Good Friends

The curtains were drawn again.

Diana lived within walking distance of school in a quaint, white-sided house. Since Eleanor, it had been sitting silent. The stoop had gone through a rotating series of home cooked meals, bouquets of flowers, and condolence cards over the past week and a half, but they were at last starting to peter out.

Underneath the curtains rested a bed of flowers, usually well on their way to blooming by mid-March. But this year they were still covered with a layer of leaves; the only thing sprouting was a statue of Mary, faded from baby blue to white.

Despite the proximity, Dad had insisted on driving me. The car’s idling motor shook the pathway as I headed to the front door and stepped over today’s enchilada casserole.

I had spent most of the school day considering what to say to Diana— through the worksheets, that is. It stood to occupy me when sitting in bored silence through recess and distracted me from my impending doom when the dodgeball unit was announced during Gym. In the end, I went simple.

Knocking on the door made the cross hung out front shake as if stuck in a gale. There was no immediate answer. The silence ticked on, birds chirping and car radio thrumming. Floorboards creaked until, underneath the door, appeared the shadow of two feet.

No words. That’s how I knew it was a bad day.

I cleared my throat. “H— hello, Mrs. Colón . . .” I hoped it wasn’t Diana on the other side. “It’s Lauren. I have Diana’s stuff.”

I folded the worksheet stack hot dog-style and stuffed it through the mail slot. The maroon curtains faintly fluttered. The papers flopped against the hardwood floor inside.

“She also has to finish Hatchet,” I said, and took a step forward. I laid my hand against the door. “Tell— tell Diana that I love her, and I hope she comes back to school soon.”

The person on the other side gave no reply– couldn’t spare a word, didn’t consider me worthwhile at all. The shadow moved and collected the delivery. My throat was filled with bile as I turned away. I felt guilty every time I got angry– I wasn’t the one with a dead sister.

The last time I had spoken to Diana had been at the wake. I came prepared to live up to my promise; to be the kindest, patient-est friend there could be.

Had the sisters been closer in age, they could’ve passed as twins. Diana looked like Eleanor on her worst days; insomniac bags under her eyes, nails bitten down to the nub. Her hair was professionally styled and her black dress new and lacy but all the makeover did was emphasize her round cheeks, still wet with tears.

We sat on opposite ends of a red brocade loveseat, exchanging little beyond script pleasantries. Adults swirled in and out of the dark flowery room, giving each other stiff-backed nods and lining up to view Eleanor’s casket.

When Dad had boosted me onto the stool to pay my respects, I hadn’t known what to do. The body inside looked plastic, wearing a faceful of makeup that she never would have tolerated. I had never seen Eleanor in a dress of her own accord, and now here she was. To be buried in pink.

I was a good friend, so I didn’t bring this up– even as Diana’s silence stretched out, long enough that it had to be willful on one of our sides.

I was such a good friend that I held back any snide comments that came to mind when Diana pulled out the iPad, poking around coloring pages like a dumb toddler.

“Why do you think it smells so bad in here?”

“Hm?” Her finger paused, just above the screen.

“I think it's all the formaldehyde.”

“Okay.”

She still wouldn’t look at me. Her gaze drifted upwards, across the room, to her mother standing beside the laptop playing a memorial slideshow on loop. When they made eye contact, her mother gestured furiously, miming a smile with a pointed finger drawn across the mouth.

“Hey, Di—” I elbowed her. “Did you ever finish Twilight?”

“No.”

“That bad, huh?” I laughed.

“It wasn’t bad. . . I just didn’t want to. . .” Diana trailed off.

“It’s freaking stupid, right? Sparkly vampires, c’mon!”

She nodded, but I knew she wasn’t actually agreeing. She wasn’t listening to me at all. I just wanted to see her smile— she was supposed to be smiling. Not like this.

But I was a good friend. My patience was unending; when I wished her good-bye and asked when she would be coming back to school, I left things as they were when she refused both the answer and the hug.

That was the weekend. At home after dropping off her stuff, I bashed my head against the keyboard. I considered learning to punch through drywall like a man would.

Instead, I unzipped my backpack with too much force, sending the contents across the floor of my room. It was already littered with dirty clothes and trash. I stared down at the mess under my feet, frustration still making my limbs quiver.

I put on Windows Media Player and circled my room, dumping trash in a bag and clothes into a basket. Books went on the bed, shoes into the bag hanging on the back of my door. The time was wiled away until Dad poked his head in. There was a heartened look at his face when he spotted me, black trash bag in hand.

“I’m making spaghetti for dinner,” he said. His eyes flickered over to my desk. “Don’t forget your homework.”

I sighed. “Yes, Dad.”

The worksheet before me looked worse than any trial by fire. It had made me want to clean my room. I stared it down until the text swam. I sharpened my pencil, broke the tip with my thumb, then sharpened it again. When I put it over the paper, my hand went to the margins. I drew Pinkie, hair deflated and crying. Then, I had to root around for my eraser. Ms. Wood was the sort of teacher who would notice suspiciously sad drawings, and might even make me stay behind after class to talk about feelings. A smeared pink mark under my name was vastly preferable.

Only once the drawing was gone did I start on the algebra itself. It darkened outside. The yellow lamp on my desk turned into a beacon. I scratched through formulas as the computer screen shifted colors like a frightened chameleon, always threatening to suck my attention away.

Bloop!

I jumped at the notification sound. Frowning, I turned off the music and checked the time. It was too early for—

“Yeah,” I said. “We do.”

Why hadn’t she texted like normal? I rolled my shoulders, dropped the pencil and shoved my notebooks and folders away.

As I waited for a response, I opened a browser and let it load. It took long enough that it had only just finished when Diana wrote, I have to tell you a secret.

I went to Google.

Google— ways to be a good frien|

Diana wrote, I had a strange dream.

There was a knock on my door. I minimized the window, but Diana was sending a series of messages. Bloop, bloop, bloop.

I jumped out of the chair. I popped into the hall and swung the door closed behind me. Dad blinked in surprise, hands full with a plate of spaghetti and a glass of water.

“Oh! Do you want to eat downstairs tonight?”

“No, no.” I took the plate. “Just really hungry. But, I’ve still got, like, so much work, so y’know—”

“Do you need any help?”

“No!” I snatched away the water too. I hooked the door back open with my heel.

Bloop!

“What’s that sound?” Dad took a step forward.

“It’s, uh, Youtube,” I said. “Math Youtube!”

I closed the door.

Oh no, oh no! I dropped my fork back onto my plate. Red sauce splashed over my keyboard. Google, help me! How do I—

I let out a long exhale of breath. The message sunk like a rock. My hands shaking, I wrote, How?

I think it was her boyfriend, Diana replied. The one I told you about.

I ran a hand through my hair, tugging at my roots until it hurt.

I groaned and buried my face in my hands. “Diana, what are you doing?”

I shouldn’t have fed into this at all. I wanted to reach out and shake the monitor, shake her by the shoulders. Make eye contact and end this theory in its cradle.

There was a sudden slew of sounds— squealing tires and a horrid crunch. For the first— but not last— time, I forgot about Diana.

I rushed over to the window; an acrid burning smell was filling the room. On the street outside a black car had flipped over, spewing smoke.

“Dad!”

Downstairs, the front door was hanging open. Dad was already at the crash, still in his bathrobe and slippers. He was pulling someone out of the wreck in a bridal carry. For a moment my scrambled brain locked onto the body’s curtain of apple-red hair, swaying like a pendulum in the tumult. Then, Dad made eye contact.

I stood on the curb and called 911.

“H-hello! Um, there’s been a car crash. I live at, um—”

Dad readjusted the girl in his arms so that she was holding onto his neck. I saw her face— kind of. Mostly, I caught her silhouette made slick by dark blood.

“I think it was a hit and run,” I continued. “There was one person in the—”

“ . . . two.”

I froze. For a moment, I thought Dad had spoken. But that wasn’t right. This voice was too high, too weak, too painful.

The girl was awake.

“Ah, there’s two people hurt,” I said.

Dad was holding the back of the girl’s head. “Stay with us, stay with us, dear,” he said. “Who’s still in the car?”

“ . . . Moth . . . er. . .” she gasped, her breathing labored.

The operator was speaking to me, words I heard but didn’t hear.

“We’ll get her out, don’t worry,” Dad said. “Just stay awake, please.”

We were beginning to draw an audience. The rest of the neighborhood crept in on us, watching the show. Between the smoke and nightfall, it was getting hard to see.

“Can you tell us your name?” Dad was trying to keep her occupied, to keep her head from lolling back and sleep overtaking her.

The girl swallowed. Her hooded eyes fluttered. “I’m . . . my n . . . Eris.”

At the hospital, I cried behind a vending machine.

Stupid, stupid, I thought, tears streaming down my face. Stupid crybaby.

The plastic chair creaked under my rocking weight. I grabbed at my hoodie, bunched it up in my fist, released and repeated.

In a room down the hall, Dad was talking to a doctor while Eris’s mother was hooked up. At least, I thought so. He had sent me off to the cafeteria to keep me from seeing the gory details. But the minute Dad’s eyes had left me, I fell apart. The words were stuck sharp in my throat. I know her, I know that girl!

Or at least, I thought so. She had looked about the right age— maybe older. I knew my Eris lived in Massachusetts, too. And Eris wasn’t exactly a common name to begin with.

But what were the chances? That in my moment of need, my only other friend would end up bleeding at my door.

Gee, thanks God, I thought bitterly. My stomach rumbled, and I remembered that I wasn’t in a confession booth. I was stuck in a hospital for who knew how long, and my supper was still sitting cold on my desk.

I pulled up my hood to block out the glare of overhead lights. Though I cast my gaze downward, I felt eyes on me all around as I stalked the halls. I preferred looking scary to looking pathetic. But soon my stomach growled again, and I realized I was lost.

I ground to a halt in a very different looking wing. The floors were striped with red and yellow, and the walls were blue and covered in bright murals of zoo animals. Terrified, I turned to the desk, but there was no one there.

A voice startled me. “This floor is just for little angels, you know.”

I whirled around. Everything else on my mind was struck down like bowling pins, eaten by the machinery.

I was standing before a ghost.

With bangs bandaged back, her straight hair thrown over her shoulders, Eris smiled at me with the same alabaster skin and almond eyes as the pretty girl who had haunted me so many years ago.

“You look more like a devil to me,” she said.

“Eris! Um . . .” I trailed off. “Shouldn’t you be lying down?”

She giggled. “How do you know my name?”

“I heard it, when you. . .” I had to say it, I had to! “Um, I’m Ophelia! Midnight Rhapsody. I think I’m your internet. . .” The dreaded F-word stuck in my throat.

Eris’s eyes lit up in recognition. “You brought me here?”

I nodded, picking at a thread in my sleeve.

“Thank you,” Eris breathed. “What a miracle.”

I nodded again, shrinking in on myself as Eris took a step closer.

“You saved my life,” Eris said. “Why do you look so scared?”

“I, uh—” I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “Remember when I told you about the nightmare I had as a kid?” The hallucination, my mind corrected. “It’s just that, um, you— you look a bit like her.”

Eris opened her mouth, but I plowed on. “How on earth are you allowed to walk around? I saw you covered in blood!”

“Head wounds bleed a lot,” Eris said. “It was all superficial. I should’ve been more specific. You saved my mother’s life.” She folded her arms and looked me over. She was like a hammer slamming a nail into place. “You know where she is?”

As soon as Eris and I got back to where I had started, Dad was leaving the room. He looked exhausted, though his expression brightened as soon as I reached his line of sight. “There you are, Sweetie. Did you get enough to eat?”

“Yeah.” I scratched the back of my neck. I felt Eris’s knowing gaze on me before she turned to my dad.

“I just wanted to thank you,” she said. “It means the world what you and Ophelia have done for my family.”

My stomach dropped down to my feet. I tugged on her sleeve, wrenching her attention away. I kept my voice down, my eyes on the floor. “Um. . . Eris, my um. My real name is Lauren.”

Dad was looking between the two of us. Before he could ask directly, I fessed up.

“I knew Eris already,” I said. “We met on the internet.”

Dad’s face turned stern, but it seemed he was going to take mercy on me. “We’ll talk about this later.”

Stomach sinking below the floor, I nodded.

He turned to Eris. “Honey, I just spoke to your mother.”

She was looking at him with rapt attention. No longer spooked by my memories, I was able to notice more about her. The head to toe black clothes, loose band shirt, fishnet stockings and heavy boots. The snake bites that flashed under her lip. The green tint to her eyes. She was so much cooler than I had even imagined.

“Your mother was hurt very badly,” Dad said. “The doctor said she will likely remain hospitalized for several months.”

Eris nodded. Her hair was so thick and heavy I could hear it rustle with the movement. When she glanced over at me, her gaze was forlorn, eyelashes fluttering.

I said, “Oh no. . .”

She shrugged. “I will learn to live alone.”

“Don’t you have any family to stay with?” I asked. I already knew from our online chats that it was just her and her mom. But certainly she had an aunt or grandparents somewhere?

“All my family is in Austria,” she said.

“You didn’t let me finish, dear.” Dad put a hand on Eris’s shoulder. “Now, I don’t doubt your independence. Your mother was very proud of you. But she was very insistent that you not be left alone at such a distressing time. . .”

I held my breath.

“ —So, if you would like, you’re free to stay with us until your mother recovers.”

!!!

Eris was shaking her head. “No, I couldn’t impose on you, Mr. . .?”

“Krepshaw,” Dad said. “But call me David.”

“Mr. Krepshaw. You are too kind, but I—”

“Eris, please!” I shook her arm. My earlier shyness was forgotten. “It would be so much fun— like a big sleepover. We would love to have you stay!”

Eris looked at me, perfect hair jostled, expression wide-eyed.

“Honey.” Dad stopped me with a hand on my arm.

But Eris’s face relaxed. Her smile was wan. “Well, I couldn’t say no to a face like that.”

I hugged her, dried blood and all.

Soon, Eris had gone to speak to her mother in private and fetch her house keys. My heart was thudding in my chest as I waited, leaned against the wall. My ears buzzed like strumming a full-amp electric guitar. I apologized to God for being so rude earlier. This really was fate.

As Eris bustled out, ready to leave and chatting up my dad, I stole a look into the hospital room.

The curtains had been left open, giving me a wide view of Eris’s mother. There didn’t seem to be much family resemblance; she was a tall woman with an overbite and fair frizzy hair. She was covered in bandages and wires. The machines beeped steadily as she stared out, glassy-eyed and still as a statue, at the wall before her.

When I got home, I checked the computer. Diana never replied.