Dear Cassie

by Burstein, Lisa

  Lila was sitting at her vanity doing her makeup when I walked in. I think she was always doing her makeup. There was a tall glass filled with clear liquid and ice at her side. It clinked when she picked it up and took a long drink. Other people might have assumed it was water, but I knew it was vodka. I knew where her stash was, so I poured myself a glass, too, filled high. I sat on her bed, my boots hanging off the side. I did not sit on the floor. That was Amy’s spot.

  “It’s a burden to be so beautiful,” Lila said after I got settled. Not Hello, not What’s up bitch?

  It had been a long time since I’d heard Lila complain in that way about how she looked. I guess it was because Amy was usually around and Lila would never say that shit in front of Amy. Lila hid that shit from Amy, because she knew it would make Amy lose her shit.

  I never usually responded, so maybe that’s why Lila said that shit to me. Maybe it was also because of how we met. How, back at Dante Nelson’s party, I walked in on her screaming while some asshole writhed on top of her and held her arms. How I didn’t even think when I grabbed the lamp off the nightstand and bashed him in the head with it.

  How he slithered to the floor, knocked out, and she jumped from the bed, her jeans still around her ankles, to hug me.

  That was what Lila meant when she said shit like that.

  I sat on the bed and watched her reflection. I took a gulp from my glass, so long it made my throat burn and my eyes wince. From the look on her face, I knew this was going to be a long night.

  “I wish I could make it all go away,” Lila said to her reflection.

  Sometimes I thought Lila was more fucked up than Amy. Well, I was sure she was, because she would say things like that. And I knew she would keep talking, keep spiraling down and down if I didn’t say something.

  “Your face again?” I said, jumping ahead. I wanted to get to the end of this conversation, even though I knew how it ended. The same way it started, with Lila staring at herself and wishing for something else to be looking back. In such a different way than other girls did. In a way only Lila could twist around.

  She nodded, her chin pointed out, which let me know she was posing.

  “So do something about it already,” I said, taking another drink. I was tired of Lila burdening me with shit like this and never doing anything about it. So maybe I was calling her bluff.

  “I don’t know how to be ugly,” she whined.

  “You’d probably be nicer,” I murmured.

  She actually turned away from herself to look at me. This was serious. “I’m nice,” she said, attempting to defend herself, which let me know she didn’t really believe what she said.

  “To who?” I asked.

  She thinned her lips. “Well, you’re a bitch, too,” she said.

  It was true. I really couldn’t tell her anything about being nice. I couldn’t really tell her anything about anything.

  “Hello?” she said, pushing for a response. When Lila wasn’t staring at herself in the mirror, she was usually forcing you to look at yourself and do some judging.

  “At least I own it,” I said, grasping, because that was not entirely true. What I had done was accept the place the world had given me. It was either be a bitch or roll up in a ball and cry like Amy. I would much rather be a bitch.

  “That doesn’t make it better,” Lila said, stirring the vodka in her glass with her pointer finger.

  “Whatever,” I said, taking another slug, wanting the buzz to fill my ears.

  I guess this was why we rarely talked when Amy wasn’t around—all our conversations ended up here. Lila and me dueling about who sucked more because we knew we both sucked. But really, Lila knew what we could never tell anyone, that when it came down to it, when I needed to defend a helpless girl I barely knew, I didn’t suck at all.

  She tilted her head back. “But would people like me more?”

  I knew the answer was no, so I didn’t even bother saying anything. Lila got a pass because of her face. I wasn’t sure what she would get without it. No, actually, I was sure: she would get nothing.

  Just like I got.

  Lila turned away from me and added more shadow to the purple, shiny powder that was already there. She relined her lids below with black. Even for her, it was a lot of makeup. It was possible she had been sitting at the mirror putting makeup on for hours. Possibly even overnight, considering how bloodshot her eyes were.

  “Lila, enough,” I said, trying to bring her back to earth. “You’re not even going out.” I should have told her she looked like she had two black eyes, because she did. Well, two purple eyes.

  “People are coming here and they expect something when they see me,” Lila said, looking deep into the mirror. It was possible she was on something. Something more than alcohol, but I was kind of afraid to ask.

  I lit a cigarette. Lila and I never got along great, even before Amy, but we had a history, we shared a secret. It was easier to blame it on Amy’s arrival, but that was the truth. We tolerated each other. Maybe because we were both the kind of people that people tolerated. I guess Amy put up with us because she was the type of person who didn’t know what else to do but tolerate.

  “You know I hate it when you smoke in here,” Lila said.

  “You know I could give a shit,” I said, blowing out smoke.

  “Whatever,” she said. “Give me one.”

  I launched the cigarette over to her. She turned to catch it and lit it, watching her reflection. At least she’d finally stopped putting on makeup. I was afraid her face was going to fall off from the weight.

  “You going to step away from that mirror for a second, or is it your date for tonight?” I asked, trying to get back into our routine of giving each other crap. Anything was better than the weirdness that was flying around in Lila’s mind right now like a bird with one broken wing.

  “I wish,” she said. “At least with it, I know what I’m getting.” Lila lifted the cigarette she was smoking to her cheek. Turned it cherry-side in. “Sometimes I wonder what this would feel like,” she said.

  “It would fucking hurt,” I said. Trying to give her crap wasn’t working. I guess she wasn’t coming back yet. I guess she was still out to sea on the insanity ocean.

  “No,” she said. “I mean after, to have something like that on your face.” She held the cigarette an inch from her pink, pink cheek. It was possible all the makeup she was wearing would cause her whole face to go up in flames.

  “No way in hell you could handle it,” I said, trying to sound like I couldn’t care less, even though my heart had gone as cold as the fall air coming through her open window.

  “I’ve never had to handle it,” she said. “Maybe that’s my problem.” She moved the cigarette a little closer. I was sure she could feel the heat radiating on her cheek, but she held it there like it was the black eyeliner pencil she had used earlier and she was about to add a fake beauty mark.

  “Enough, Lila,” I said. If she was about to mess up her face, there was no way I was going to sit there and watch.

  “What do you care?” she asked, putting the cigarette back in her mouth and taking another drag. “What does anyone care?”

  “That doesn’t mean you should mangle your fucking face.”

  “It doesn’t mean I shouldn’t, either.”

  This was definitely a different Lila. Maybe it was because Amy wasn’t there, or maybe she was far drunker than I’d thought. It was also possible she really was on something else. Lila always talked about how Brian could get stuff, stuff that would make your mind and the walls melt.

  “You’re not scaring me if that’s what you’re trying to do,” I said.

  “I’m scaring me.” She laughed, lifting the cigarette again. The tip was angry orange. She moved it closer to her cheek and squinted from the smoke. “Before you got here I was holding a razor blade like this, getting up the guts to cut my face on the diagonal. Like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.”

  Was she fuckin
g serious?

  “I’m going to be too drunk to drive you to the emergency room,” I said, taking another sip from my glass like I wanted to prove it.

  She moved the cigarette closer. I saw her cheek contract from the heat.

  “Lila, fucking stop!” I said. I could get up and tackle her if I had to, but did I want to? Did I want to see if she had the guts to go through with it?

  “I wonder how many guys would try to get in my pants with an oozing blister on my face,” she said.

  “Seriously, enough.” My voice was strained, like I’d been screaming all night and there was nothing left.

  She didn’t pull the cigarette away. Only stared at herself in the mirror, waiting. Maybe she was trying to decide if she could do it, if she was drunk enough, crazy enough, or really ready to leave the burden of her beauty behind.

  Especially because I knew exactly what she meant when she said it.

  “Doing that isn’t going to prove shit,” I said. I could feel my hands and arms start to tingle. Lila was scaring me. She was actually really fucking scaring me. I might not have been able to admit it to her, but that was the truth.

  “What will not doing it prove?” she asked.

  The door to her room flew open and Lila dropped the still burning cigarette on the vanity.

  “Oh my God, give me a drink,” Amy said. She was wearing a skirt, tights, and a puffy white sweater that she pulled off and threw next to me on the bed.

  She stood in the middle of the floor in her bra and skirt.

  “Amy,” Lila said, picking up her cigarette from the vanity and showing it to her. “New rule: knock next time. I dropped my cigarette and almost burned the house down.”

  “Sorry,” Amy said, pulling off her tights, throwing on a T-shirt she grabbed out of her backpack, and sitting on the floor.

  I laughed, mostly because I was so glad Amy was there, so Lila would stop scaring the shit out of me.

  “What have you guys been doing?” Amy asked.

  “Missing the fuck out of you,” I joked, pouring myself another glass of vodka.

  “Ha,” Amy said, looking at Lila. Maybe she noticed that she looked frazzled, or maybe she was just so relieved to be away from her parents that she didn’t care.

  Eventually Lila’s house was filled with kids from our school, playing super-loud rap music and drinking out of a keg. As the night went on, Lila turned back into Lila—vain, pretty Lila—but even with our secret, I decided I would avoid ever being alone with her again.

  Out on the road now, wherever the hell Lila is, my guess is she doesn’t look like Lila anymore—that the freedom she got by running away had maybe finally let her leave the burden of her beauty behind.

  For her sake, I hope so.

  14 Fucking Days Left

  I woke up with Troyer standing above me, her hand covering my mouth. It tasted like worms and fish guts. Leave it to her to pick the night after we had our training in fishing to surprise me above my bed.

  I pushed her hand away and spit on the floor next to my bed. “Sick, Troyer.”

  She put one finger to her lip, spit, and wiped her hand front and back on her uniform.

  “See,” I said.

  She looked at me.

  “What do you want?” I asked. It was becoming standard at this camp that at least one person was standing above another’s bed once a night, scaring the shit out of them.

  She grabbed my shoulder, probably because she couldn’t just tell me to get up.

  I sat and looked across the dark cabin at Nez. She was still sleeping. Nez had actually been really good at fishing, talking about the correlation between catching fish and catching guys. She kept making kissy faces at the water, saying, Here fishy, fishy, and it was like they actually heard her and jumped onto her pole. If Rawe hadn’t been there watching, I might have thrown Nez off the dock to see if any of her beloved fish tried to save her.

  Like Ben had saved me.

  Troyer steadied her gaze. I got it: Nez was not invited. Super. But since when did Troyer call the shots?

  I guess since tonight.

  I was kind of surprised that Nez wasn’t gone already, into the arms of whatever boy would take her that night. Maybe she had her period. Of course, she kind of always acted like she had her period.

  I guess I did, too, but that was more ironic than I wanted to admit.

  That afternoon when we got back to the cabin we were supposed to write about what we feared most at Turning Pines. I hated that the only thing I could come up with was Ben.

  I was terrified of the part of me that Ben was able to get to, which more and more was feeling like the soft part of a clam; before Aaron, I was all closed up and no one could get in there. Ben could easily. Maybe other boys would also be able to. Maybe I would never be able to shield myself again.

  Troyer grabbed her pad back and wrote, Get dressed. Let’s go.

  “We better not be going over to the boys’ cabin,” I said. “I’ll never hear the end of that,” I continued, though I’m not sure why.

  She grabbed the pad she had given me and scribbled, I’m not stupid.

  “Hey,” I said, but she was right. It had been stupid when Nez went, when I went. There was no way in hell I was ever going again. If I could avoid it, I was probably never speaking to Ben again.

  But my guess was I couldn’t avoid it.

  I got dressed quickly and quietly, laced up my boots, and followed Troyer out of the cabin. She waited for me to step off the porch then closed the cabin door so lightly it looked like she was afraid it would burn her.

  “Any chance we’re breaking into the shower house?” I asked.

  She wrote on her pad and showed it to me. Even better.

  Nothing at that point would have been better than a shower—well, not to me, anyway. And from the smell coming off Troyer, she could have used one, too.

  We walked in the opposite direction from the soccer field, our flashlights yellow planets on the dark trail. I didn’t feel the need to talk this time, even though it was so quiet you could hear the bullfrogs croaking all the way down at the lake, like they had been the other night with Ben. But Troyer was in charge—silent, sneaky Troyer who couldn’t talk was telling me what to do.

  Well, okay, not literally.

  I could see the lake coming up on the horizon, black in the night. The moonlight sparkled, sprinkled on top of it like Parmesan cheese. I couldn’t help thinking about the day I found out I was pregnant. How I could no longer deny that something inside of me was spinning and sparkling like the water. The area just below my belly button filled with so much light and life.

  “We’re not going fucking fishing again, are we?” I asked.

  Troyer shook her head but kept walking. Fishing once that day had been enough.

  We hit the beach, walked past the canoes and past the boat house. The door to it was smacking open and closed in the wind. Everything in this place was locked but the damn boat house. I guess they figured if you wanted to go to the trouble to life jacket up and push a canoe into the water to try and escape, they were going to let you do it. I think that, and the fact that the land on the other side was far enough away that the windows in the houses looked like snake eyes in the dark, might have been discouragement enough.

  I didn’t know where Troyer and I were going. It was the first time I had been this far down the beach and for a weird moment I wondered if Troyer had brought me all the way out here to kill me—to drown me and leave me for dead. I let the calm of that realization fill me, because truthfully, I kind of deserved it.

  Put me out of my misery, Troyer. Put me out of my misery once and for all. Make it so I don’t have to think whether Aaron was my or Amy’s sloppy seconds. Make it so I don’t have to wonder why she was smarter than I was.

  I looked down at the sand: little grain-specks twinkled in the moonlight, our footprints foot-shaped craters. We finally stopped at a cabin twenty feet down the beach. The lock had been broken off the door and a
sign that said ARTS AND CRAFTS made out of uncooked macaroni hung from it.

  Troyer pushed the door open. I could smell paint, clay, glue.

  “Arts and crafts?” I asked.

  She nodded, picked up a piece of sketch paper, and handed it to me. It was a cartoon drawing of Nez with her ass on fire. A thought bubble floated above her head that said, Even fire is attracted to my ass.

  “Ha!” I laughed. “You drew that?”

  She nodded again, her head dipping up and down like a bobblehead doll while she showed me a macramé necklace, a watercolor painting, a small clay bowl.

  “Wow, you’ve been busy,” I said.

  She smiled.

  “How did you get in here?” It looked like the art room at school but better; there were huge wooden art tables, easels, clay wheels, shelves and shelves of rainbow-colored art supplies. It was obvious why this door had been locked.

  She turned to me but didn’t say anything.

  “Well, obviously,” I said. “But how did you break in?” I was thinking about the other doors with locks: the dining hall, the shower house, the camp office.

  She picked up an oar that was lying on the ground and broken in two.

  “I hope we don’t have to go canoeing again,” I said.

  Troyer laughed. It was nice to hear her voice, even if it was involuntary.

  “When? When did you come here?” I asked, seeing there were a lot more art projects lining the table besides the ones she had shown me. “How?” I asked, thinking about all those times I was sleeping and Troyer was out, alone.

  Without me, without Nez.

  She shrugged and indicated a seat at one of the tables. She gave me a canvas, a brush, and a few jars of paint: red, purple, yellow. Why was she sharing it with me?

  “I’m not very good at this,” I said.

  Troyer took her own brush and wrote Paint in purple on the art-supply-splattered table. She sat next to me and painted bright purple lines on her own canvas.

  I looked at the paint. The only color that mattered was the red. I dipped my brush in it and started painting, one line, another, another, but it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t right. I picked up the paint jar and splashed it, over and over again on the canvas. All the kisses Aaron gave me that ended in lies, the blood I prayed I would see spotting my underpants day after day after day while I denied it, the skin on my stomach after I hit myself—raw, angry gruesome.