Friends and Other Liars

by Kaela Coble

  “You can’t undo it, Tuesday. I’ll support whatever you want to do. I just want you to be sure.”

  I tell him I already am, that after two weeks of crying about it on my own and a few days talking it over with him, I’m finally sure this is the right decision. But I take his advice and schedule the procedure for early next week. The truth is, I’m not sure. I change my mind every other day. But when I strip away the hormones, and the voices, and the feelings I still have for Murphy, and the logistical questions about how this should be handled, all I have left is a screaming, pulsing fear. I am one large, exposed nerve. Everything hurts. Every single moment.

  Meanwhile, Danny is a good distraction. I order takeout or sneak food from the dining hall to feed him. The dorm is so big that even his massacred face doesn’t stand out as a nonstudent’s when he uses the men’s bathrooms. He sleeps in Lisa’s old bed. While I’m at class, he spends his time wandering around the city or critiquing my writing assignments while he hangs out the window smoking cigarettes. I tell him he can’t smoke (cigarettes or otherwise) in my dorm, but every time I come back from class, the windows are open and it smells like air freshener. He can’t enter the building without an ID, which means he can’t really pop out for a smoke unless it’s timed with my return from class, so I let it slide. A smoking Danny is preferable to a nonsmoking Danny, and what difference does secondhand smoke make, really, at this point?

  It’s surreal to have someone here from the life I’ve been mourning. We don’t talk about Chatwick, or any of its residents, but having him here is a connection to the place I am disgusted with myself for missing. All I ever wanted was to get out of Chatwick, and here I am in the most exciting city in the world but still every bit as stuck there as I always was. Danny is too, I think. He seems to be heartbroken but refuses to talk about it, and I still don’t know what caused the bruises that have transitioned from blue and purple to yellow and brown.

  I’m not sure what his plan is. I’ve dragged him to some of my classes, and because he’s read my assignments, he raises his hand and gets in debates with my professors and the other students. I don’t know why Danny isn’t in college himself; he’s so smart. I tell him I think he should enroll, to which he scoffs or rolls his eyes. I’m not sure if I’m thinking in his best interest or mine. It’s not like working at Borbeau’s and selling weed is some great five-year plan, and as he pulls me out the door to explore New York with him, I notice a boundless energy I’ve never attributed to him before.

  It’s his first time in New York, but he’s better at it than I am. While the areas I’ve come to know through my father are shiny and safe, Danny leads me to Chinatown, where we’re not sure exactly what we’re ordering (and my insatiable appetite keeps me from asking too many questions); to the second act of an off-Broadway show by sneaking in with the smokers; to Coney Island, where I load up on chili dogs since I can’t ride the rides. (It’s like once he left Chatwick, he found reasons to get up in the morning. Perhaps this is the Danny he was meant to be.).

  Despite the cloud of anxiety that radiates from every pore, I’m falling in love with this city. It’s everything Chatwick isn’t—loud, anonymous, and full of diverse strangers and new experiences. And if Danny is falling in love with it too, is it so crazy for him to stay? Maybe it’s his chance to get out of Chatwick. And maybe it’s mine to have someone to cling to when all this is over. Would it be so bad? Isn’t it my turn to lean on someone?

  Tonight, our plan is to see a movie, at my request. I am, after all, for however short a time, pregnant, and I’m exhausted from all the walking we’ve been doing. But on my way home from class, someone hands me a flyer for a new underground jazz club, and I smile because I know this is just the type of thing Danny will want to try, and I will get to be the one to suggest it.

  He’s been introducing the crew to new things since our ages were in the single digits. Granted, most of them have been drugs, but not all of them. When we were little, he always found the secret hideouts in the trails behind Ally’s house, and he was always the one to get us to cliff jump at the granite quarry—offering gentle encouragement to Ally and me, bullying to Emmett and Murphy. Even since he’s been here, in “my” new city, he’s the one pushing me toward adventure rather than allowing me to drown in my crisis. Perhaps there could be something more between us, if I could just get him to stay.

  Despite my feet, I practically skip back to the dorm, giddy at the thought of finally being the one to introduce something new to him. This has been happening since Danny’s been here, these waves of normalcy, even happiness. Small, merciful moments when I know everything will be okay. Maybe not now, but eventually.

  But the thing about hormones, and the thing about Danny, is that in an instant, everything can change.

  When I get to my dorm room, Danny isn’t alone. A guy I’ve seen in the dining hall is sitting on my bed, holding a small bag of white powder and watching Danny thumb through a stack of money. The only sound in the room is the thwap, thwap, thwap of each bill as he shuffles it from the uncounted to counted stack. Danny’s buying drugs—bad drugs, not just a little harmless herb. But no… The visitor hastily clenches his fist around the bag and hightails it out the door, and Danny folds the money and tucks it into his cargo pocket. It’s worse, somehow. He wasn’t just buying bad drugs. He was selling them.

  I slam my bag down on my desk; the flyer for the club flutters to the linoleum floor.

  “How was class?” he asks as if nothing happened.

  “What the hell was that, Danny?” I know the answer, but I just don’t see how it can be true.

  “I’m sorry. You usually don’t get back from class before five.”

  “The professor let us out early. That doesn’t answer my question!”

  He picks up the flyer from the floor. “Hey, did you want to go to this? Looks cool.”

  “You’re selling drugs out of my dorm room?”

  “Ruby, don’t play dumb. I’ve been selling drugs since tenth grade, and you know it.”

  “Yeah, weed, Danny. Not…not… I don’t even know what that was, but I know white powder is not weed!”

  “It’s just a little blow. It’s not a big deal!”

  “Just a little blow?” My voice is approaching the screech Nancy makes when she finds her spices out of alphabetical order. “Do you know how much trouble I could get in? I could get kicked out of housing just for having you here for so long. If they found out you were selling drugs? Jesus, I could get kicked out of school!”

  He’s quiet, but his face reddens.

  “And are you actually doing this shit now? How long has that being going on?”

  He speaks evenly, pointedly. “Well, I see you have your priorities straight. Your first concern is for how much trouble you could get in. Your second is for me.”

  I’m so mad I can’t even see his face anymore. Ten minutes ago, this boy was my life raft.

  “But that’s always been the problem, hasn’t it?” he continues, mistaking my silence for guilt and taking the opportunity to get in one more jab. “I always come second. With you, with my mom, with everyone!”

  “Oh, spare me the song from the world’s tiniest violin, Danny. You have never taken responsibility for anything in your life, and look what good it’s done you! You’re not in school. The only job you seem to devote any energy to is this.” I wave my arm at the door his “client” just exited. Suddenly, it comes to me…the real reason no one’s reported seeing a beat-up stranger lurking the halls: they’re all depending on him for their study and party aids.

  His face goes blank, and I know my Danny has left the building. “Are you actually throwing Roger back in my face right now?”

  “I wasn’t talking about—”

  “I killed Roger. Just go ahead and say it. I’m a murderer. Well, congratulations. Now you’re part of the club!”

  “Excuse
me?” I narrow my eyes at him, giving him a tread lightly warning. But he’s too far gone.

  “How are we any different, Tuesday? By next week, both of us will have taken a life that has caused us pain. We both made the choice to do the wrong thing to make our own lives better.”

  Tears sting my eyes. I never realized he was capable of wounding me this deeply. All this time, supporting me, is this what he really thinks of the choice I’m making? “I don’t give a shit what you’ve been through in your life, Danny; you have no right to say that to me. You have no idea what this is like for me. It’s always been about what’s happened to you. Nothing is ever worse, no one’s pain ever compares. You’re going to waste your life feeling sorry for yourself and justifying your habits by blaming everyone else for your life. That’s what little boys do.”

  He takes a step toward me, his fist raised, but before he gets too close, he spins around and puts his fist through the drywall. My hands fly to my mouth, but I don’t scream or make a sound. The moment of impact echoes between us loudly enough. Danny’s breathing is heavy and panicked. So is mine. Blood drips from his hand. My reflex is to go to him, to patch him up and hug him and tell him it’s all going to be okay. I want to take back the last ten minutes. I want to come in just a moment after the deal had been made, so I don’t have to know about this. I don’t want to lose another person. My last person. But I can’t do the codependent thing again.

  I pick up Danny’s backpack, shove the pile of clothes he has strewn at the foot of “his” bed into it, and hand it to him. “Goodbye, Danny.”

  He doesn’t say anything, just looks at me as he steps backward toward the door. The hurt in his bright-blue eyes makes my throat close. Absurdly, I think of the number of parking tickets he’ll have on his car—it’s been parked in the same spot for weeks—and I briefly consider offering him money. Then I remember there’s no need. He’s got a fistful of it in his pocket, and I felt more stashed away in the socks I just packed for him.

  “Take care of yourself,” I mumble, the lone nicety I allow myself to give. He slams the door behind him. The vibration from the impact tingles painfully in my fingers and toes long after he leaves.

  I move my poster of the Chrysler Building to cover up the hole he’s punched in the wall, then sit on my bed and shake, the adrenaline coursing through me. I want so badly to pick up the phone and pour out everything that just happened to Murphy, the one person who knows both me and Danny better than anyone. But I can’t do that anymore. My ties to Chatwick, and everyone I’ve ever thought to be important, are now severed.

  22

  RUBY

  NOW

  It’s December 24. Christmas Eve, and Danny’s birthday to boot. It’s going to be a rough one.

  I pull Blue through the open cast-iron gates and onto the gravel path, having abandoned the rental Sentra in favor of my trusty steed. I turn the radio down and slow to a respectful speed, listening to the sound of my tires rolling over gravel, pebbles pinging off the wheel wells. I pull to the side of the path, exactly where I parked for Danny’s burial, and brace myself against the ten-degree air. Without the sea of black suits and skirts and the smell of Aqua Net guiding me, I have to wander through a few rows before I find Danny’s gravestone.

  Nice to see you can show up for a person once he’s dead.

  Tracks in the snow lead up to and away from the stone, and a bouquet of red roses, already brown at the edges, is carefully balanced at the base, still in the plastic with the Martin’s Grocery price sticker on it. I guess the etiquette of hiding how much you spend on gifts ends when the receiver can no longer read the tag. Happy Birthday, Danny. Have some flowers you’re allergic to for $12.99. They’ll rot into the ground, just like you.

  I wonder who left them. It wouldn’t be Charlene. She would know Danny well enough not to bother with something Danny wouldn’t appreciate. Maybe it was some girl Danny had shot up with, or some tragic nineteen-year-old cashier who worshipped him silently when he came in to buy his Newports. Perhaps it was even a girlfriend, someone we had been completely unaware of sitting behind us at the funeral, as if our grief was all that counted. Someone who had been foolish enough to love him and to think he would get better for her. Maybe it was even someone he had gotten to do his bidding—Miss or Mr. AnonChat@yahoo.com.

  I stand with my hands in my coat pockets, looking down at the granite slab that marks the life of my friend. His name and the bookend dates of his existence are the only words etched into the stone. I’m grateful for the absence of any bullshit quip about the Lord and his infinite wisdom, or some quote Danny was known for. What would Danny choose if he had planned his death even more elaborately? “Beer is good, but heroin is quicker,” perhaps? I catch a laugh trying to escape at the thought, and then I remember that Danny is actually decomposing under my feet, and I choke on it.

  None of you bothered to try to help me when I was alive…

  My eyes are already puffy and raw from last night’s wine and the sleeplessness that followed as memories of Danny and Murphy and Ally and Emmett flooded over me in the twin bed of my childhood. The tears that come now hurt as much physically as they do emotionally. But they are persistent, and I wipe them away with my gloved hand to make room for more. I want to sit on the ground, to pull my knees up to my chest and talk to my friend, but it’s covered in snow. Even if it wasn’t, all I know to say is I’m sorry, so I whisper it to him now. I’m sorry for so many things that I don’t know where to start.

  I feel a hand on my shoulder, and a scream escapes my throat as I spin around in defense mode, arms swinging.

  “Hey, hey, hey, it’s me. Jesus fuck!” Emmett cries, forearms raised to protect his face. “Careful…I’m forking out about a million dollars for a wedding photographer; I don’t need a black eye to be captured on film for all eternity.”

  “Damn it, Emmett!” I cry, trying to catch my breath. “You scared me half to—” I stop before I say death. I look over his shoulder. “What are you doing sneaking up on me like that? Where’s your car?”

  He crooks a thumb westward. “I live a block away. I walked.”

  It takes some effort to catch my breath and slow the hammering in my chest, the dehydration from the wine working against me. Emmett couldn’t have known I was here, which means he came to visit Danny on his own. “What are you doing here?” I ask, a bit more coolly than necessary.

  He blinks at me. “It’s Dan’s birthday,” he says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, like I should be ashamed for not knowing he would visit him today. But there’s a twitch in his lip. I know he’s lying, but I can’t imagine what other reason he would have to visit Danny’s grave. I guess it’s sweet that he remembered the occasion, although I can’t say I’m happy to see him. True to form, he never apologized for harassing me about the Times piece.

  He must sense my leftover annoyance, because his normally perfect posture slumps slightly. “I’m sorry about, you know, the article thing.”

  “Whatever… It’s fine,” I say.

  “I guess I’m just a little on edge about the issue.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s not easy to see the place you live portrayed negatively.”

  “You’re doing that thing I hate.”

  “Doing what?” I spin on him.

  “Being too nice. Too forgiving. It’s not like you, at least not with me. Take last night… Before you found out about my heart, you would have gone up one side of me and down the other when I confronted you about that article. You keep treating me like I’m dying, just like everyone else!”

  I think about this for a moment. “Maybe. Or maybe we’ve just grown up.” I can’t resist adding, “Some of us anyway.”

  He laughs. “There she is.”

  We stare at the stone in silence for what feels like an eternity before I speak. “You know, I of all people was not naive about Danny. I knew…everythi
ng. And it’s doesn’t take a giant stretch of my imagination to believe he turned to heroin. Especially considering the last time I saw him.” I wince, trying to clear the image of his face, snarling with rage, and the raised fist that switched direction mid-swing to land in my dorm room wall. “I just…”

  I don’t know how to finish without sounding foolish, especially to Emmett. But there were other things that made Danny who he was. Other memories I can’t shake. How he always bought three of those hideous dyed carnations they sold at school fund-raisers—one for me, one for Ally, and one to bring home for Charlene—even though he was allergic. He would store Charlene’s in his locker, and by the end of the day, he was sneezing, his eyes swollen and red. How he made up little raps at the lunch table to diffuse the tension of my and Emmett’s latest debate. How he wrote poems on napkins for Ally when one of her dogs died. (This happened many times, because I was only one of the sick strays Ally’s mother had a habit of adopting, particularly after Ally’s father left.)

  After the last day I saw him, whenever I found myself worrying about him, I invented a life I felt he could have realistically led, had that moment in my dorm room woken him up. Sessions with a counselor, classes at a community college, maybe a nice girl to marry and have children with. It used to make me feel better about never finding my way back to being his protector. Now it just feels sad, like an alternate ending on a depressing movie’s special features. It doesn’t erase the pain of the real ending, where the hero dies.

  Emmett appears to be waiting for me to finish my sentence until he realizes I have no intention of doing so. “You always saw the best in him,” he says, his smile tight.

  “Someone had to.” I look at him sharply.

  “Yeah. I mean, look how much good it did him.”