empty, not upset. But with tears falling down and puke on my boots, there was no way I could go back inside. You can’t go back. It was dark, or nearly dark, out there, so I could stand halfway behind the bush and see nobody was looking for me.

  A burst of laughter from inside hit me like a brutal wave, knocking me over, sand in my mouth and feet kicking my own head.

  I walked around the side of the house.

  There were still adults on the front porch, gossiping.

  I pressed my back up against the house like I was in a spy movie, not wanting the adults to spot me. Maybe also slightly, a tiny bit, wondering if anybody would come to look for me. I didn’t want to get too far away, in that case.

  No footsteps, no door sliding open.

  Maybe soon, give it a minute.

  The only noises were night noises, the thrum of the waves way down the hill at the beach, and the murmuring voices of Isabel’s old people on the porch. No kids. Nobody calling my name.

  A billion stars in the sky.

  I stood there and looked at them.

  Is anybody else looking at this sky right now, feeling alone in the universe too? Are you out there, my someone? If I wish on a star, and you wish at the same exact second, will we find each other someday and feel less alone? Will you find me? Choose me? Who are you, you who will choose me, know me, see me, believe me? Be a pair with
me?

  So many stars.

  Each burning bright.

  Each alone. Hang on. Maybe not alone. Maybe . . . independent.

  And together, lighting the universe.

  While underneath them, I tried to keep myself anchored to the fragile blue marble spinning ceaselessly through the silent sky, or however Dad said it.

  Perspective?

  Okay. My perspective? Nobody was coming after me. If I told Ava what I was thinking about while looking at the stars, she’d just say I was being a drama queen space cadet fake poetic nerd.

  I texted my mom: not feeling great—can you come pick me up? I’ll be at the corner down the hill from Isabel’s.

  I put my phone in my pocket and cut through the neighbor’s yard.

  What if Danny’s having a tantrum and Mom’s phone is in the other room? We live pretty far from Isabel’s, in the newer section, nearer to town. I guess I could walk home.

  My phone buzzed in my pocket. I made a wish for it to be Ava.

  Opened my eyes to see. Nope. Mom: You okay?

  I stared at that for a minute.

  No, I typed and deleted.

  Fine just

  I threw up so I

  I was on my way out of the bathroom and Chase

  Delete delete delete

  Niki? Mom texted after I gave up trying to text an answer to her unanswerable question.

  But then I thought of the right answer:

  Do I have to?

  I stood in the starlight, on the slope of Isabel’s neighbor’s backyard, praying, Please remember our old code.

  Three pulsing dots on my phone’s screen.

  Be right there, Mom texted.

  Thanks, I texted back.

  I walked down the hill, with my arms wrapped around me. The night wasn’t so cold, but still I was a little chilled. My fleece. Oops. Left it at Isabel’s, upstairs in the mudroom.

  Oh well. Not going back. Dad would be mad. He hates when we lose our stuff. Though he didn’t notice my sneakers had been missing. Maybe nobody would even notice if bits of me are scattered and missing.

  Am I invisible?

  Do I even exist, or am I imagining myself?

  I got to the bottom of the hill and sat down on the curb to wait.

  I closed my eyes and inhaled the night smells, the honey-suckle and the salt from the ocean down at the beach. I considered crying but that felt so extra, I didn’t. Couldn’t. It wouldn’t be just crying from my eyes, and I might never stop.

  Instead I sang myself the Okay Song.

  I was still sitting on the curb with my eyes closed, singing Okay, okay quietly to myself, when I heard the tires approaching.

  I hadn’t gotten up to the silence yet.

  36

  “I DON’T KNOW,” I told her. “Maybe I’m allergic to soda.”

  “You drank soda?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I thought you hated soda.”

  “I do.”

  I didn’t drink soda. Not sure why I didn’t tell her what had actually happened. She is so good to talk things through with. Especially when it’s just the two of us, especially in the car. She’s a really good listener and completely, automatically, hundred percent on my side.

  But she was already talking about Danny and what he was doing tonight, and that he had come right when she called him, without any argument! Like it was a huge accomplishment. And, like, great.

  But also, I can’t care about that right now, Mom, sorry.

  Sorry, sorry, sorry.

  My phone in my lap, cold and silent as the night, the whole way home.

  Beside me while I washed the makeup off my face.

  Next to my pillow.

  Next to my bruised mouth that hadn’t yelled NO or I DON’T WANT YOU at him.

  That hadn’t said I NEED TO YOU TO CARE ABOUT ME, AVA.

  My mouth that was only full of sorry.

  37

  I WAS SITTING with the clipboard, rearranging the postcards and information sheets on the granite countertop while Mom showed a tourist couple around. They had the summer-people uniforms: matching boat shoes, toothy smiles, sun-blasted faces. I was trying to imagine them living in the house, him waking up early to clean their sleek sailboat, her loping down the hill a little later, holding steaming mugs of coffee for before they set sail. Maybe they’d have a dog, a golden Lab. Some golden kids to match.

  I’d offered them their choice of still or sparkling water. The woman chose sparkling. The man said he’d share hers. She said, “Fat chance.” He laughed.

  I liked them. Good prospects. I could hear Mom’s voice but not her words as she led them up the front stairway. Like wind chimes, happy and relaxed.

  Maybe they’ll buy it, and Mom will be happy, and make a bunch of money, to pay for whatever Danny ends up needing.

  Please let them buy it for the asking price, I prayed.

  Please let there be something Danny needs that money can buy. I will chip in all the money I make in my life to pay for it, I swear to all the gods I will fully believe in if they make my brother fixable.

  The door opened and a family walked in, so I smiled and said hi. They looked vaguely familiar even all the way over at the door, all blurry, but I figured maybe they were summer people I’d seen at Scoops or at the beach in August. “Welcome!”

  When they got to the kitchen, I saw the kid behind them was Milo. Both of his parents were tall and slim, but the mom had darker skin and shiny black hair like Milo. There was something quiet about both of the parents, just like Milo: a sort of comfort in their own skin, not having to blurt or perform or smile all big like the tourists exclaiming about the view upstairs with Mom. Like so many people.

  “Oh, hi,” I said to Milo, too loud maybe.

  “Hey, Niki,” he said. “You okay?”

  “Yeah, I, oh, yeah. I didn’t realize it was you guys! I forgot my glasses at home, so you’re blurry again! But I’m fine! How are you?”

  They all just blinked at me and nodded.

  Too much. Great.

  I pushed the clipboard toward his mom and didn’t tell her what to do. Instead I breathed through my nose. I didn’t definitely feel the pukes coming back, but honestly, what was going on with me? One more sudden barforama and I would obviously have to run away from home to Canada and never come back.

  “Thanks,” his mom said, and signed in.

  She and Milo’s dad were already looking around. Mom had done an amazing job staging the place. That’s what she calls her transformations: staging. The whole house was clean and tidy, all shiny surfaces in the kitchen, a crumble baking on low temperature in the oven. The special navy throw pillows from our couch at home perked up the couch in the family room that overlooked the ocean, just three wide steps down from the spacious kitchen. Mom had removed the heavy curtains the current owners had hung everywhere, and let the sunlight in. It’s one of her major tricks, taking down the curtains, cleaning the windows. That and the crumble. And the mums dotting the garden.

  Mom knows how to make things look better than they are.

  “Oh, Michael, look at that view, can you imagine?” Milo’s mom asked his dad.

  The dad jammed his hands into his pockets and followed his wife down the steps, to imagine.

  “Where’s Robby?” I asked.

  “Watching football. Did you have food poisoning?” Milo asked me quietly.

  I shrugged. “Honestly, who knows, let’s not talk about it, gross.”

  “Or Chase poisoning?”

  “What.” My fingers went icy.

  “Isabel said food poisoning, but I thought . . . Chase.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Nothing,” Milo said. “A hunch.”

  “A hunch.”

  “Well, fr
om how he was acting, and then how Ava was all nasty to him.”

  “She was?”

  “I thought she was into him, honestly, before that, and then, well . . . so . . .”

  “She, what did she do, after I left?”

  “Nothing, she was just, you know,” he said.

  “Sure,” I lied.

  I didn’t want to seem like I was trying to flirt with him. Not that I know how to flirt. Or how not to. Maybe I had been flirting without meaning to with Chase, which made him punch-kiss me. Don’t think about that.

  “So,” I wittily said, waving my hand like anyway, but with way bigger of a movement than I’d intended, so I jammed my pinky into the counter really hard. And just kept on going. The rest of my hand plus the bashed pinky bumped into the brochures and business cards, knocking some of them onto the floor. I hopped off the stool to pick them up and realized my whole body was shivering.

  Seriously, body: calm the heck down.

  Milo crouched next to me and picked some of the cards up too. He handed me his pile. They bumped into my battered pinky. “Ouch,” I said.

  “Sorry!” he said. “Did I hurt you?”

  “No, I just, the counter just attacked me. You saw it, right?”

  “Yes,” he said, all serious. He turned and faced the counter. “You stupid idiot. How dare you.”

  I laughed. “Thanks.”

  He shrugged. “Wish I’d said that to Chase, last night.”

  No words. What does a normal human do with her eyes?

  “So, you don’t have the flu, at least,” Milo said after a thousand years of me dying in front of him.

  “No,” I managed.

  “Well, that’s good.”

  “Thanks.”

  Ugh, thanks? That’s what I said? Thanks?

  He nodded.

  “Do you want water?” I asked. “The only other choice is club soda.”

  “I’m good,” he said.

  “Yeah,” I agreed. Somebody shoot me. “Is your family thinking of moving?” I asked, to lighten it up.

  He shrugged. “My whole life.”

  “Really?”

  “They bought our house as a starter house.”