A Line in the Dark

by Malinda Lo

  “Hi,” Angie says brightly, her voice carrying across the street.

  “Hi back,” says Margot, more faintly.

  The door to the Mini closes with a perky-sounding crunch. The engine revs slightly, and then I listen to the car pull away from the curb and head down the street. I stand up in time to see the Mini’s red taillights turn right at the end of the block.

  ANGIE HAS THEATER REHEARSAL ON MONDAYS AND Wednesdays after school. On Tuesdays she usually studies in the library with her other friends. I used to study with them too, but now I linger in the hallway until I see Angie enter the library, and then I leave. Thursdays are uncertain. Sometimes she has GSA meetings, sometimes drama club, sometimes the library. I can usually tell by the direction she heads from her locker.

  Today I don’t see her. I’ve gotten my backpack and jacket from my locker, but Angie is nowhere in sight. I feel twitchy when I don’t know where she is, my brain constantly rotating through options. She could be hanging out with Courtney in the drama department. She could be talking to a teacher. She could have already left, and if that’s the case it means I won’t see her until tomorrow morning first period, when I slide into my seat behind her and say nothing, again.

  I close my locker. I head for the exit, passing the trophy cases and the framed photos of all of West Bed’s sports teams. Outside, the main drive is thronged with cars. There are parents picking up their kids; students inching their way out of the parking lot; yellow school buses idling. Angie is sitting on a bench, looking at her phone.

  I cut across the patchy brown grass in front of the school, keeping Angie in my peripheral vision. There’s another bench over here, sort of behind her, so she won’t see me if she doesn’t turn around. I sit down. She’s still staring at her phone. When she looks up a minute later, I follow her gaze toward the cars inching down the drive. I see it instantly: the blue Mini.

  Every time I see it I feel a hot, ugly twist inside me. I keep expecting it to fade, but it only seems to intensify. It eats at me as Margot sticks her arm out the Mini’s driver’s side window and waves. Angie gets up, waving back. She moves toward the car, and just before she reaches it she turns her head and sees me.

  When our eyes meet, I am pinned in place by her gaze. She is disgusted with me.

  THE CREAMERY HAS A PRIME SPOT IN THE MIDDLE OF EAST Bedford’s central square, where Washington and Essex Streets intersect at an angle. The Creamery’s at the apex of that angle, with big glass windows that overlook the little cobblestoned triangle with the statue of George Washington. I usually walk down Essex Street to the Creamery, but today I take Milk, a side street that perpendiculars onto Washington about half a block away from the square. Coming down Milk gives me a good view into the ice-cream shop, but it also means that whoever’s inside has a good view of me. I keep to the wall of the café on the corner of Milk Street, pulling the hood of my sweatshirt farther over my face, and take out my phone so that it looks like I’m doing something.

  Angie’s working today. Inside the empty Creamery, she is standing behind the counter. Peak ice-cream season is over by now. Last year I loved hanging out with Angie on late fall Saturdays at the Creamery. We usually had the place to ourselves and would make mini batches of milk shakes using the specialty flavors. Sometimes families would come in with their kids, but today it looks like Angie’s alone.

  She’s not, though. I peeked down the alley behind the Creamery before I walked down Milk Street, and I saw Margot’s Mini parked next to Angie’s car.

  Soon enough, I see Margot too. She leans over the counter toward Angie, who hangs back. Even from where I’m standing, I can tell that Angie’s smiling. There’s something flirty about her posture. She’s holding back, but not because she doesn’t want Margot to come closer; she’s reeling her in.

  Margot takes the lure. She reaches over the counter for Angie’s hands. Angie laughs, backing away. Margot bends over the counter and captures Angie’s hand in hers, and now Margot’s the one in the lead. Angie leans toward her. They are in full view of the street, but they seem oblivious to that fact.

  I have stopped breathing. Something hot and acidic boils up in my belly.

  Margot kisses her. It’s a sweet kiss, a public kiss. It’s the first time I’ve seen Angie kiss a girl, and suddenly she seems like a stranger. When she first came out to me, it was an abstract idea, entirely theoretical. This is concrete, as real as a punch in my face.

  I turn away, feeling sick and sweaty and angry and envious all at once. I force myself to put one foot in front of the other, walking faster and faster down Milk Street until I’m practically running, gasping, my skin burning, and the only thing I can see is the way Margot reaches out and slides her hand around Angie’s neck as she kisses her: the sense of possession in her movements, as if Angie were hers alone.

  AFTER THE ARTS PROGRAM, THE BUS DROPS US OFF AT West Bed High. I go inside to get my math homework out of my locker. The hallways are empty now, and my footsteps echo on the recently mopped linoleum. A burst of music peals through the air from the theater wing, and then is silenced as a door slams. I reach my locker and spin the combination, grabbing my homework and stuffing it into my backpack. Footsteps are coming down the hallway. I glance in the direction of the sound.

  It’s Angie.

  Nervousness bubbles in my stomach. I close my locker and swing my backpack onto my shoulder, turning to leave.

  “Jess, wait.”

  The resigned tone of her voice makes me pause in unexpected hope. It’s been over three weeks since she stopped texting me. I think I’ve been waiting for this moment. I’ve imagined it before. She’ll apologize. She’ll tell me she’s breaking up with Margot. She’ll say she misses me.

  I turn back. Her wavy hair is loose and wild around her face. She’s wearing skinny jeans and a green Henley I don’t recognize, and I wonder if she bought it with Margot. Did she go into the dressing room with her? The idea of it hurts, but my imagination is relentless. I see the two of them together in front of the three-way mirror, Margot’s hands pulling up Angie’s shirt.

  Angie’s hands are open as she approaches, as if she thinks I’m a wild animal that needs to be gentled. “I know you’re following me around,” she says quietly.

  The hallway seems to close in on me, all the air vacuumed out.

  She comes closer. She is only a few feet away from me. There’s a wrinkle in her forehead, a soft downward tug to her lips. “If you want to talk to me, let’s talk. That’s why you’re following me, isn’t it?”

  I open my mouth. I close it. The green Henley skims her breasts, the six small buttons half undone, revealing the smooth, pale skin of her chest, the shadow leading to her cleavage. I see the faint pattern of a lace bra through the close-fitting fabric. Angie never used to wear lace bras.

  She takes another step toward me. I feel completely exposed beneath the bright fluorescent lights, as if I were in an interrogation room. She says, “I want to talk to you too. I don’t like whatever is happening between us. You’re my best friend—we should be able to talk about this.”

  It’s been a long time since I’ve looked into Angie’s eyes. She’s wearing purplish-gray eyeshadow and mascara. It looks like the same eye makeup she wore in that photo from Friday night. It’s jarring to see it on her in person. She looks older, more confident.

  “Jess,” she says again.

  My name sounds like a sigh on her lips. It makes me shiver.

  “Are you going to say anything?” she asks.

  I hear impatience in her voice and my own heartbeat quickens as if to push me forward, but all my words are trapped in my throat.

  She shakes her head. She starts to turn around, to leave me.

  “Wait,” I burst out. “Wait, I—I do want to talk.”

  She turns back, eyebrows raised. “Really?”

  “I’m—” I’m sorry.

  �
�You’re what?”

  “I know this girl at Brooke, Emily?”

  She looks confused. “Yeah, so?”

  “She knows Margot, and she told me that Margot is—that she’s not very nice.”

  Now she’s disappointed. “That’s what you want to talk about?”

  “Margot spread a lot of lies about Emily. She’s not who she seems. She made Emily do all sorts of shitty stuff and then when Emily stopped, she started spreading lies about her. You’re not seeing the real Margot.” My words tumble out of me faster and faster, but even as I say them I know they’re the wrong ones. Angie stiffens defensively, her face darkening.

  “Quit it,” she says angrily. “Just quit it. I know you don’t like Margot, but you don’t know her!” Her voice rises. “You need to get over this. Even if you don’t like her, I like her, and you’re my best friend—or you were my best friend—and you should want me to be happy. Don’t you want that?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “There’s no but. You’re either my friend who supports me, or you’re not. So quit it with this BS and quit it with the stalking and get over it.”

  Her eyes are hard and bright. I’ve never seen her this angry, and I want to take back everything I said, but it’s too late now. “I’m—”

  “When you’re ready to be normal about this, let me know.” She gives me one last disappointed look, then shakes her head, and leaves.

  I CAN’T SLEEP. I KEEP LOOKING AT MY ALARM CLOCK TO watch the glowing red numbers tick slowly toward two a.m.

  At 2:06, I throw off the covers and get out of bed. The room is chilly because my parents turn the heat down to practically freezing at night, so I put on a sweatshirt. I turn on my desk lamp and pull out my sketchbook. I flip through the pages to the panels I’ve been working on most recently. Kestrel is facing off with Raven, and Kestrel’s going to demand the truth from her: Is Raven really trying to open the Doorway to Faerie? They’re standing nose to nose, and I’ve given Kestrel a fierce expression to contrast with Raven’s smirk. I’ve also drawn two small panels that are close-ups on Kestrel’s and Raven’s faces. Now I start on a wide-angle shot, with Kestrel and Raven small figures in the lower right part of the rectangle. They’re standing in a field next to the woods where Kestrel killed the mutant farmer. I work on the trees for a while, and then I sketch Laney into the shadows between the trees. She’s watching the two of them, and I insert a small box in the bigger image that shows a close-up on Laney’s face.

  She’s jealous. She suspects that Kestrel and Raven are secretly in love. I haven’t decided if that’s true yet, but as I draw Laney’s eyes, a new idea takes shape. It’s startling. I flip back through the sketchbook to see whether it would work, because it’s not what I originally intended. It means redoing the scene I’m working on and probably throwing away a bunch of stuff. I hate throwing stuff out, but the idea is so intriguing I want to try it immediately.

  I open to a new blank page and rough out a two-page spread. Kestrel and Raven will be in the library together. I sketch the bones of a room with tall Gothic ceilings, where bookshelves line the walls. I place Kestrel and Raven in front of one of the arched windows. Raven is holding a book bound in black that’s titled Magick, and Kestrel approaches her, an expression of concern on her face. I outline two other panels, one focusing on Kestrel’s face and the other on Raven’s. I’ll add in dialogue bubbles later. Finally, on the right-hand page I draw a short, wide panel in which I’ll depict the library from the outside. It’s nighttime, so the windows will be lit up, and Kestrel and Raven will appear as black silhouettes. In the lower-left corner of this panel, Laney stands on the lawn, gazing up at the window. From her perspective, Kestrel and Raven are leaning toward each other in the window as if they’re about to kiss. I draw Laney’s mouth as a hard, distrustful slash. I draw her hands curled into fists.

  I SQUAT DOWN IN FRONT OF THE HIDING PLACE AND REACH my gloved hand into the shadowed recess. Emily makes a face and says, “Ugh, I would not stick my hand in there. What if there’s a snake or something?”

  “There aren’t any snakes here,” I say.

  She rubs her hands on her arms and says, “Because it’s too cold!”

  It is cold in the woods, but I like the crisp dryness of the air. It smells like winter. “It’s not that cold. You’re just a wimp.” I wrap my fingers around the strap of the leather bag and tug. It’s stuck for a second, but then it comes free, scraping across the ground.

  “Hey, I’m from California,” she objects. “Winter is not my natural habitat.”

  I unbuckle the bag and pull out the stash of letters. There are a couple of new ones. Emily reaches for them but I hold back. “Wait a sec,” I say. “You have to read them in order.”

  She gives me an impatient look but says, “Fine. Which is the first?”

  I find the first one and hand it over, and while she reads it, I unfold the new letters. One is like the others, written to “My Darling” and signed “Yours,” but the second letter is on scalloped stationery and has different handwriting. It’s clearly a girl’s cursive, angled to the right with rounded loops.

  Dear J,

  I can’t believe I’m going to be away from you for a week and a half! Thanksgiving is going to suck. You have to promise me that as soon as we both get back here that we can meet right away. Can we go to that place in Maine you keep talking about? I bet it’ll be empty because nobody goes to Maine in December if they can help it. We can be all cozy in the snow and stay in bed all day (wink) and it’ll be amazing.

  I know you have to leave early for Thanksgiving but don’t forget, you can text me on that app and I’ll get it and nobody will know. I can’t go a whole ten days without hearing from you. You are the best thing about my life right now, and ever. I’m going to miss you so much. Nobody makes me feel like you do. I’m going to wear the underwear you bought me to Thanksgiving dinner and nobody will know, but I’ll feel your hands on me all night.

  XXX, Your Darling

  Emily has a look of fascinated disgust on her face. “Oh my God,” she says. “I thought you were exaggerating, but this is real.”

  “I told you. Look at this one.” I hand her the newest letter. “I think the guy who writes the letters must come here to get notes from her too, but he takes them away with him. He must not have picked this one up yet.”

  Emily skims the newest one and grimaces when she gets to the end. “This is gross.”

  “Any idea who’s writing them?” I ask.

  Emily’s forehead wrinkles as she flips through the letters. “I don’t know. They’re clearly both at Brooke, but . . .” She fixes me with a suspicious look. “How did you say you found them?”

  I take a seat on the log and drum my fingers against the side. Damp bits of bark fall off. “I overheard some girls talking in the woods about them. They were Peebs.”

  Emily sits back on her heels, her eyebrows rising. “Peebs? That’s what you call us?”

  I raise my eyebrows back in a challenge. “Like you don’t know. Don’t you call us Bedwetters?”

  Emily exhales sharply. “So why are you showing these to me?”

  “You don’t recognize the handwriting? The girl’s handwriting?”

  She frowns but looks at the girl’s letter again. “No. Should I?”

  “I thought you might want to know what Ryan’s been up to.”

  Her gaze snaps up to me, startled, and then back down to the girl’s letter. “Ryan?”

  I watch the way her eyes narrow, her mouth flattening as she reads. She shakes her head slightly. She lets out her breath in a little hmph. When she looks up at me, she’s trying to contain her excitement.

  “Ryan,” she says again, but this time her tone says, I should have known.

  “Yep.”

  She carefully lays the letters on top of the log beside me, placing Ryan’s note on top.
Then she takes out her cell phone, stands up, and begins to take photos.

  IT’S BEEN THIRTY-FOUR DAYS SINCE ANGIE LAST TEXTED me. I sketch a picture of Angie and me standing in the hallway at school. The lockers march in a receding line into the distance, creating a tunnel effect behind the two of us in the foreground. We face each other, but I am not looking at her.

  I don’t draw myself that often. I could make myself taller and thinner, cuter or better dressed, but that has always felt like cheating. I get a kind of bitter satisfaction out of exaggerating the roundness of my face, the pooch of my belly under my flat breasts, the puddling of my too-long jeans around my ankles. The hardest part is getting the expression on my face right. I’m embarrassed, eyes downcast, cheeks shaded to suggest a blush, mouth in a slight grimace.

  I draw Angie looking at me with a wary expression, one eyebrow slightly arched up, lips drawn together in a flat line. It’s easy to make her look good. I dress her in tight jeans, the Henley with six buttons. Her arms are crossed beneath the curve of her breasts. I give her really great hair and tuck some of it behind one ear.

  I sketch a dialogue bubble, connect it to me, and letter in the words I couldn’t say out loud: I’m sorry for being a shithead. Can we be friends again?

  In the next panel I draw a close-up on Angie’s face. I take my time with her eyes, her nose, her mouth. I don’t need a photo for reference; I’ve been drawing her since we first met in art class in sixth grade. I know every line of her body by heart. I add a dialogue bubble above her head, and inside it I place only an ellipsis.

  SATURDAY MORNING, I’M WORKING ON MY KESTREL COMIC when I hear a knock on my bedroom door.

  “Jess?”

  The sound of Angie’s voice is so startling I almost knock over my chair in my haste to get up. I open the door and she is standing on the other side, still wearing her down coat. Her cheeks are flushed, and she flashes me a brief, nervous smile.