She walks backward for a few steps, smirking at me, then turns around and sprints to the closest park bench. She climbs up to stand on it and grins maniacally. She clears her throat.
“Sydney,” I shout-whisper, walking quickly over to her. “What are you doing?”
Couples holding hands and a few old people and kids walking past stare at her.
“Memory-making,” she whispers back.
“Then, I confess,” Sydney shouts. Her voice carries clear across the park. “Here on my knee, before high heaven and you / That before you, and next unto high heaven, / I love your son.”
She’s reciting the monologue from All’s Well That Ends Well that I helped her memorize for English extra credit last semester. I recognize Helena’s words right away and start to laugh.
She recites the entire two-minute monologue from her perch atop the bench, and when she’s done a few passing people even clap. She hops down from the bench and bows, smiling and saying, “Thank you, thank you. Oh, you’re so kind,” and I’m still laughing.
When we head home a few minutes later, I bump Sydney’s shoulder as we walk side by side to the train station.
“You’re kind of great,” I say softly, wondering how a former tutee has become an almost-real friend. She grins and shakes her curls out of her eyes.
“And you’re fucking fantastic. Don’t let anyone, ever, tell you otherwise.”
then: November
LITTLE BETRAYALS
It was slow, the way it all happened. So slow I didn’t notice I was alone until I almost always was.
One day Layla told me she was going to hang out with the Chorus Girls after their rehearsals, and the next thing I knew, that was what she did every Tuesday and Thursday.
She started randomly eating lunch with them, just like she had the day Sloane lost it on me in the hall, so I never knew if I’d be eating alone until I got to the cafeteria. More often than not, our table was empty when I arrived.
Her stopping by my locker between classes became just as unpredictable: sometimes she did, and sometimes I didn’t see her all day. And if there was ever any question of who she’d spend time with, I was usually the one who surrendered. In the game of fight or flight, I soared away from my problems. And Sloane and the Chorus Girls were my biggest one.
I’d never done well with gray areas—with almosts and sometimes and maybes. I liked to know who my friends were and that they’d be there if I needed them, no matter what. So it was an uneasy balance—this new half friendship—but it was one I was working at because I didn’t think I could handle losing Layla completely.
I no longer expected Layla to be waiting for me near my locker, and that day, like most days, she wasn’t. But when I walked into homeroom, for the very first time, Layla was sitting at the back of the class with Sloane.
Something weird happened in my chest when I saw the empty chair next to my normal seat. Some strange, shooting pain that I couldn’t ignore. I bit my lip against the ache of it as I walked slowly to my desk and sat down. I could hear Sloane and Layla talking behind me, but I didn’t turn around.
The only thing that made me feel better in moments like these was daydreaming about London. When Layla had chorus rehearsals on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, I added to the growing list of landmarks I wanted to visit. Whenever I ate lunch on my own, I’d read about the history of the Globe Theatre. So that first day when she didn’t sit with me in homeroom, I pulled out my phone and did a cursory search for weekend trips you could take from London proper. And at the very top of the list was Paris, France.
I wanted to turn around and confront Layla then. To ask her if she was still planning to come visit me in London, or if she even cared enough to. I wanted to send her a text and ask why she decided to sit at the back of the class all of a sudden, but I was starting to wonder, if I never texted Layla first, would she text me at all?
I didn’t turn around or send that text. And I tried my best to ignore the acute and stinging pain in my chest at the sound of their laughter. The second that class was over, I went to my next one without waiting around to see who Layla would choose. I was getting tired of not being chosen, when for so long, I’d been Layla’s obvious and only pick.
Still, I kept my eye on my phone all morning, hoping for some kind of explanation, some acknowledgment of this latest, agonizing change. But nothing ever came.
* * *
—
I comforted myself with the fact that at least I wouldn’t have to suffer through a lonely lunch period today because none of us would be in the cafeteria. I headed to the auditorium the moment my lunch bell rang. Layla had told me that Mrs. Steele was posting the roles for the school musical at noon.
She was already there when I turned the corner, staring in disbelief at the paper taped to the auditorium door. I was ready to comfort her because she hadn’t gotten a part, but as soon as I touched her elbow she turned to me and said, “I…I can’t believe I got it.”
I stepped closer to the door to see the list. The production would be a musical version of It’s a Wonderful Life and Layla had been cast as Mary, the main character’s wife. This role had lots of singing, which obviously Layla would blow out of the water. But it also had lots of regular spoken lines too.
I couldn’t believe it either. And I knew I should have been congratulating her. I knew I should have been saying something, but the truth was, I was still worried that she’d get up onstage and she’d stutter nonstop, or worse: she’d get blocked and not be able to say a word.
She turned to me and said, “Cleo, c-c-c-can you believe it?” She was grinning so widely and there were tears in her eyes. I didn’t know why I couldn’t just smile and tell her that it was great. It was her dream come true, just like making chorus had been, and that should have been enough of a reason for me to celebrate with her. But a dark part of me didn’t want to. A dark part of me thought of Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, of lunch, and now of homeroom. I feared this musical would be another piece of Layla’s life I’d be set apart from, and I was reminded of a few lines from Hamlet’s most famous soliloquy about bearing ills we already have, rather than flying to others we know not of.
I didn’t want to lose any more of her than I already had.
I finally dragged my eyes away from the sheet of paper where I’d read MARY HATCH. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .LAYLA HASSAN half a dozen times. I looked at my best friend, and I pasted on a smile.
“It’s definitely unbelievable,” I said. “Aren’t you nervous?” My concern about her performance was real, but something else, something darker, was happening too.