I stared at her. The last conversation that Amelia and I had had was on the phone, the night after the first day of school. Over the past seven and a half months, I had imagined her saying many things to me. All of them started with sorry. Sorry I made you clean up our lunch table and possibly drove you to self-mutilation would have worked. Sorry I freaked out and told 911 that you tried to kill yourself also would have done the trick. Sorry I couldn’t be the friend that you wanted me to be was what I was really holding out for. Why are you doing this to me? was not actually an option.
“Why am I doing what to you?” I asked.
“Acting like I’m some sort of criminal,” Amelia replied.
“I’m not,” I said.
Amelia played with the ends of her honey-brown hair and adjusted her glasses on the bridge of her nose. She took a deep breath and went on. “You’ve spent the entire year ignoring me or glaring at me like I’m a serial killer.”
I thought, for the zillionth time, about what a nice girl Amelia was. She was a nice girl with a nice life, so people were nice to her. In Amelia’s world, nobody ever ignores you or glares at you just for kicks.
If Amelia had to be me for even one day, I think she would just fall to pieces.
“And, you know, if that’s how you want to act, well, that’s fine. But now this?” she said. “Don’t do this to me, Elise.”
“I don’t know what this is,” I told her honestly.
“Oh, please.” Her voice cracked. I had no idea what I’d done to hurt her. Part of me felt bad about it, whatever it was, but then another part of me said, very smugly, Good. She cleared her throat and continued, “If you want to give me mean looks all through English class and cross to the other side of the hallway whenever you see me coming, that’s, you know, whatever. But stop spreading rumors about me.”
“I’m not spreading rumors about you,” I said, as the line moved forward. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. But I don’t actually care. Because you, Amelia … you betrayed me.”
I thought that this might be it—this might be the moment when Amelia said sorry—but instead she said, “That’s not true. We weren’t even friends; I can’t have betrayed you. I saved your life.”
I flashed back in time, and all of a sudden it was like I was right back in my bedroom in my dad’s house, “Hallelujah” playing on my computer, my left arm bandaged and pulled in close to my chest as I dialed Amelia’s phone number for the first and only time in my life.
I saved your life, she had said, and she kept looking at me now, blinking her soft brown eyes nervously.
“No,” I told her. “You didn’t.”
Then I went in to get scoliosis-tested, and it turns out I don’t have scoliosis, so that was one success. But also I wasn’t wearing a bra today, which Lizzie Reardon noticed as I was putting my shirt back on after the scoliosis test, so by the end of the day, everyone at school had heard that I was probably a lesbian. Because if there’s one thing we know about lesbians, it’s that none of them wear bras.
Anyway. I’ve had worse days in my life. But not many.
I needed Start that night more than I’d ever needed anything. I needed excruciatingly loud music, I needed strangers, I needed darkness.
It felt like it took my family forever to fall asleep that night. Neil woke up crying from a nightmare, and then right when I was about to leave the house, Steve came all the way downstairs to double-check that he’d remembered to turn off the oven. (He had.) I’d already put on my shoes and was standing by the front door, so when Steve saw me, I had to immediately pretend that I was double-checking to make sure the door was locked. (It was.)
By the time everyone was tucked away in bed, it was twelve thirty, and I was fighting to keep my eyes open. I thought about not going out at all. But that wasn’t really an option.
At the last moment before I left the house, I went up to the attic and pulled my unicorn boots out of the garbage bag where they had lived since September. I knew that I wasn’t supposed to wear them. But I needed a little bit of magic tonight.
When I arrived at Start, Mel was standing outside, as usual.
“Hi,” I said brightly.
He frowned and looked me up and down, and I felt my heart sink. Was he going to ask again for my ID?
But all Mel said was, “Elise, honey. Did we or did we not already discuss fixing up and looking sharp?”
I tugged my hair elastic out of my ponytail and shook my hair out so it fell into tangled waves down my shoulders. “Better?” I asked.
Mel rolled his eyes. “Here we put in all this effort to provide you with a life-changing experience, week after week, and you can’t even put in the effort to change out of your Old Navy henley shirt? Come on. Meet me halfway.”
I kicked my foot out so that he could see it under the door light. “Unicorns?” I said.
Mel nodded slowly. “You look like a five-year-old, but at least you’re trying.” He opened the door for me.
“How’s it going tonight, by the way?” I asked, in what was meant to be a friendly way.
Mel rolled his eyes. “It’s a shitshow.”
I saw what Mel meant as soon as I found Vicky, hovering near the bar. “Thank God you’re here,” she said, grabbing both my arms.
“I know.” I laughed. “I feel the same way.”
“No, I mean, I need you.”
“That,” I said, “is amazing to me.” I looked around. “Where’s Pippa?”
“Where do you think Pippa is?” Vicky asked.
“Uh, I have no idea. With Char?”
“Char!” Vicky hooted like this was the most ridiculous idea ever. “Please. Pippa is there.” She jerked her thumb to point across the room, and when the lights flashed, I could see Pippa’s tiny figure crumpled on a bench against the wall.
“Is she asleep?” I asked.
“That would be fantastic,” Vicky replied. “If Pippa were asleep in the corner of Start, that would honestly be ideal. I dream of that day.”
“Vicky—” I began.
“She’s drunk,” Vicky snapped. “She passed out.”
“Oh.” I looked across the room again. I guess that made more sense; Pippa’s half-upright position didn’t seem to be that comfortable for sleeping.
I didn’t know much about drunk people. Neither Mom nor Steve drank at all. Dad usually had a six-pack of beer in the fridge, and some nights he’d have one when he got home from work, but some nights he wouldn’t. I knew that kids at my school went to parties and got drunk and sometimes passed out, because Chava and Sally talked about this a lot. But obviously I had never seen that behavior in action, since no one had ever invited me to a party.
“Shouldn’t you take her home?” I ventured.
“Absolutely.” Vicky adjusted her big feathered earrings. “A good friend would unquestionably take Pippa home right now. Actually, a good friend would have taken her home an hour ago, and would have held back her hair as she puked, and would have made her drink a big glass of water, and would have tucked her into bed, and would have sent an e-mail to her prof to explain why she won’t be in class tomorrow.”
“But you’re not doing that,” I ventured.
“Correct. Because, Elise, do you see that guy there at the bar? The one who’s paying for his drinks?”
I followed her gaze to see a guy who looked to be in his thirties, wearing a button-down shirt and big sunglasses. He was holding a soda can in one hand and a pink drink in the other.
“He is a booking agent,” Vicky went on. “He books Start, and he books rooftop parties all over town in the summer, and he books bands for two of the big clubs downtown. And he wants to talk to me about the Dirty Curtains. That’s my band. And I am not leaving here until that has happened. Do you think this makes me a bad friend, Elise?”