Together Or Not At All

-to K (Because it was never your fault, not really)

I am a shadow here.

My nails, unpainted, hang loosely at my sides. I expect them to turn pink the moment I reach to knock the door, the moment I reach back out to her, the moment her influence will consume me again. I knock, and they do nothing.

Everything here is sameness; the houses all with the same, short lawns and slanted roofs. The people milling around in their North Face jackets and well-groomed hair could all be mistaken for each other.All the cars are silver, black, or white, and all of them are various kinds of mini vans. I hate the thought of her living here, in this foldable fake place, but I understand why. There’s no place safer.

The door opens. “Ella. Hi.” There is surprise in her voice, and her green eyes widen.

It takes me a moment to figure out what to say. Despite seeing her in school every day, it is still a shock to come face-to-face with her. I have to stop myself from remembering when she could still knock me over with her weight, from wondering how unhealthy skinny she actually is.

“Hello Lena. I was, uh, cleaning out my room and I, um, found this. It’s yours, isn’t it?”

Sheepishly, as though I’m doing something wrong, I hold up the pajama bottoms. They are obviously a child’s, but I know which child. The soft fabric tickles my fingers, so soft that it aches. Lena smiles, reaching out to grab them before saying anything else.

“Yeah, these are mine. They were my favorite when I was, like, eight.” She smiles at me, a smile that is somehow off.“Thanks.” She studies me for a moment, her head tilting to the side. “Do you want to come in?”

I should say no. I should walk back to my car, get in the driver’s seat, and drive away slowly. I feel my mouth moving, and hear the words; “Maybe for a little while.”

I walk inside the house. I can’t really think of it as her house, because it’s not. Her house sits up on a hill that we would go sledding on every winter, a hill that provided enough expansive backyard for a slightly tilted swing set that we would use as a ship every chance we got. This house, with its soft corners and flat yard, is not that new to Lena; but it is new to me.

Lena leads me to the kitchen. There is a big bowl of candy in the middle of it, and I pop in a piece. Lena sits across from me, politely waiting for me to finish. There is nothing but the silence and the sound of the pitter-patter of cat feet. Lena’s feet sit crossed underneath her, her hands flat on the table, and automatically I know something is wrong. I can’t claim to know her anymore, but I knew her long enough that it’s not like I can just forget how she is. She’s not subtle in the way her eyes water, the mascara dripping slightly out of the corner of her eye. Yet I still don’t regret the words that come out of my mouth.

“Lena, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

Lena refuses to meet my gaze, but I can see that she’s crying now. The tears run down her face, and I know she’s trying to curb them, make them more elegant. She’s always been a snotty crier. I reach out a grab her hand, and she squeezes it. I watch her hand, a tiny frail thing with dark blue nails, as it curls up in mine.

“I don’t know when the last time I held your hand was.” She smiles a sad little smile- a real one, not one she’s practiced in front of the mirror. “I’ve missed it.”

She doesn’t know me anymore. She hasn’t seen who I’ve become in the face of tears, in the light of a smile; they are different people, neither one as wonderful as she remembers.

When I answer, my voice is cold.“You didn’t answer my question.”

“Do I have to?”

I’m quiet, because I know she doesn’t, not anymore.

_____________________________

• I.The Makings of Friendship

We are six, and we are beautiful.

I’ve never had a best friend before, but I’ve decided that I like it. I liked everything then; I liked my new teacher, I liked the alphabet, I liked the school, I liked the sky- but I certainly liked Lena most of all.

We met the day she walked into the classroom, five minutes later than everyone else. I was fascinated by her immediately. She’s brunette, which I have seen, but green-eyes, which I have not.

I asked her as soon as the teacher sends her in the chair next to mine. “Where did you get those?”

You were pleasant and polite, more than any six year-old has any right to be. Next to my bouncing legs and fidgeting fingers, you are a perfect angel. “What do you mean?”

“Your eyes are green!”

She smiled and, even then, I could sense a prepared answer coming. “My Mama gave them to me when I was born!” She’s quiet for only a moment before spitting back her own question.” Why are your eyes blue?”

Her answer made sense. “My Mama gave me to me too!” I later realized that my Mother’s eyes were brown, but I never told her that.

“I’m Lena.” The announcement is sudden, as though out of nowhere. Six year-olds don’t tend to exchange causalities, but Lena seemed apt to them. “Who are you?”

“Ella.”

“Cinderella?” The name alone made her green eyes light up.

I am already sorry to let her down. “No. Just Ella.”

Her face fell. “Why?”

I looked at her, and she looked back at me, our gaze locking for the first time. “Why not?”

Lena is quiet from that point on, but she let me borrow her sparkly marker to practice writing our full names. I know how, but I have to help her, my little body leaning across hers so I can reach the paper. When we are done, Lena drew a lop-sided heart on my paper.

“I like you.”

“I like you too.”

At recess we turn one of the slides into a roller coaster and never look back.

__________________________

She is still pretty, even sad and broken. I know she tries too hard to maintain it, so I shouldn’t be signaling my approval, but she was my friend, so I will anyway.

Her eyes are dripping mascara. I watch as it drips down her cheeks, staining her face and creating canyons of darkness across her pores. I can still remember when she started wearing mascara, and attempted to convert me; Ella, you should try this! You’ll look so pretty! I stuck up my nose. Isn’t that stuff made of bat poo, or something? Besides, my Mama said no make-up. You shrugged. Your choice.

I clear my throat. “Look, I’m sorry. I guess I thought you might be better. That was a stupid question.”

“I am better,” she insists. “I’m just a little overwhelmed. You surprised me, that's all."

I have to clamp down on my lip to prevent the ‘sorry’ from getting out. I may have come to deliver something long forgotten, but I have found that I, too, have forgotten how the world revolved around Lena. It feels wrong to say that, still like blasphemy, but it was so true. It wasn’t her fault; that’s the way she grew up, the way she was designed. Lena had a built in attention hog button.

Her old CD player cranks away on the counter. It’s something familiar, with its cassette player in the front and cracked plastic. I could make out the soft crooning of Taylor Swift if I stretched my ears hard enough. It was her first CD, the one I bought with Lena. The thing must be ancient, and it kept skipping. No doubt, Lena had dropped it every time she played it.

“I know.” That’s all I have. I’m not going to beg her for forgiveness. I didn’t do anything that requires it.

“It’s my fault. I was mean to you, a terrible friend. You were right to move on.”

“Lena…”

“You would have been nice to have around, you know. You would have known how to deal with me better than anybody else during everything. I was stupid! I can’t keep anything good around!”

I am walking gingerly on glass now. If it was not already broken, it would be far too easy to do so. “You still miss him?”

“More than anything.”

____________________________

• II.Falling to Pieces.

We are thirteen, and we are fighting.

I don’t like her nearly as much as I used to.

“Storm asked me out!” She flounced over, her fluffy hair looking about twenty years out of place. I know this because I like to learn, which makes me cynical. She does not, which makes her air-headed “So I might have to cancel our plans.”

I stop walking, turning around to face her directly. “Again? You haven’t been to my house in two months! It’s very rude of you to keep canceling!”

“I have a good reason!” She shouted, because she always did. “I mean, Storm! Have you seen ihs eyes? They’re so dreamy!”

This is, of course, terrible reasoning. I wanted to shake her, remind her that I can’t even talk to boys, but I refrain from reminding her of my social limitations. “He’s not even going to take you anywhere!” I knew this from extended observations. “Why can’t we hang out?”

“You don’t understand! He says he’s going to take me to the movies on Saturday!”

“That’s what we were going to do! We’ve had it planned for weeks!”

You looked guilty for a moment, fiddling with the edge of your probably-too-short-but-favorite old dress. “Yeah, but I mean, Storm!”

“So what? Why is he so much more special than me?”

“He’s a boy, silly!”

I still didn’t understand. “Lena, I don’t like when you do such rude things to me. “

“Ella!”

I don’t have time to take the words back. Pent up anger and frustration came barreling off my tongue. “I don’t! This is the third time this month. First it was Billy’s Birthday party, then it was Amity’s, and now this!” My rage quiets. “I miss you.”

“There no need to be rude about it!” You don’t seem to have heard the last part, so you have fired yourself to match my apparent anger. “We’ll get together soon, okay! Just trust me. That’s what best friends do.”

I remember thinking how terribly selfish she was, how often she did this to me. My anger turns into a simmer, hot below the surface. “Yeah. Sure. Bye.”

She smiles her winning smile, a resolve that she has won. “Bye, Ella.”

The next day, that hot anger pushing me on, I write her a letter denouncing our friendship. She does not respond, but I know her answer; we didn’t want to be friends anymore, so we weren’t. It was simple as that.

This girl named Isabel, an acquaintance I hadn’t gotten to know because I ‘already had a best friend’ started to come over every other Saturday. She liked Disney movies and a good debate, making me feel like that little girl again ‘I have a best friend, and I like her!’

Lena becomes nothing more than courteous to me, and plural ‘we’ becomes nothing more than a memory.

_____________________________

Lena holds up the pajama bottoms. “My Dad bought me these.”

“Yeah, I figured. I know the sight of me doesn’t make you cry, or you’d be crying a lot more.”

Lena laughs. I still love the sound.

___________________________________________

• III.BROKEN

We are sixteen, and I watch her break.

She isn’t at school one day, but I don’t mark it up to anything. We are kind to each other, nothing more. She’s better than she was as a little girl, but I still refuse to become her friend. I missed her in English, that’s all. She was the only one I talked to, and she was still way too fluent in gossip.

This small school is buzzing with the news of a car crash. A semi hit a car on the west side of the intersection. No one knows names, but my family is safe. I didn’t care.

Isabel is in the middle of explaining her new favorite book when my Mom comes into my room, her face straight. Isabel is quiet.

My Mom looks at me nervously, her eyes flitting to the corner of the bed where I still keep Lena’s homemade pillow case. “Lena’s father was in that car crash. He died today.”

I don’t really know what to do, so I cry in Isabel’s arms until I can’t anymore.

My family goes to his funeral. I feel guilty, nervous, my hands flitting to all edges of my dress. It seems like the whole town is here. I can hear her sobs from the front row. She wears a sparkly dress and her father’s dress shirt. It has sparkles all over it by the time the ceremony is over.

She stopped going to school for a week, and when you came back, all she did was cry. She had love enough, a group flocking to you every time ‘he’ came out of your lips. I took my one, ‘I’m sorry’ at the funeral, and was done. Lena didn’t need me, and hadn’t for a very long time.

She broke up with her boyfriend a month later.

I watched her scream at him, and him speak loudly about ‘emotional baggage.’ I waited until it was over before I went over and hugged Lena. I called him a scumbag, but she didn’t realize I’d never used the word before, but it felt good. I was reminded that she didn’t know me, not anymore.

Her mother got a new car the day I got my license.

I told I was scared to drive, but she says she wasn’t.“Why?” I ask. “I mean, after everything?”

You shrug. “My Dad was a good driver, and I’m sure the truck driver was too. He just got distracted. What happened to my Dad isn’t going to prevent me from living my life.”

I realized that I had been underestimating her our entire lives.

Lena looks at the clock on my wrists. “Sorry for keeping you so long. If you were cleaning, that probably means you have to go somewhere, right. You don’t have time for my occasional break downs.”

“Emily tells me you’re getting a lot better. You deserved some time, but I’ve seen it too. You seem happy more often.”

Lena lets go of my hand. “I am, it’s really just… little triggers, these days.”

“Understandable.”

We both stand up, and look at each other.

“What are your plans?” I manage to say into the silence. “Now that we’re out?”

“You mean, besides the community college? James and I are going to get an apartment between here and the college I want to transfer to after the first year. I don’t want to be too far away from home! And you’re off to State, right? Good luck.”

“Yeah, you too. I better get going, though. I have some orientation stuff tomorrow to get ready for.”

Lena nods, and sees me out the door.

I start walking to my car when I hear. “Maybe we’ll get together soon, right, Ella?”

The words mimic a scene that ended our friendship, but when she asked them before, I gave an answer I did not mean.

“I can’t guarantee anything. I’m very busy. Call me if you need to talk, though. I’ll always be there for you.”

It was the best answer I had.

Lena grins. “Yeah. Yeah, I know.”