by Sarah Lyu
I knew Elise was just joking around, but it made me feel special, to be fought over, to be liked. To be a prize to someone like Elise, so confident and warm, sparkling with life. Someone who could have her pick of friends but somehow chose me.
My phone buzzed with a new text but I ignored it.
“Melody again?”
I shrugged.
Elise sighed once more, like she was bored even by the idea of Melody. “She’s such a rule-follower, someone without imagination. She’s the kind of girl who’s going to grow up to be a doctor or lawyer or engineer.”
“She wants to be a doctor,” I said. She sometimes spoke admiringly of my mom, which was infuriating, especially because I never felt like I could tell Melody the truth about my mom.
“See? Exactly. I know her entire life already. She’ll paint her life by numbers. Graduate with straight As, go to Emory, become a ‘productive member of society,’ ” she said, adding air quotes. “She’ll get married to an equally boring guy, have boring kids who’ll go on to start the miserable cycle all over again. Then she’ll pass away peacefully in her sleep at the age of ninety-one and her family will cry and grieve for a while, but ultimately, history won’t remember her. And when they too are gone, it’ll be as if she never even existed. What’s the point of life if you’re not going to exist? If you’re just going to be forgotten?”
She hadn’t mentioned my parents but I couldn’t help thinking of them, their obsession with image and perfection. What was it for? It was all meaningless in the end. They were living a lie, a life they thought they should want. But Elise didn’t believe in any of that.
“I’m going to be remembered,” she declared. “I’m going to leave a mark.” She was wild and free, she was larger than life. She was going to really exist.
It’s not that I’d never thought about wanting to be remarkable, but I’d never believed in it with such certainty and confidence. And even if I did, I couldn’t say it out loud like she could. Elise didn’t seem to hold back, ever.
“We are going to be remembered,” she said, smiling at me. “Together.”
“Okay.” I smiled back.
“We’re different, you and me,” she continued. “Special. People like Melody Moon have had perfect lives with nice parents and nice clothes and nice everything. And I used to be so jealous of people like her.” I knew that feeling all too well, could still feel echoes of that desperation of wanting to have different parents, a different life.
What Elise was saying: Our wounds made us special.
“But you know what, Rem? I’m glad things haven’t been easy for me. I’m stronger than all of them and I know what I’m capable of. But whatever. Family is the people you love, not the people who gave birth to you or raised you. You don’t owe anyone anything. The only allegiance you have is to yourself and the people you choose to have in your life. As soon as I graduate, I’m out of here.”
“Take me with you,” I said, only half joking, watching for her reaction.
“Of course,” she said like it was a forgone conclusion. “You and me, we’re family.”
Elise liked that I needed protection, and I liked that she wanted to protect me. We needed each other, we chose each other, and there was power in that.
MONDAY // AUGUST 28 // DAY 353
19.
There was power in that choice, and I can still feel it almost a year later. And now I am faced with another.
Elise and I, we’re family. I needed protection then and she gave me shelter. But now it’s Elise who needs me.
“Why don’t we start over,” Detective Ward says, and we begin again on Sunday night. We run through it one more time.
“Why were you at Elise’s house?” she asks.
“We wanted to be alone,” I tell her.
“Because you were fighting?”
I nod.
“What were you fighting about?” She tugs gently at her sleeves to straighten them. She seems relaxed and calm, while I feel just seconds away from losing it.
“I don’t even remember,” I lie, watching her carefully for a reaction. “It was something stupid.” She remains neutral in her expression and I can’t tell what she’s thinking.
“Then you called Jack,” she says.
“I called Jack and he came over. I let him in but Elise was out on the balcony in the back.” I can still picture it now: Jack at the door, me stepping out. “Let me talk to her alone,” he said, kissing me on the forehead. “Go home, I’ll call you later.”
“Okay,” I said, and walked down the steps and path to the driveway and my car. I was about to leave, my key in the ignition, when the gunshots rang out one after the other. I ran and ran and ran, but I was too late.
Caught up in the memory, I start to cry, the salt stinging my skin. I am the ocean, it seems. I’ll never run out of tears.
Detective Ward pushes a tissue box toward me with one end of her pen, examining me closely.
“Elise was still on the balcony and then she came inside and saw him. It was dark, so dark, and—and—” I can’t go on, the pain in my chest too much to bear. Elise needs you, my mind whispers. Somehow I dig deeper, draw on the last of my strength. “We couldn’t see each other. I only knew it was Elise because it couldn’t be anyone else. Jack was in front of me. I don’t think she even saw me. She—” I am sobbing into my hands, drowning in my own tears. “Elise was scared. She shot him.”
She hadn’t meant to. It was dark, she couldn’t have seen who it was. If I close my eyes, I can imagine it all unfolding. Elise must’ve been so terrified. I can imagine being in her shoes, re-entering the kitchen from the balcony. The house is quiet, too quiet. I’m on edge from the night before. Then I look up and someone’s walking toward me in the dark.
Her fear is so palpable, it burns through me. I can see her reaching for the gun almost by instinct. And then—
It’s too painful. I can’t.
Detective Ward waits for me to stop crying. It feels like years before I’m able to compose myself. She leans forward again, elbows on the table, hands clasped.
“That’s interesting,” she says slowly, every syllable enunciated. “Because I spoke to her last night and she says you weren’t there.”
“What?” Vera and I say at the same time. Vera turns and looks at me sharply, a message: Don’t say a word.
“One of you is lying,” Detective Ward says. “And what I want to know is why.”
SATURDAY // DECEMBER 31 // DAY 113
20.
Elise loved action movies, especially the ones with heroes, superpowered or otherwise. Stories with a good guy and a bad guy. People on a mission to right wrongs. People so driven by their pursuit of justice that they have to step outside of the law on occasion to deliver it.
She loved big showdowns between hero and villain. Even though the endings were always the same—good defeats evil—she always seemed on the edge of her seat like she was worried the heroes wouldn’t prevail.
Her favorite was Kill Bill. Uma Thurman stars as the hero who kills her way down a list of assassins who’d walked into a little chapel and shot up her wedding rehearsal, putting her in a coma. These assassins were supposed to be her friends, her family—she was one of them, or at least she had been. So once she wakes from her coma years later, she exacts her revenge.
The first time we watched it together, we were in my basement celebrating the New Year with a bottle of wine pilfered from my parents’ cellar, reveling in having the whole house to ourselves.
“It’s my favorite movie,” Elise told me. “Of all time.”
“I saw it once. It’s . . . a little too bloody for me,” I said.
“I’ll warn you when it gets to the violent parts,” she said, pouring out two more glasses from the stolen bottle of wine.
I could tell it was important to her even if I didn’t know why, so I agreed to watch it, scooting closer to her on the couch and resting my head lightly on her shoulder.
During t
he movie, I caught Elise glancing at me a few times, and I realized she really wanted me to like it. At the end of Vol. 1, Elise didn’t say anything, just looked at me, awaiting my verdict.
“It was good,” I said, trying to be diplomatic.
“Good?” She sounded disappointed.
“Really good,” I said. “Really, really good.”
“Promise?”
“Yes,” I said.
“What was your favorite part?” she asked. I hadn’t sold her yet.
“All of it,” I said, wanting to be loyal.
“No, really,” she insisted.
“Okay,” I said, stalling. “If I had to pick, it’d be all the Hattori Hanzo scenes? When she convinces him to make her a sword.”
Elise nodded eagerly. “What else?”
“Um. The O-Ren Ishii fight in the snow. When she actually apologizes to the Bride.” I really did like these scenes, but I wanted to impress her, too, and I didn’t want to let her down.
She nodded again. “See, I knew you’d like it.”
“Mm-hmm.” I hoped that would be it, that the questions would end.
“It’s just all so poetic,” Elise continued, excited. “Here’s this girl who’s lost everything, who’s been betrayed by her family, and—and she’s not a victim. She doesn’t let herself wallow in it. She’s a survivor. She doesn’t give up. She doesn’t wait around for justice to deliver itself.” Elise sat up and began waving her hands around as she spoke faster and faster. “She doesn’t have anyone but she doesn’t need anyone anymore. She lives and breathes revenge. Don’t you wish the world could be like that sometimes?”
“What, filled with indiscriminate murder by katana-wielding assassins?” I said, laughing a little.
“No, I mean, don’t you wish there was a way to get even?” Her face was flushed, her voice excited, growing louder.
“I guess,” I said, confused. “But it’s not like we can just kill everyone we don’t like.” I was joking but there was a flash in Elise’s eyes, something hard. “I mean, we can’t all fly to Japan, get samurai swords made, and hunt down every asshole who wronged us. It’s a movie.” I shrugged.
“Right. It’s just a movie,” she said, collapsing back against the couch and sighing. “It’s just—I know it’s a movie but it’s so much more than that. It’s the code she lives by. It’s not just about revenge. It’s having respect for yourself. It’s believing you don’t deserve all the shitty things that people do to you. It’s believing that even if you get knocked down, there will be a day of reckoning. There’ll be a day you’ll rise out of the ashes and destroy the people who tried to destroy you.” Elise looked like she was going to cry, but she didn’t. She blinked away the tears and took a deep breath. “You know, there’s a reason she doesn’t have a name in the first movie. She could be anyone. The Bride could be me or you.”
“Where is this coming from?” I asked softly, alarmed by the anger in her voice. Maybe it was the wine, I thought.
Elise’s breath hitched, like she was about to launch into another soliloquy, but then she caught herself and sighed.
“I’m sorry, Remy,” she said. “You’re right. It’s just a movie and real life doesn’t work like that. There is no karmic justice for shitty people.” A tear slid down her face. “I know it’s just a movie. I know, okay? But sometimes I just need to believe that I’m not always going to feel so helpless. I just need to believe that I’m strong enough to make it, that one day, they’ll regret ever underestimating me.” She released a sharp sigh and turned away from me.
“What’s going on?” I said, placing a soft hand on her wrist and she flinched, even though I’d just had my head on her shoulder only minutes ago. “Elise?”
She shook her head. “I don’t really want to talk about it.”
And just like that, the person I thought I knew better than myself turned into a puzzle. I was about to ask again but she cut me off before I could speak.
“I don’t want to talk about it. Sorry for being so melodramatic.” She sighed heavily and took the bottle, tipping it back to finish what was left. “You know, Remy,” she said. “You’re lucky.”
I stared at her in confusion and remained quiet.
“Like, your parents suck, right?” she continued. “But they’re not that bad.”
“What?”
“And at least you have Christian,” she added.
I scoffed. “Christian is worse than useless.”
“He seems nice,” she said, and I swore I heard a hint of infatuation in her voice.
“Yeah, but he isn’t,” I said. “It’s all just a facade.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Never mind,” I said. “And besides, I think he has a girlfriend.”
“What? Who?”
“The captain of the field hockey team, Vanessa something, I think?”
“Oh,” she said, an entire ocean of disappointment squeezed into one syllable.
“Why?” I asked. “Do you like him?” We both knew she did but I wanted her to just admit it. We were best friends, family, but she still couldn’t trust me.
“What? No,” she said. Our eyes locked and we stared at each other, neither of us giving in.
“What’d you mean earlier,” I said finally, breaking eye contact. “When you said my parents weren’t that bad?”
“Just—” She turned to look me in the eye. “There are, you know, gradations. And your parents suck but they could suck more. So much more.” She was talking about her mother, how she’d been abandoned.
“All they do is argue with each other and throw the word divorce around once in a while,” she continued, eyes closed and oblivious to the impact her words had on me. “You’re lucky, in a lot of ways.”
“What?” I pulled away from her, shrinking into myself. I couldn’t believe she was comparing our childhoods to see who had it worse. She’d seen what they were like, knew what it was like for me. Just because my mom didn’t leave when I was seven didn’t mean I was lucky. In some ways, I wished she had left.
We’re different, you and me, Elise had said. Special. People like Melody Moon have had perfect lives with nice parents and nice clothes and nice everything. We were different from everyone but we were different together, with our far-from-perfect lives. We knew pain and were stronger for it. That was the story Elise told. Our creation myth of sorts. It’d always been us versus everybody else, never her against me.
Her eyes fluttered open at my prolonged silence.
“I’m lucky?” I was devastated. “How can you say that?”
For a moment, she looked lost. “Wait—”
“And what exactly makes me so lucky? That my parents don’t love me and never did?” I was crying, angry now. “That I have no one?”
“I’m sorry,” she said, eyes wide at my tears. “I’m sorry, Remy. I didn’t mean that.” She pushed her wineglass away from her and sat up straight, shaking her head roughly. “I’m so sorry, I don’t know why I’m acting like this. You’re right, you’re not lucky.”
What shook me the most was seeing this side of her, knowing how easily she could hurt me. It had to be the wine, I thought, though I couldn’t get rid of the feeling there was something she wasn’t telling me.
“But where is all of this coming from?” I just wanted her to talk to me.
“I just—” She took a deep breath. “It’s a weird time for me.”
“Why?”
“This is around the time my mom died three years ago?” she said hesitantly, like it was a question. “And I had to go to her funeral even though I hadn’t even spoken to her in almost ten years.”
It was like plunging into cold water, a shock to the system. Elise was finally, finally opening up. I dried my tears, sitting straighter.
“My mom didn’t like me much either,” she said with a weak laugh. “And my dad, well.” She shrugged, turning away. “And my grandparents. They hated us, thought their precious daughter had married trash
. Pretended we didn’t exist for the most part.” Her voice had turned dull, almost monotone. “And now we live in their house and drink out of their glasses and sleep in their bedrooms.” She shook her head in disbelief. “Maybe we should burn it down.” She seemed lost in thought. “Can you imagine, the granddaughter they were ashamed of destroying what they spent their life building? The banished princess returning to burn their castle down?” She laughed. “It’d be poetic.” It was the same word she’d said about Kill Bill—poetic.
I laughed too, but I didn’t really think it was that funny. I was still upset about what she’d said, about how I was lucky that my shitty parents weren’t shittier, but I also understood what she meant about gradations. And she was sad, so I let it go.
“Do you want to watch the second one?” I asked even though I didn’t really want to, hoping it would cheer her up.
“You really want to watch Volume Two?” she asked with a wobbly smile.
I nodded. “I want to find out what happens.”
It was almost seven in the morning when we finished. I was on the precipice of sleep, slumped over against Elise, just barely keeping my eyes open.
“Rem?” she whispered.
“Hmm?”
“I love you.”
My eyes fluttered open and I smiled. “I love you too.”
FRIDAY // FEBRUARY 3 // DAY 147
21.
For a couple weeks after the New Year, I watched Elise carefully, wondering if she’d bring up that night or snap at me like that again, but she didn’t. It was easy to think the Elise I’d glimpsed on New Year’s Eve was a weird, one-time thing. That wasn’t the Elise I knew.
She began to spend more time at my house. Even though she never said why, I knew she wanted to be there for me, shield me from my parents’ battles. I’d never had that before, someone who cared about me like that. And while Elise still had other friends, I was her best friend.
A few faces had changed, but Julie Adichie and Jae Park were always at Elise’s lunch table, along with newcomers Madison Laurent, who was Julie’s girlfriend, and Ben Torres, who was a midyear transfer from Florida.