My Best Friend Is a Goddess

by Tara Eglington

  When Emily got on the phone and made up some story about her dad of all things, it was the last straw. They both thought I was an idiot, obviously.

  ‘I’m done,’ I told her, and it’s true.

  ‘Let’s go,’ I say to the others, walking over to the limo. ‘To hell with Theo and Emily.’

  ‘What did he say?’ Maddy asks as we all climb inside.

  ‘Oh my god!’ Lana whacks her with her clutch. ‘Can’t you tell Adriana’s face is one obvious “leave it the hell alone”?’ She gives me a look that says, I didn’t know you had this much guts.

  I shrug. I’m so sick of people treating me like someone they should feel sorry for.

  On the way to the formal, I give my all to making it seem like I don’t give a crap that in one night both my date and my best friend have betrayed me. I don’t let myself feel nervous about walking in without a date. I don’t need Theo. I can topple Dylan all on my own.

  We don’t get to the formal until late, which means we’re the last to get photos taken, and by the time that’s done, everyone’s already at their tables. So there’s no grand entrance in front of Dylan and his date.

  Inside, I see that they’re seated at the table furthest from mine, and their backs are to me. Part of me is grateful, because I feel like everyone else in the room is staring at me, wondering why I’m the only one on my table without a date. I’ll never let them think I care. I’m on autopilot, like in the limo, and I laugh and smile like clockwork all through the meal.

  It’s after dinner that’s the hard part, when people start getting up to dance, including the Tens. Chanel hangs back like she doesn’t want to leave me alone, and the twins try and drag me out in a group, but I wave them off.

  I go to the bathroom, fix my lipstick, put a mint in my mouth and run my fingers through my hair. I’m ready.

  I head back to the formal. As I scan the room I realise Dylan’s not at his table any more. My heart starts pounding when I see him standing against the wall to my right. I don’t know where his date is and I don’t care.

  Like he senses me, Dylan turns his head, and then it’s happening. I see him look at my dress and then my face, his look ending at my eyes. I don’t break the gaze. This is it — I can feel my chest burning from the knowledge that he’s finally looking at me the way I wanted him to that day on his doorstep. I make my eyes say, It’s too late, and I know he understands, because his expression is so sad, his Adam’s apple moving in his throat the exact same way it did when I said no to going to the formal with him. I let my eyes hold his for another ten seconds, allowing myself to feel what I’ve waited so long to feel — and then I turn my back on him and walk outside.

  The exhilaration dies the moment I break eye contact. I got the look I wanted, but it doesn’t make me feel like I thought it would. Instead I feel bereft, like in ending that moment with him I’ve lost everything.

  You have lost everything, remember? Mum, Dylan, even Emily.

  My sadness becomes anger in a millisecond, and then absolute rage.

  I know exactly what to do. I run for the art room.

  The door’s unlocked. I check no-one’s coming and then I slip through. I run down the rows, looking for it — and finally, there at the back of the room, I find the portrait of me.

  I think of how while she was painting it, Emily was standing right next to Theo, flirting with him, making him care about her. There’s no way she could have put me out of her mind. I was right there, staring at her while she consciously betrayed me.

  I think about how ecstatic she was when Mr Morrison told her the portrait would be part of the exhibition. I picture her at the gallery in a few weeks’ time, standing by the painting while everyone comes up to congratulate her. Theo by her side, grinning at his talented girlfriend.

  I grab a Stanley knife from the materials tray next to Emily’s desk and I slash at the canvas, shredding my own face until the whole thing is strips hanging from a wooden frame.

  Suddenly the door opens. I drop the knife and it lands with a clatter on the floor. Dylan runs forward and swipes it up before I can grab it. He’s by my side in a second, staring at the shredded canvas.

  ‘Addy,’ he says, shaking his head.

  He’s not meant to see me like this. I wanted to be cold and composed, and here I am looking like a psychopath hell-bent on revenge. Nothing I do ever goes right.

  ‘What, you want to judge me?’ I say, feeling my eyes burning with tears.

  ‘I want to understand you.’ He puts the Stanley knife back on the tray. ‘I know you’re hurting and it breaks my heart that I can’t do a damn thing to help.’

  ‘Go back to your date,’ I say, walking away from him.

  He follows me. ‘She’s only a friend. Her boyfriend broke up with her two weeks ago. I said I’d take her because she didn’t want to go alone.’

  I turn around to face him.

  ‘You don’t believe me,’ he says, and sighs. ‘I know you don’t believe me about so many things. Please, can’t we talk?’

  Looking at him infuriates me. Every time I’ve looked at his face since I came back from Borneo, all I remember is him saying, I don’t see you that way, and that’s all it takes to make everything inside me feel ugly. No matter how many people tell me I’m pretty, it can never cover that feeling over.

  ‘I know I hurt you.’ He takes a step closer to me. ‘You think I haven’t played what happened over in my mind till I’ve nearly gone crazy?’

  His desperate voice feels like the trumpet that pulled down the tower of Jericho, and I’m trying to stay intact.

  ‘Why?’ I say. ‘Why does it matter so much to you?’

  ‘Because I don’t want it to be over.’ He puts his hand on my arm. ‘I’m not just talking about our friendship. I might not have realised how I felt about you that day you brought me the rose, but I figured it out pretty soon after.’

  Why does everyone in my life believe they can tell me anything and I’ll believe it?

  ‘You’re only saying that because of how I look now.’ I’m dangerously close to crying.

  ‘I’m not. That’s what happened. I wrote you letter after letter about it.’

  ‘I told you, I burnt them.’

  ‘Then I don’t know how to make you believe me.’ He slumps onto one of the desks like he’s out of energy.

  ‘You chose her,’ I say. That’s what it comes down to. He had me, and he chose her.

  ‘Ade, for a fourteen-year-old boy, Tatiana’s attention was flattering. I got all silly in the head about it in the weeks before Valentine’s Day. And then you knocked on my door, completely out of the blue, and told me how you felt. And I did feel confused. I’d put you in the friend box.’

  ‘You stood by her even when you knew about that video,’ I whisper. ‘I was at the school gates and everyone was laughing at me, and you were comforting her.’

  ‘I hadn’t seen the video.’ His voice is strained. ‘I hadn’t looked at Facebook that morning. I had no idea what was going on except Emily was attacking her. I admit it took me a few days to realise Tatiana was capable of what she did — I’m incredibly sorry about that. I tried calling you again and again — you know I came round to your house — but the next thing I knew, you were leaving the country.’

  How long are we going to play this game, where I try to hand him back the hurt and he throws it back on me?

  ‘I left because I wanted to escape, and you still won’t let me.’ I can feel my lips trembling.

  ‘I can’t let it go because I want to be with you,’ he says. His voice is shaking.

  ‘I’m not winding up with someone who didn’t love me as I was!’ Now I’m crying, but I’m shouting at him through it, because how does he expect me to value myself so little? ‘That’s messed up. It’s conditional.’

  If I wind up with you, what does that say about me?

  His face goes completely red. ‘How I feel about you is not conditional!’

  As I look at his e
xpression, I know how to win. I step towards him and, like I did all that time ago, I kiss him.

  This time, he kisses me back. His mouth is hot on mine, and the kiss is fierce, and goes on and on. I put his hands on me, and he pulls me onto his lap. My knees bang into the desk, but the pain matches the feeling of this kiss. I can still feel the tears burning on my cheeks, taste them between our lips.

  I kiss him until I know he’s on the other side, where you believe someone feels the same way about you, and you put your whole heart into that very moment and then feel it break straight after. I kiss him until I’m at risk of losing my self-control.

  And then I pull away, look him straight in the eyes and say, ‘I don’t see you that way.’

  It’s a lie, but he and I are like Emily’s painting — something that was once beautiful, but now it’s in tatters and there’s no way to fix it.

  Secret Thoughts of Adriana Andersson

  I have dreams where I’m trying to stop her leaving. Sometimes I’m standing at the front door, blocking it with my body, and she’s fighting me. Other times I hide her sneakers, but then she decides to run barefoot. Sometimes I lock her in her room, but discover she’s escaped out the window. Sometimes I’m on the other side of the street from that crossing, screaming at her to watch out.

  The worst dreams are the ones where I’m driving the car. I slam my foot on the brake, but the brake and accelerator have swapped over and instead I’m hurtling towards her, watching as she goes under the wheels, feeling them thump over her body.

  The morning it actually happened, I did nothing to stop her leaving.

  She’d drunk her coffee and was sharing the paper with Dad. She let out a sigh and said, ‘Maybe I should skip the run today. I’m feeling tired.’

  Dad said, ‘The run will give you some energy.’

  She made a face at him and went to find her sneakers.

  I know it wasn’t Dad’s fault, but afterwards I hated him for saying that to her.

  Mum walked past me to the door, but I didn’t take any notice. I was watching the iPad, a video Emily had sent me.

  ‘I’ll be back in time to drop you at the movies,’ she told me.

  I nodded without glancing up. I never got to take one last look at her.

  She’d only started jogging two months earlier. She wasn’t someone who normally exercised because she’d always been slim, but she’d had some tests done and apparently her cholesterol was high. I don’t know why she settled on running, but Dad had encouraged her, saying it was good for the heart. She normally ran for forty minutes at the most. She’d been gone an hour when I started to feel mad at her. She knew we had to leave enough time to swing by and pick up Emily.

  ‘Maybe she’s hurt her ankle,’ Dad said, looking worried. ‘Don’t stress, honey, I’ll take you and Em to the movies.’

  His phone rang. ‘This’ll be her,’ he said.

  It wasn’t.

  Later, at the hearing, we found out that the driver was travelling about twenty-five kilometres too fast for that part of the road. But that wasn’t what killed her.

  She was jogging across the road at a zebra crossing, but the driver didn’t see her or the crossing, because a text came through from his girlfriend and he took his eyes off the road for a second to check it. Apparently he was on his way to his girlfriend’s parents’ place to meet them for the first time and he was running late, which was why he was speeding. The text said: I can’t believe you’re late for this.

  Witnesses at the hearing said she didn’t see the car coming, she was looking straight ahead. She didn’t hear it either because she was wearing the noise-cancelling headphones I’d given her at Christmas.

  What I wanted was for the doctors to tell me, She never felt it. But they couldn’t guarantee that.

  Severe chest and lower body injuries. Bleeding in the brain. They were a few of the terms I picked up when the doctor from Emergency filled Dad in. When he discovered Dad was also a doctor, the language became more technical.

  I knew from Dad’s face. She wasn’t expected to live.

  She hung on for three days, and then her heart gave out.

  My body seemed to understand that she’d died because I couldn’t stop crying. I’d be in the shower and wonder what that sound was echoing off the walls — and realise it was me, sobbing. But my head hadn’t made it there yet.

  It didn’t seem real. She was killed only ten minutes from our house. At the crossing Emily and I rode our bikes past on our way to the corner store for ice-creams or hot chips.

  Everything in my world felt like a waiting to happen. If Mum could be killed while jogging on a Saturday morning, then the bridge we drove over to the funeral home could collapse. A truck could veer off the road and come straight through our living room wall. Someone could knock me off the sidewalk as the school bus rolled in and I’d go under its wheels.

  It took just one random occurrence. One and it was all over. We were all living in some massively complex butterfly effect and it was so close I could touch it. Death had taken Mum. Why wouldn’t it take Dad and Emily and me as well?

  I kept hearing her voice downstairs in the kitchen, and sometimes I’d run in there but everything was still. I was sure I was going crazy.

  Dad asked if I wanted to speak at the funeral and I was horrified. I shook my head no. I didn’t even stand next to him on the podium while he spoke. I just couldn’t, even though my veins were pumping shame around my whole body, pulsing the message, She would be so disappointed in you through every capillary.

  It was only when we were in the graveyard, and the smell of the dirt rose up and made me think of her garden, that I understood that she was the one in that coffin, that this wasn’t some terrible mistake. This was the end, and I’d had my chance to tell her story, to tell everyone how great a mother she was and how much she meant, and I couldn’t even do that for her.

  That is why I’ll always see myself as ugly.

  29

  EMILY

  It’s close to midnight and I’m asleep on top of the bed with Theo when I get a frantic call from Daniel.

  ‘Emily, Adriana’s missing. Do you have any idea where she might be? We’ve tried the cemetery.’

  My heart pounding, I look at the corsage that’s lying on the side table, the one that Theo bought her. The petals are already drooping. I think of Sofia’s garden, and how broken-hearted Adriana was to leave it. I know she goes back there. I’ve seen her get on her old bus. Like with the graveyard, I don’t stop her.

  I tell Daniel where to go, and then I get up from the bed, trying to find my shoes, my eyes still blurry. Theo is now up as well, asking me what he can do.

  ‘Give me your address,’ I say as I dial a taxi.

  Theo slips one of his jackets over my shoulders. ‘It’s pouring out there.’

  I look at the rain pelting against the window. Wrapped up in Theo’s arms, I hadn’t even noticed the start of the storm.

  She’s been out there in it while you were lying here, blissfully unaware.

  A lump fills my throat, and I run downstairs, ready to dash out the door the second the taxi arrives.

  Theo wants to come along, but I know that’s not a good idea. When he shuts the taxi door softly after me, his eyes are sad. He knows, just like I do, that the spell we’ve been under for the last few hours — where Theo and Emily are something despite all of the reasons we shouldn’t be — is broken.

  I force myself to look away from him, focusing on the driver. ‘Can you take the quickest route please? It’s an emergency.’

  We reach Adriana’s old house just as I see Daniel’s car turn into the street. I notice Mum in the passenger seat — he must have called her as well.

  I leap out of the taxi. For a moment, as I peer through the rain at the empty yard, I wonder if my instincts were wrong. And then I see the huddled form, pressed right against the fence boards.

  ‘Ade.’ I run straight for the fence, dropping to my knees beside her. The
y sink into the sodden ground.

  For a second, she doesn’t seem to recognise me. Her lips are blue at the corners and as I try to reach for her hand, I realise that she’s trembling all over. Her clothes are soaked.

  ‘Just leave me alone!’ Her voice cracks and becomes a sob. The trembles turn into shoulder shakes as she buries her head in her hands.

  Daniel’s at Adriana’s side now, and Mum is pulling me to my feet.

  ‘Let Daniel handle this,’ she murmurs as she leads me back over to the still-waiting taxi.

  I think of when Sofia first passed away and how I wouldn’t let Ade out of my sight. Eighteen months on, I’d convinced myself she was coping. It’s obvious she’s not.

  I watch Daniel as he tries to talk to Ade, but she still has her head down like she wants the whole world to stay out. He scoops her up in his arms and carries her to his car, before walking over to us, his expression drained.

  ‘I better take this from here,’ he says. ‘Are you okay to take the taxi back to your place, Is?’ He reaches for Mum’s hand and squeezes it softly.

  She holds on to it for several seconds, squeezing back. ‘Of course. I’ll check in with you tomorrow morning. Call me if you need anything, alright?’

  Mum and I get into the taxi. I manage to wait until we reach the end of the street before giving her a ‘please explain?’ look.

  ‘Listen, Em,’ Mum says, her cheeks slightly pink. ‘Daniel and I haven’t wanted to say anything as he was concerned that Adriana might be upset at the idea, but he and I have been spending some time together the last few weeks.’

  For a moment, I don’t know how to feel. I think of Adriana’s voice on the phone — I’m done — and how just as Operation Parent Trap is coming together, our friendship is falling apart.

  ‘That’s great news,’ I say, trying to sound happy as I remember the light in Mum’s eyes when Daniel squeezed her hand.

  Mum looks at me closely. ‘Something’s happened with you and Adriana, hasn’t it?’