We dated around, we interned, but our friendship remained central to our identity-to my identity at least, so much so that I relied on her to tell me things I already knew about myself (that I was depressed, that I had been assaulted instead of romanced, that I needed to start brushing my hair). (We were neither.) She was half my size and a year younger than me, but carried such a deep sense of self-actualization that she made everything around us feel actual. She and I were known around our Ohio college campus for New York snark and skinny jeans, so much so that an anonymous Facebook page accused us of being coke heads, girls with sugar daddies. Of my obsessive attachments, one was especially kinetic, fascinating and occasionally volatile. (To be fair, I think she did have a nice life.) I transferred colleges, switched majors, and I regarded the accompanying end of friendships like a medical emergencies, desperate and terrifying-as when, senior year of high school, I cried out to the girl I thought of as my best and only friend, “have a nice life, bitch!” as she walked away from an argument. I drifted between groups in my late teens and early twenties, trying desperately to enter crowds I later realized I didn’t want to belong to. She’s a preternaturally cheerful girl with a large bow on her head. Now, standing to the side, are Ruby and me. It takes me far too long to realize I have not been left out by accident. It’s a birthday party and it’s not just any birthday party, but a trip upstate for a co-ed weekend in somebody’s uncle’s ski house. Girls-let’s call them all Emily, since that was probably their name-are gathered together to examine folded pieces of printer paper adorned with pearlescent stickers, squealing at a frequency that only dogs could understand. The hallway between class periods is full of a buzz, a buzz I can’t seem to get a temperature check on. Inspired by reruns of The Brady Bunch, my hair is short and feathered with a smattering of fuschia strands. (For once in my life I am small, under-sized in fact, and she says that the antique fit works better for “petites.”) So I’ve headed to school in flared ’70s bell-bottoms-purple, embroidered with orange pop art footprints-and a ringer tee with a mess of smiley faces. About to be twelve, and my mother, understanding the urgency of the mission, has finally agreed to let me shop in the grown-up section-albeit of a vintage store, Alice Underground, on lower Broadway.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
March 2023
Categories |