Nomination

Best Friends


She looks like a cat, and I’ve always liked cats. I’m not sure I’m a fan of her, though. She’s in my space. I’m hiding now, my face pressed against cold, umber bricks, watching her. This makes me mad, because this is where I come when I’m sick of hiding. I do a lot of hiding, back around the corner, through the metal doorway, down the steel staircase with the little holes in it, and out a door marked “staff only” into the halls of Glenbrook South High School. Yeah, I hide a lot down here.
The roof, though, that’s where I go to think and to get away from everybody. It’s my space. And yet, today, I’m hiding up here. So, no, I can’t say I’m really a fan of her. I’ve seen her around school. Everyone knows who she is because she’s the new girl. She’s the let’s-pick-her-apart-because-no-one-will-stand-up-for-her girl, the other-girls-don’t-like-her-designer-purse-which-probably-made-her-friends-at-her-last-school-girl, the mom-died-so-she-had-to-track-down-dad-girl, the moved-around-a-lot-girl, the sitting-on-the-edge-of-the-roof-girl.
I feel pretty bad for her. See, Jake says his dad knows this guy from the gun club who used to work with her dad, says he was a piece a work, says he even drank on the job. They say a lot of things, Jake and the other guys. Sometimes I tell them to lay off, you know, when they get too nasty, but they usually don’t stop and I never tell them twice. Second period’s the worst because Mr. Greenberg turns off his hearing aid most of the class and the guys stand around and talk. I leave a lot, tell them I’m gonna go make out with Tracey in the boy’s bathroom, and they laugh and make lewd gestures and never catch on that the reason I’m leaving is because if I had to spend another minute with them, I’d beat each and every one of them to a bloody pulp.
But even though I feel bad for the girl, she’s in my space, and that’s not cool.
“Hey,” I say loudly, stepping out from behind the chimney. I watch her body tense and her chest suck in air. Oops. She turns around, un-tucking her legs and hanging them over the edge, and stares at me. “Sorry,” I say. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“What are you doing up here?” she demands. She twists a bit more, and I notice that the right side of her butt is nearing the edge. It worries me.
“What are you doing up here?” I call back.
“I asked you first.” She shifts again, and I swear I thought she was going to fall right off the ledge. My heart starts pounding and I’m wondering how she can be so chill about the whole thing, like she’s hanging out on her couch or something.
“Why don’t you come down from there?” I ask. “You’re really making—“
“No!” she shouts, cutting me off. “Do not take another step toward me or I’ll jump. I swear I will.”
I freeze, terrified. It’s then I notice that her hands are shaking, that her eyes are red. She’s been crying. “Sorry, you’re just…you’re just making me really nervous, that’s all. I’m just nervous you’re going to fall.”
“Yeah, well maybe you should have been nervous when your slimy friends made fun of me.”
I look at my right shoe. God, I hate them. “I’m sorry,” I say again. “Why don’t you just come down off that ledge and we can talk.” I take a step toward her.
“No!” she shouts again. “My God, don’t you listen? I said not to come closer.”
“Okay, Okay,” I say. “Can I sit, then?”
“Fine, do whatever you want, just don’t come any closer.”
I sit down on the gravelly rooftop and she turns her back to me. I can feel the tiny little stones digging into my thighs and I imagine the little dents, little imprints they will make in my skin. I think for a minute about Jake and Hunter and the other guys and what it would be like if every word they said made imprints in me, like the stones. I wonder how my skin would look. I wonder how her skin would look. I always thought she had tough skin. I guess everyone is susceptible to the gravel.
After a few minutes I say, “So I suppose I should tell you why I’m up here. You know, since I know why you’re up here.”
“So you can look down Tracey Martin’s shirt?” she asks.
“I’m gay,” I say.
“Are you serious?” she asks quietly, turning around on the ledge.
“Yeah. So now I know your secret and you know mine.”
We sit in silence for a minute before she says, “But aren’t you dating Tracey?”
“No,” I reply, taking out a cigarette. I offer one to her, but she shakes her head. “If you asked either of us, we wouldn’t say one way or the other. I guess she just likes the association.” I shrug.
“You know those things can kill you,” she says nodding toward my cigarette.
“Says the girl sitting on the ledge of a roof.”
“Good point,” she concedes. I finish my cigarette in silence and lay back and look at the sky. “What are you doing?” she asks.
“I don’t know,” I say back, “looking at the sky, I guess.”
“Hey, you never actually told my why you were up here.”
“So?”
“So why were you up here?”
“I’m on the local suicide task force,” I say. “It’s my job to patrol the rooftops.” I peek over my knees to watch her roll her eyes at me. “Do you really want to know?”
She shrugs. “Yeah, I guess.”
“I come up here pretty often, you know, when I want to get away from them all.”
“Who all?”
“My friends, my family.” I shrug, the gravel moving under my shoulder blades.
“Why are you friends with them if you don’t like them?” she asks.
“Hey, you know what it’s like not having friends. I’d rather have those assh***s than no one.”
“Yeah, I suppose. What about your family? I mean, I know why you hate your friends,” she chuckles at this, “but why your family?”
“I don’t hate my family,” I say, sitting up on my elbows. “They’re actually pretty cool, but my dad’s a good Catholic, so it always feels a little like hiding. Anyway, what about you? I’m sure you have some daddy-issues.”
She frowns and picks at a rebellious thread on the inner seam of her jeans. “I just have issues,” she says. We sit in silence again for a minute and I lay back down. The sky is smears of gray today. It’s not nothing, but it sure isn’t anything spectacular.
I hear the rustling of her coat on the ledge and my muscles tense. I sit up on my elbows again and watch her movement, terrified she’s going fall (or worse: jump). She’s trying to lie down on the ledge and when she notices me watching her she shoots me a violent glare and says, “I’m not trying to jump, Okay? You can relax.”
“Well, you may not be trying to jump, but you’re definitely not trying very hard to keep from falling.” She purses her lips at me, but then settles in on her brick bed. After a moment I try to get her to come down again. “You know, you could come down here and not risk death by sneezing. Just a suggestion.” She ignores my comment.
“Do you think the sky is beautiful?” she asks, out of the blue. I decide to follow her lead.
“Today, not so much. I mean, I don’t think it’s ugly, it’s just not very…grand.”
“Yeah,” she begins. “I think it’s ugly. My mom would have thought it was the most gorgeous thing in the world, though.”
“I’m sure you’re not that different from her.”
“I don’t know what I am any more.”
We stare at the sky.
“I’m sure you’ve heard about his drinking.”
“Yeah, people tend to talk in towns like these,” I say.
“I think it’s gotten worse since I moved in. I think he hates me. I think everyone hates me.” I’m on my elbows again. I watch two tears stream down her cheek. One sticks to her skin, but the other drops down and leaves a darker oval shape on the bricks.
“I don’t hate you,” I say. More tears.
“You will though, when we get back downstairs, we we’re standing in the hall and everyone starts whispering about me. You will.”
“No,” I say. “I couldn’t. We’re too similar. I mean, no one hates me, but no one really knows me, either.”
I see her move and watch her intently. She sits up, legs on the roof side (not the jump side) “You know what’s sad?” she asks.
“You?”
“That you’re my best friend. That’s sad.”
“It’s not that sad. You’re my best friend, too.” I chuckle once. Then she laughs a little. Then I laugh a little more until we’re both laughing and she’s crying and we forget that I’m hiding and she’s jumping and everyone else is living their lives like normal just below us. The bell rings for passing time and I hear everyone flooding into the halls. She stands up and walks over to me and lies down.
“Watch the sky with me during passing time?”
“Absolutely,” I say, “best friend.”