Bad Habits

For not the first time, I wondered what the point was.

The outside was blazing with life and color, like a watercolor painting had been taped over everyone’s eyes. My class had been given a tantalizing taste of it via the early afternoon walk to Church. While the others talked amongst themselves, I kept a keen eye on the blooming flowers, trees, and the fat little bumble bees that loved them so.

I wished I was a fat little bee. Because then I wouldn’t have been so cruelly dragged into St. Catherine’s Church and stuffed into a front row pew, between Sydney and Bianca, another rulebook-thumper.

We were at the tail-end of Lent. Which meant that, week-by-week, we were marched over to Church on Thursday afternoons and made to endure a repetitive drawl of Jesus’ path to be crucified. Our repentances were read from pamphlets until the words turned into mush in my mouth, and the only suffering I could meditate on was the aching of my knees.

In my moments of desperation, I turned to the building around me. My eyes trailed up the gaudy columns to the painted ceiling. Faces of unfamiliar saints stared down at me with cracking cheeks.

The altar looked more like a coffin to me; arrayed in relief Virgins, silver candlesticks and a white cloth. Behind was a great golden relief, Jesus resurrected as gilt candy, cherubs trumpeting and angels with banners like skywriters.

Along the walls were stained glass windows, conveniently already portraying the Stations of the Cross. Father Grodzki was standing with the mini-procession before Station VI— Veronica Wipes the Face of Jesus. The appropriate pamphlet page was held open with my finger, the staple between begging to break skin.

When I looked over my shoulder to view the procession, my eyes also had to slide over Diana, sitting primly in the back row. I did so as fast as possible. Unfortunately for me, Sydney noticed.

She raised a knowing eyebrow my way. I flushed in anger; I couldn’t help it. I was still dwelling on what she’d said to me on the walk over.

What should’ve been a rare moment of peace had been ruined by the blonde. Sydney sidled up to me, alone at the front of the pack. She’d leaned towards me, so close that I felt her hot breath on my neck.

“You aren’t walking with Diana,” she said. “She looks so lonely back there. Are you still not talking?”

I kept my gaze straight forward. Stray Sydney hairs brushed against my jaw.

“It looks rea-lly bad, you know,” she continued. “First her sister passes, then you get angry and the both of you end up friendless.”

Ugh. I hadn’t said anything in reply. Now, as we moved to kneel, I gave Sydney as quick a glare as I could manage. That wasn’t the story at all. I was protesting my own treatment. The way I’d collected Diana’s worksheets, wrote nice notes, prayed for her whenever I remembered to pray— only to be ignored, cast aside in favor of a stupid detective fantasy, tracking down a killer that didn’t exist. It was just a matter of waiting, of letting her know how it felt. She was going to come crawling back to me, of course. And not that it was any of Sydney’s business, but I wasn’t the friendless one here.

Eris was waiting for me at home.

The first night had been the hardest. Dad had gotten Eris ready in the guest room, digging through closets for an appropriate change of clothes and stripping the living room of its throw blankets. Once we left her, tucked in and comfortable, Dad and I lingered at the kitchen table and deliberated the future.

“What was Eris’s mom like?” I asked.

“Well. . .” Dad frowned. “She was very intense.”

“Really?”

He nodded. “She. . . couldn’t bear the thought of leaving her daughter alone. She refused to hear any compromise.”

“Why would she. . .?” It didn’t make much sense— Eris had seemed so grown-up and mature.

“Lauren—” Dad laid his hand over mine. My empty stomach lurched. “How well did you know Eris, online?”

I swallowed. “Um, only a little bit. It wasn’t a big deal, Dad, we just, like— played pretend!”

“I’m not upset—” Dad paused, then amended, “Well, I’m only upset that you never told me, Sweetie.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“You’re not grounded. But just because it worked out this time doesn’t mean it’ll always be safe. Just, let me know what you’re doing on the computer from now on, okay?”

“Okay, Dad.” I rested my head on the table, pillowed by my arms. “Why do you think Eris’s mom wanted her to stay with us?”

Dad must’ve been really tired, to answer so many questions out of hand. “Well, she is still a child.”

No way, I thought.

“ — And apparently, Eris has had issues with anxiety in the past. Sleepwalking fits and the like. She . . . I didn’t totally understand. Her mother’s grasp on English wasn’t great, and she was hurt besides. The woman must’ve been so alone, and so desperate. I had to help.”

“I’ll help, too,” I said.

Dad huffed and smiled at me. “Why don’t you get started on that, then?”

I sat up. “How?”

“By sleeping.”

But how could I have possibly slept at a time like that? As I trudged upstairs, I paused at the guest room door. It was hanging open, just barely. Through the window at the end of the hall, dawn was breaking.

I cracked open the door to steal a look inside. I had expected to see Eris, asleep and flesh-and-blood as I had never imagined her. There would be our carpet, piled with old books, and Eris like Sleeping Beauty in the queen bed.

Instead, she was awake and staring right at me.

“Eep!” I jumped back.

Before I could run away, Eris spoke. “You can come in.”

The door handle slipped between my fingers. It creaked open again, allowing Eris’s green gaze to pin me down.

“I’m sorry.” I looked down. “I only wanted to see how you were sleeping.”

Eris yawned. “Badly, as I’m sure you’ve noticed. I wouldn’t mind company.”

I still felt gross— like there was a layer of film over my skin. I shuffled into the room, struggling to conceive of a way I could look at Eris without staring.

She had piled all the pillows in the room behind her so that she could recline against the headboard. She was wearing some of Mom’s old clothes. It was an odd contrast, the PINK t-shirt and cheetah print sweats hanging off a gothic beauty.

“I didn’t get a chance to tell you before,” Eris said. “But you were in my dreams, too.”

My head jerked up in surprise. “What do you mean?”

Though she was still bandaged, Eris showed no sign of bruising. Her skin seemed luminous in the dark room.

“When I was little,” she said, “I had a dream— only once, but I never forgot— about being lost in the forest, near a river. After crying for a long time, I was found by a lovely young lady, who looked an awful lot like you, and was taken home.”

As Eris spoke, it was like being pulled into orbit. I came closer and closer until my hands were resting on the backboard.

“That’s so weird.”

Eris nodded. “Beautiful, too.”

“Yeah.”

She patted the bed. “Sit with me?”

“I have to go to sleep,” I said.

Eris shrugged, then winced in pain. I guess she wasn’t as fine as she looked. “Of course. I won’t bother you any longer.”

“You’re not a bother,” I said. “Um, good night? Er, day?”

“Good day.” She giggled. “You’re funny, Ophelia.”

“Lauren.” My hand was on the door.

Her eyes were pinning me down again.

“Don’t think of me as a stranger,” she said. “Clearly, we’ve been connected for a long time.”

All that day, lying in bed till the afternoon, I pondered the idea. Her statement was one steeped in mysticism, but it excited me all the same. Our fast friendship, borne of a much older chain.

That didn’t mean I liked everything about her.

The first day we both were supposed to go back to our respective schools, she was nowhere to be found. My shoes on, toast in my mouth, I rushed upstairs and knocked on the guest room door, begging her to wake up or else be late. Dad had gently suggested that she wasn’t ready to go back yet, and I accepted the explanation.

Except, when we got back after school, Eris was waiting on the front steps with her backpack at her feet. Of course she had gone to school!

“I’m just a night owl,” she’d explained to Dad. “Hilltop isn’t far. I’d rather sleep later and walk there myself.”

Dad had made her a spare house key the next day, handing it off with minimal ultimatums. Always tell him where she was going, don’t leave the house at night. I was jealous at first, but then I overheard Dad complaining on the phone.

“It’s so hard. I want her to be safe, but she’s not mychild to discipline.”

Even after school was out and Eris deigned to remain awake, she acted like a lazy cat. She lounged about on the couch or in the guest room, on her phone and unconcerned with her surroundings. It all of a sudden made perfect sense to me why she had never replied to my messages before 9 pm.

A week into her stay, this was the routine we fell into:

I would get home from school and Dad would prepare a snack. While I sat in my room and did my homework, Eris would be getting out around the same time and walking to the hospital where she would visit her mother for an hour or two. Dad didn’t have to make her anything, since she ate while she was there.

Inevitably, I wouldn’t be quite finished with my work before the front door rattled open. I’d leave things a mess on my desk and rush over to greet her. She would be lethargic as always, so we hung out on the bed while I prodded her with questions.

The guest room still looked like little more than storage, even after Eris brought a bag of stuff from her house. Stacks of books and boxes, the two dusty air conditioners, old makeup or hair curlers Mom had left behind— stuff either too bulky or too unimportant to ship to California. The fact that Eris had made the rickety coat rack the de facto spot to hang her backpack didn’t make it smell any less like a thrift store.

Eris rarely talked about herself. Even simple questions I threw at her— about friends, or her fashion, or music— were rerouted to me but left unanswered from her lips.

She’s probably still shaken from the crash, I reasoned. Of course she wants to distract herself.

Once I realized that, I made a rule to avoid talking negatively to her. No complaining about bullies or fretting over the end of the world. And even though just thinking about her made me feel like biting my tongue hard enough to draw blood, I didn’t tell Eris about Diana.

But certainly all rules were made to be broken. Fresh out of our final Stations of the Cross, Holy Thursday itself, I fell over Eris’s legs and started whining about church.

Eris didn’t respond immediately to my rant, listening with her long eyelashes fluttering. She daily wore a face full of makeup that she wouldn’t take off until the sun went down; heavy eyeliner and black lips, both so perfectly applied they didn’t seem real. I didn’t understand how she found the time. Her face itself, underneath it, must’ve been perfectly symmetrical, too.

“ — and not to mention how cold it is in there. Especially the bathrooms. How? It’s 70 degrees out! And then— ugh, Sydney was next to me the whole time."

I rolled over so that the back of my head was resting against the covers. Eris extricated her feet out from under me and sat criss-cross applesauce.

She said, “You’re so brave, Ophelia. I couldn’t handle something like that. I’d burst into flames.”

I turned to face her, twisted like a tightly wound towel. I rested my elbows on the covers.

“Eris. . . Can I ask you something? I don’t want to be rude.”

She smiled. “You can ask me anything you want.”

I ignored the obvious implication— that she wouldn’t necessarily answer— and blurted out, “Are you a Christian?”

I wasn’t quite sure of the order of events— when exactly Eris’s hands ended up in my hair. All I knew was my sudden shock at her frank answer— “No.”

“What are you then?” I sat up.

By the time Eris answered, she was hugging me tightly, long nails carding up and down my hair like she was tilling the fields.

She said, “I’m not anything you’ve heard of, dear. I believe in many things. Predestination. The red string of fate. Ophelia, have you ever heard of reincarnation?”

Her touch eased, enough so that I was able to pull back and look up into her eyes. I found it difficult to speak, so I sputtered, “I— I— when I was on a field trip— they, uh. . . It’s an Indian thing right?”

“Among others.”

I wanted to tell Eris more; about the gray museum room with the Bodhisattva statue. The lecture the tour guide had given while the other kids melted from boredom. . . I had been so entranced I’d forgotten that other people were around. . . the way my chest had constricted at that word— reincarnation— like I had been waiting to hear it my whole life.

But I said nothing of the sort.

That night, after changing into my nightgown and switching off the lights, I remained awake. I stared at the glow-in-the-dark stars over my bookshelf, mind whirring with possible explanations for Eris’s odd behavior.

The ideas circled around my head like a baby’s mobile. I reached out as if they were physical, letting my hand block out the stars so all was dark. In the end, I took only one of them and kept it close to my heart.

Eris must’ve been just as lonely as I was.

On Easter, we went to visit the Colón’s. From the moment we pulled up, it was clear that Mrs. Colón was not strong enough to scare away the extended family like she had on New Year’s Eve. The driveway was filled with cars.

I shuffled inside behind Dad but before Eris, feeling like a stranger in the floral dress I had chosen. It had felt appropriate for the holiday, but now all I could do was sweat.

Eris had no such qualms over what was or wasn’t appropriate. She’d worn a black corset over a mesh shirt, a long skirt that swished around her ankles and chunky boots. Her hair was up in a high ponytail, big star earrings swinging. My own embarrassment was washed away by the attention she gained upon stepping inside. I may as well had not been there.

As suspected, the living room was filled with the extended clan. The carpets were coated with plastic grass, and the scent of ham wafted in from the kitchen. Reggaetón shook the walls. Only one person found me in the shuffle.

Diana was sitting on an armchair between her older cousins, the twins Valencia and Jimena, who were sitting on either arm. She was worrying a hole through the sleeve of her cream cardigan, staring at me with the expression of a kitten in an ASPCA commercial.

Dad patted my shoulder and went into the kitchen to find Mrs. Colón. I went to Diana, and Eris followed.

“Hey,” I said.

“H-hey.” Diana was staring at Eris, bug-eyed. So were her cousins.

I couldn’t help the smug bit of satisfaction that bloomed at Diana’s reaction. It made me feel giddy, like huffing helium and rising into the air.

“This is Eris,” I said. Eris waved. “She’s staying with my family.”

“A pleasure to meet you.” Eris ducked forward, smiling.

“Ah— of course.” Diana blinked. Jimena was pointedly examining her nails.

“Eris, this is Diana. She’s a family friend.”

The twins introduced themselves in turn. Formalities exhausted, we stood at an awkward impasse.

“. . . Do you want to go to your room?” I asked. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to, Diana just looked that overwhelmed.

Diana seemed to melt further into her seat. “I’m not allowed.”

Valencia snorted. “Not gonna tell her why?”

Diana shook her head.

Jimena spoke. “Di stole the kitchen scissors last night.”

It was only then that I noticed. Diana’s hair, usually resting well below her elbows, had been shortened drastically and jaggedly. Now it was little more than shoulder-length, uneven strands curling and wispy at the bottoms.

“Oh.”

“Mom’s really mad,” she explained, though I didn’t need it.

“Well, at least it’ll— it’ll, um, grow back eventually.”

Was this the longest conversation I’d had with Diana since the whole murder accusation incident? It certainly felt like it; every word was like picking a scab.

As the lack of responses stretched out, the space emptied as well. The twins left without a word, leaving Diana stranded.

I wasn’t stupid enough to miss how Diana avoided looking at Eris (who must’ve been drowning in secondhand embarrassment by then). But she obviously didn’t want to be staring at me, either. In response to an impossible task, she turned to the floor.

“Guess I’ll stay with you here, then,” I said. It was flat and blasé. I was more trying to convince myself by saying it out loud. Obviously, my insincerity came through.

Diana put a hand over her mouth and began to cry.

“I- I have to—” She leapt off the chair and pushed past me, down the hall.

“Wha—? Di?”

I stumbled into Eris. She took my arm— her grip was like iron— and smiled awkwardly. “Why don’t I go mingle?”

I swallowed. “Okay.”

Diana was in the bathroom. At the very least, it seemed as if she’d stopped crying. The only sounds coming through were the fan and an occasional hiccup. I stood facing off against the door for several minutes, counting down in my head the passage of time. How soon was too soon to check? Or too long?

I ripped the Band-Aid off. I knocked on the door lightly as I could manage, then stood with my back to the wall. “Hey, Diana?”

No reply.

I rocked on my heels, and continued, “It’s Lauren. Just checking in. You doing okay?”

I stared at the terracotta wall across from me. This hall used to be filled with family photos, I remembered. The nails were still there, but the frames had been taken down.

Where were they now?

I bit my lip, considering what to say next. I’m sorry you were so intimidated by my cool new friend that you had to run and hide.

“Hope there’s not another pair of scissors in there!” I laughed. “Otherwise you’d . . .” look like me, was what I was going to say. But before the sentence was finished, cold reality hit me in a wave of fear.

I rattled the doorknob. “Diana?” Locked, locked. “Di, that was a joke. Don’t touch anything sharp, please. Please, don’t try to—”

I fell down next to Jimena at the kitchen island. She had made some kind of horrible mock cocktail with various sodas, stirring it with a toothpick. She gave me a meaningful look as I unpeeled my face from the granite.

“She locked herself in the bathroom,” I said.

Jimena sighed. “Poor chica. I’m not surprised.”

“Why?”

Her eyes stayed on her drink. “It’s not your fault. You couldn’t have known.”

“Known what?”

Valencia appeared at my elbow with a drink of her own. “Di’s MIA?”

“Yup.” Jimena popped her ‘p’.

I looked between the two. “Please tell me what I did.”

Valencia poked the cherry out of her drink with a toothpick of her own and handed it to me.

“Eris goes to Hilltop,” she said.

“O-kay.” I bit down.

Jimena said, “Eris goes to our high school. The same one that Eleanor went to.”

My jaw loosened. “Oh. . . don’t tell me. . .”

“Diana’s met Eris before,” Valencia said.

Jimena nodded. “She and Eleanor were like you two. The best of friends.”