End

I walked into the school dragging my backpack behind me, letting the damn thing scrape the tiles. I was sick of carrying the thing. I was sick of the chemical/must/dirt smell of that blasted hallway. I was sick of being bumped around by kids I barely even knew, and definitely didn’t care about. I was sick of the lame art projects that lined the walls, fluttering in the breeze stirred up by passing bodies. Not everyone could be an artist, and the school’s sad attempt at an art program was living proof of it. I was also sick of putting up with the Rich Bitches until Carrie felt satisfied enough to leave them and come along with me. The rewards were always great, sure. That day, we had planned on going out into the courtyard before classes. Just to hang. Talk. But those five minutes with those other girls were sometimes more than I felt I could handle. I hated them even more than they hated me.

When I finally spotted them in their usual spot, I knew, even before I spoke to them, that my life was over. Instinct. Of course, those bitches cried more than anyone I’d ever known. And over the most trivial of things, too, like the time that one blonde found out that her boyfriend had cheated on her. The airhead cried for weeks. And, of course, her tears set the rest of them off, too.

So, being so used to them all crying, how did I know that this time was different?

Perhaps a sixth sense. Perhaps I was channeling a psychic. But I didn’t need special powers to see that Carrie wasn’t with them.

I tried to shake off the feeling. I mean, come on. Really? One of them got dumped, and Carrie was in the bathroom. That was it. Good god. I was completely obsessed with her and it was going to get me hurt. Relax. Breathe.

“What’s wrong this time?” I groaned to Head Idiot. “Which one got their convertible taken away?”

The brunette hiccupped and stared at me through a thick layer of tears. Her mouth fell open. “You—You don’t know?”

I toed my backpack to line up perfectly with one of the lockers, sighted along one of the shoulder pads, then kicked. Hard. It collided with the metal perfectly, creating a big enough bang to make every one of those girls jump and cry harder. They clung to one another, using the nearest shoulder to deposit their slime trails. “Of course not,” I snapped, getting impatient. Where was Carrie? Rescue me, sweet princess. Please. “I’m not exactly a member of you people’s gossip vine and, quite frankly, I don’t give a shit. Where’s Carrie?” I peered over the heads of the people coming down the hall, trying to ignore the fact that my intestines had just sunk to my knees. “Bathroom?”

The brunette’s eyes widened. “N-no. Not exactly. Her family didn’t –hic- call you?”

I gave the girl my full attention. “No. Why would they?” I looked from one girl to another, taking fully into account their puffy eyes, slobbery lips, wet faces, messy hair….and black clothes. “What. Happened.”

“She… There was a… An accident.” The girl let out this wet, sucking sound and I tried not to gag. I kept thinking about snails. Slimy snails. A black eye shrinking along its shaft when something unpleasant touches it, the slime trails, a brown shell, greenish, whitish, yellowish rubber for a body, salt making it shrivel. Small. Trivial. The equivalence of a slimy ‘pod was all these girls had ever meant to me, but this snail was trying to tell me something. Something important. About Carrie.

Shell. I wished I had one. To hide in. That would have been wonderful.

“She’s gone, Tori.”

I wanted to rip those pitiful eyes out of that slime ball’s fat, puffy head. I hated her. “What are you trying to say, bitch? Spit it out!”

“She was…admitted to the ER last night. An accident. She was…totally torn up. Her head, her body, her legs…everything. She died early this morning.”

The quiet blackness of sleep was yanked away. No, it blew up in my face.

I had to get it away from me. The pain. The pain that blossomed from my center and expanded outward at the speed of light. I screamed. The intensity of the sound waves sent the walls of my bedroom crashing down around me in an explosion of white light and—

“Tori! Oh, Tori, shhhh…”

Her voice. God. I’m still dreaming.

A feathery touch ran from my temple to my jaw line. Not warm, not cold. No texture. Just…there. A light pressure

I curled up into a tight ball underneath my blankets, cradling the hurt, warding away the chill of the air. “No,” I choked out. “It’s not true. It can’t be.” We were going to rent an apartment together. She was going to go to college, and I was going to work in town. We were going to save up money and see the world. She wanted to go to Paris. I wanted to see London. She was going to marry, eventually, and I was going to play aunt to her kids.

We had it all planned. It wasn’t just a wistful dream; it was literally just around the corner. A few months, that was all.

It couldn’t be over.

“I’m here, Tori. I’m right here.”

I forced open my eyes and saw her face staring back at me.

Slowly, the rest of the story came to me. She wasn’t gone, not totally.

She might as well have been.

But she was still with me; that was the only thing that mattered.

I wouldn’t tell her so, but I was glad that she hadn’t left me.

“Here,” she whispered, curling up in the empty space on my bed, laying her head on my pillow. “I’m here. Go back to sleep.”

I pretended to, closing my eyes and forcing my breathing to come light and shallow, but I stayed awake, not able to let myself fall away into sleep.

I had walked away, numb, from her friends. I hadn’t said anything in reply to that brunette. Did I believe her? Did I truly believe that my best friend, my entire life, was dead?

Yes. I believed it unquestioningly.

When my dad had died, it hadn’t sunk in for months. When it finally hit, it was like my body had exploded in an inferno of singed flesh. The pain was incredible. I had cried for a week, before my tears had dried up. But walking down that cold school hallway after leaving the rich bitches to their slimy tears, I had believed that Carrie was dead and I felt nothing. I went through the rest of the day, never speaking a word. They told the entire school about the accident over the morning announcements. Everyone in my first, second, third, and fourth hour classes had all stared at me. After that, I skipped school and went home. No one stared at me there. At home, there was no one to care. I holed up in my room for a few days, refusing to think. I didn't want to cry, I wanted to forget. She was my friend, and she would always be my friend, but I didn’t want to remember her. I wanted to move on. It sounded shallow, even to my own mind. I hated myself for thinking it. I hated myself even more for wanting it, but it was true. I hadn’t wanted to cry. I didn’t want to live even a moment having to think about it. I wanted it out of my head. I didn’t want to hurt anymore.

I lay in bed, motionless, until the red light of dawn bled in through the window. From occasional peeks through half-closed eyelids, I knew that Carrie never took her eyes off of me. It felt good, knowing someone cared that much.

I rolled out of bed and stretched, yawning. “Breakfast!” I sang, trying out ‘light-hearted’ for a change. Just a change of pace, is all.

Carrie grimaced. “Taco Bell again?”

I grinned. “Yep. Bean burrrrrrrrrrrito and tater tots soaked in cheese. I mean, really, what else does a girl need?”

I ignored the faintly nauseated expression on her face and dove for my wallet. Hell, it wasn’t like my mom was a Betty Crocker reincarnate, anyway. She was brilliant at mixing drinks, though. I would give her that.

“Let’s go!” I said brightly, jangling the car keys.

Carrie rolled her eyes and followed.