The Anything Friend

by Michela DiMarco

CHAPTER 28

  “Well, I'm gonna get out of bed every morning...breathe in and out all day long. Then, after a while I won't have to remind myself to get out of bed every morning and breathe in and out...and, then after a while, I won't have to think about how great and perfect I had it once.” Sleepless in Seattle

  Elizabeth met Angela at their favorite sushi restaurant, Little Tree. Angela was already in the booth waiting for Elizabeth with the sushi menu circled.

  “I ordered the usual. Do you want anything else?”

  Elizabeth shook her head. “No, that’s perfect.” The usual consisted of a Spicy Tuna Roll, a Salmon and Scallion Roll, a Lava Roll, a Crispy Roll, a Boston Roll and a Spicy California Roll with Edemame as an appetizer. “Did you order the iced tea?”

  “Iced tea for you and Coke for me.”

  Elizabeth smiled. She absolutely loved sushi nights with Angela. They always sat at the restaurant for hours, both eating their body weight in sushi and talking about everything. When the bill came, they always laughed at how much they spent in food, usually around forty dollars each, but it was always worth it.

  “So, how’s Jack?”

  Jack, the same friend that she once promised to prove that men and women could be just friends. The same friend that she had sex with. The same friend that confessed he had feelings for another girl. It suddenly occurred to her that maybe Jack never liked Alicia. Maybe he was just pretending to like her as a means to talk to Elizabeth again without leading her on. Maybe Jack knew how she felt about him and he was using Alicia as a means to avoid it. Her heart skipped a beat. Her love for him was getting harder and harder to hide. Every day she felt as though her heart was going to explode.

  “He’s good.”

  “Just good?”

  “Yep.” Elizabeth didn’t know what else to say. “He’s the same.” Elizabeth could feel Angela analyzing her. She hated when Angela did that. Nothing got past her friend.

  “Did something change?”

  “Change?’ Elizabeth asked nervously? The waiter dropped off the large wood board of sushi. Both girls filled their small soy sauce plates and Angela mixed hers with Wasabi. “No. It’s the same.” She reached in for the Spicy Tuna. She had been waiting to taste it all day.

  Angela chewed a bite of the Spider Roll and set her chop sticks gently on the table. “Elizabeth?” she smiled at her friend. “You’ve been talking for months about how wonderful he is and how he understands you like nobody else does. Out of nowhere you have unprotected sex with him, state you’re still just friends yet you haven’t mentioned his name at all since then. I think I know why.”

  Elizabeth sighed and took a big gulp of her iced tea. She nodded. “You’re right, I haven’t been completely honest. I’m secretly dying,” she frowned.

  Angela smiled. “This is a good thing. Why have you been keeping it a secret?”

  “For so many reasons. I don’t even know. I didn’t know. It just hit me one day. I guess it’s sort of been happening from the moment I first realized he was amazing, but I stuck to what we were meant for. I promised him that boys and girls could be just friends.”

  “He doesn’t care about your promise,” consoled Angela. “He cares about you.”

  “He doesn’t like me the way I like him.”

  “How do you know that unless you tell him?”

  “Because he just doesn’t.” Elizabeth closed her eyes, taking a deep breath, she exhaled slowly. The emotional pain she felt inside was different. The heartbreak wasn’t like anything she had experienced before. Nothing had been done to her. Nothing had been said to her. It was just knowing that she couldn’t live with him or without him that was tearing her emotions apart. “A week after we had sex he told me he liked one of his friends.” She didn’t want to admit the possibility that he was lying about Alicia. It was too embarrassing.

  “What if he was telling you because you’re the friend he likes?”

  “I’m not,” she mumbled gripping the napkin in her lap. “It’s Alicia Rodriguez. And…he told her. But they’re not together.” Angela’s face turned somber. Elizabeth could see the sadness in her friends’ eyes. “It’s okay. It’s not like I ever had a chance with him anyways. I’m more concerned about keeping our friendship.”

  “I still think you should tell him,” suggested her best friend. “You never know what can happen. You’re beautiful and any guy would be lucky to have you as a girlfriend. Besides, there’s always a chance you’re pregnant with his child. And, Bob will figure it out when the baby comes out half black, half white.”

  “Angela, Bob would figure it out the moment he found out I was pregnant because I haven’t slept with him.”

  Angela smiled. “That’s kind of funny.” They laughed. “So, tomorrow night I’m going on a date with Liam.”

  Elizabeth’s jaw unintentionally dropped. Along with her two best friends, they had shattered the social ladder and climbed to the top with people that for years never knew they existed. “I’m really happy for you,” she forced a smile. Kate was with Nick and now Angela was going to be with Liam. Elizabeth had two options to join her friends, Bob or Jack. Bob was a terrible option and right now she couldn’t stand to be around her best friend she that was in love with.

  After sushi, Elizabeth pulled up in front of her house, just in time to see Jamie Johnson and Alicia Rodriguez walking in Jack’s front door. She ducked down in her front seat and tried to catch her breath. Why was the girl that liked Jack walking into the house with the girl he hated? It was too much to handle. She slowly opened the driver’s side door, slid out of her car and ran past her house away from Jack’s house.

  Elizabeth paced around the neighborhood smoking cigarette after cigarette, consciously not walking anywhere near Jack’s house. Thoughts ran through her head like a broken record that spun round and round. Jack had to have liked Alicia when he had sex with Elizabeth, all while Jamie Johnson was trying to get back together with him. Elizabeth wanted Jack in her life so bad but she knew she couldn’t stand to know he was romantic with other girls. That was it. Elizabeth felt defeated.

  She ran back to her house, charged through the front door to her bedroom.

  Once her door was safely locked, Elizabeth grabbed the razor blade from under her desk. She held the cold metal between her fingers as she rocked back and forth on the edge of her bed in the dark. Cutting wasn’t as easy as it once had been. It had been months since she cut and a month since she hit her head on New Year’s Eve. She had promised Jack that it was behind her. She had promised him that she would find other ways to deal with her anxiety. She had also promised him that she would show him boys and girls could be just friends. If that promise was broken, she was no longer true to her word.

  She got up and turned on the light. The dark was making her feel crazy, like the old Elizabeth. She paced in circles around her room trying to breathe. The walls were closing in around her. She opened her bedroom window wider and tried to fill her lungs with the chilly night air. It wasn’t working. She pulled the right leg of her black yoga pants to her mid-thigh and then picked up an old golf trophy she had won years ago. Striking her leg several times with the base of the trophy she fell to the floor in agony. Crying, she looked up and saw the words etched into the side of her desk.

  “To the world you might be one person. But to one person you might be the world.”

  Elizabeth barley pulled herself off the floor with her leg pink and throbbing. She picked up the thin blade once more and resumed rocking on the edge of the bed. The tears slowed as she moved the object that used to provide relief between her tiny fingers.

  “Elizabeth,” she faintly heard her name through the open window. “Elizabeth! What are you doing?”

  “I love you,” she whispered before making a clean cut across her thigh from the inside to outside
.

  “No! No! What are you doing? Don’t touch it! I’m coming!”

  Her hands were shaking. Her body was shivering. She touched her leg, trying to feel the warm blood. She dropped the razor. Her black yoga pants were soaked with blood. She heard scraping against the outside of the house, but Elizabeth’s mind was beyond recognizing any reality. Jack pushed the screen into her bedroom and climbed through the window.

  “Elizabeth,” he called. She didn’t even look at him. He looked at the blood flowing from her leg. She needed medical treatment and she needed it fast. He grabbed a towel from the bathroom across the hall and picked her up in his arms. She was barely able to hold on to him. Jack carried her down the stairs and out the front door to his car in front of his house. He ran back into her house and after finding a pen and paper, he wrote her parents a brief note.

  Took Elizabeth to the hospital. She had an accident. Jack

  He taped the note to the front door and ran back to his car.

  “Elizabeth,” he called. She didn’t respond but she could hear his voice. He gently tapped her face. She moved her head slightly, unable to open her eyes.

  Jack held Elizabeth’s hand as he sped to the hospital. Less than ten minutes later, he pulled up to the Emergency Room and began shouting for help as he carried her inside with his car still running. Elizabeth didn’t open her eyes or move any part of her body. The emergency staff put her on a gurney without asking questions and wheeled her through a set of double doors.

  Elizabeth opened her eyes. She tried to sit up but was unsuccessful due the straps holding her arms down. She tugged harder but the restraints only got tighter. She looked around the room. It was virtually empty. There were no luxury comforts like the last hospital room had. There was no television or telephone. She tried to remember why she was there but her memory was foggy.

  “Help!” she screamed out. “Somebody help me!”

  “Somebody help me!” she heard a man from another room mock.

  Elizabeth began crying. She had finally done it. She had finally gone over the edge. She heard a toilet flush followed by the sound of running water. She tried to sit up again to see who was in the bathroom. Part of her wanted her mother, but the last thing she wanted to hear was a lecture. To her surprise and amazement it was Jack.

  “You’re up,” he said quietly. “The nurse said I could stay with you since your parents left.”

  “They left?”

  “Yeah,” he said quietly. “Do you want some water?”

  Elizabeth nodded. She felt bad that Jack was with her. She didn’t know how he got there or what was going through his mind. After all, she had broken another promise to him. She lifted her head as high as she could up and drank from a cold water bottle that he poured in her mouth. “How long have you been here?”

  “A few hours,” he answered calmly as began removing her restraints. “I’ll let the nurse know you’re up.” He disappeared into the hallway.

  Elizabeth touched both arms. She lifted the sheet and blanket trying to find her injury. She couldn’t feel anything. She lifted the bottom of her hospital gown and saw the bandage. Jack walked back in the room. Elizabeth dropped the sheet and tried to act as normal as possible.

  “She’ll be right in. I’ll wait in the hallway until you’re done.”

  The nurse handed Elizabeth a small paper cup with some medication in it and explained that the doctor would come by in the morning to talk to her.

  Jack came back in a minute after the nurse left. He took a seat in the recliner next to the bed. “I’m sorry,” she whispered to him.

  He shook his head. “What were you thinking? You could have hit a vein and died tonight. It’s a good thing I saw you.” Elizabeth started crying again. “I just don’t understand why you cut yourself with the blade I took out of the pencil sharpener the first night I met you. Elizabeth I trusted you. I gave that to you. Do you know how guilty I feel right now?”

  “You shouldn’t,” she sobbed. “It was me. I would have found a way without it.”

  “Why did you do it?”

  “Oh my God,” she cried louder. “My parents hate me. Now you hate me! I just want to die.”

  Jack walked over to her bed. “Move over,” he said tenderly putting his hand on her shoulder. She moved over. Turning away from him she could feel him get in the small bed next to her. He gently wrapped his muscular arms around her fragile body and rested his head in the crease of her neck. “Don’t say that,” he whispered in her ear. “Life isn’t fair. I know that. It’s not your time. You’re my best friend and I need you.”

  “Promise?” she sniffled.

  Jack squeezed her tight. His body was warm. All her fears, all her pain was alleviated with his soothing body and placid words. It felt good to be in his arms again. “I promise I’ll never

  leave you. I promise I’ll never disappear on you. I promise we’ll always have each other.”

  A few minutes of silence went by. Elizabeth could feel his breathing slowing down. Her body was tired. She was trying to fight the sleep. She wanted this moment to last forever. “Jack?”

  “Mmhm?”

  “You’re my anything friend. I can count on you for anything. You’re the one person in my life who no matter what you say or do, no matter what you’ve been through, I love you unconditionally.”

  “You’re mine, too.”