"I don't want to talk about wrinkles," I interject. If she mentions the laugh lines I'm going to be irritated. I sigh, "How've you been?"
"Seriously?" She rolls her eyes. "Have you honestly forgotten?" There's anger and desperation behind her words. She's mad that I would have even asked the question, but at the same time she's searching for the hope that maybe, just maybe, this misery doesn't last forever.
"How long has it been since the break up?" I ask. I might as well check.
"A month," she says miserably.
I wince. That wasn't a good time to be around me. I'd had my heart broken and was experiencing full-fledged depression for the first time. Of course, it was more to it than that, but I hadn’t been able to understand that at the time. My head had been screwed on so backward it was difficult to walk. I'd had survivor's guilt and PTSD because of the bus crash that had killed my teacher in October of 2009. Instead of dealing with those issues, I'd fled into the arms of a boy who’d offered me a fantasy world where I could run away from my problems. I lived there for about two months, and when that came crashing down on me, so had my sanity.
"Yeah, that sucked," I say.
"Past tense?" she mutters, "So it. . . doesn’t anymore?" She looks desperate, but also terrified. That fantasy world had been addicting. It had had less to do with the boy and more to do with escape, or at least that's what I choose to tell myself now.
"It couldn’t really last forever," I point out. Back then I was dealing with a bunch of lies and stories that didn't make sense. Fictitious, real, it didn't matter. I wanted to believe in magic and bad guys and anything that wasn't buses crashing and people dying.
"So, what? You just let go? Forgot?” Her eyes are wide now, angry. Desperate. “I have to figure it out! I have to know the truth!"
"You know the truth," I snap. I can't help myself. This isn't a particular part of my past I enjoy remembering.
"You always wanted to get married," I point out. "All that crap about not needing a boy was garbage."
pEONY mAGAZINE 21