Rachie is sitting on the other side of the room, carefully removing her nail polish that only just started to chip. The smell is dizzying, keeping me from focusing on my comic book. I point to her bottle of remover. “You do know that whenever we handle that stuff in the lab we always wear gloves cause it irritates the skin and can even go through it, right? And there’s a reason why it’s done under a fan! Yet you’re willingly soaking your hands in it.”

She laughs, turning to me. I get up to open my room’s window, but something in the way she looks at me stops me. I feel a wave shuddering from my head down to my chest. I’m not myself and she sees my impatience through my joking tone.

She didn’t ask yet about what happened the other night. I see her try to understand and I know how much my silence must hurt her, yet I can’t seem to be able to say the truth. I look down to the ground for a few seconds, and when I look up her attention is back to her nails, as if nothing had happened.

Silence used to be comfortable between us, but today I’m about to implode. I breathe a bit of air through the now open window and get back to my bed. I read the first two pages of my book again, still without assimilating anything. I listen to the cars passing by, focussing on the sound to avoid my own thoughts.

She knows. She knows something is wrong

We’ve always told each other everything. Even if it sometimes took months for me to assimilate things and be ready to talk about it she’d eventually know it all. I can feel the clock ticking on our friendship, choking my words back through my throat.

She now looks worried. I feel that she’s about to ask and I keep my eyes shut until it hurts. Minutes pass in silence, and suddenly she exclaims that she’s done. She closes the lid on her polish remover bottle and leaves the room to wash her hands. I exhale in relief.

She comes back only seconds later, cell phone in hand. I can tell from the smell that she was so excited she didn’t even get to the washroom. Worry has been replaced by excitement all over her features, and I anticipate her next sentence before I can even hear it. There’s a party tonight, for Sarah’s birthday, to which I absolutely have to come with her. We’ll be driving all the way to the school’s dorms and spend the night there for a girl which I don’t even know. It doesn’t make any sense and yet I find myself unable to say no. She’s too happy for me to let myself ruin it.

Rachie picks an outfit for me and makes sure I put it on before hurrying back to her place so that she can put on some makeup and pick a change of clothes for tomorrow. “I’ll come pick you up in 10!”

***

About twenty five minutes later, Rachie is in front of my front door, as excited as ever. She looks through my bag to make sure one more time that my clothes for tomorrow are cute enough, makes me tuck my shirt back into my pants and drags me outside.

I scream goodbye to my parents as I’m halfway out, and I hear my mom’s heels clacking as she hurries toward the entrance. I stop so that she can squeeze me in a hug before closing the door behind me before I head to the car. Rachie is already in, applying some lipstick using the rear-view mirror. I notice her nails already have been redone, and I can’t help but to think that she looks better when she isn’t covered in all of these shades of pink.

It takes roughly an hour and forty-five minutes to get to a surprisingly not too cramped dorm room. We’re pretty early, and only Sarah’s closest friends are already here. Some soft indie track plays in the background, and no one tries to force me to drink. I think I can live through that kind of party.

Rachie is already hugging everyone, asking how they all have been since the beginning of the summer. She drags me behind her, and soon everyone’s names become a blur. I don’t even know where my friend met any of them, but she talks so much sometimes that I probably have already heard about a few.

Everything goes so fast until I meet her. Rachie’s pace goes down, she makes sure I remember at least about this girl. My friend’s eyes are glimmering, and it definitely isn’t her three sips of alcohol getting to her. She’s got a plan. Obviously there had to be a reason for us both to get all the way over here; she wanted me to meet Sarah.

The girl smiles at me and I forget for a second too long I need to smile back. I put the back of my right hand fingers to my cheek in order to cool my face down a bit, and I notice my friend grinning next to me. Sarah lays her back on the wall behind her, making her look even shorter than she already is.

Rachie let Sarah and I both to talk, and I can see her looking at me from time to time to check up on us. A few awkward minutes later, the birthday girl goes to talk to some other people. After all, everyone did come for her.

I find a bag of chips, grab my phone and sit on the desk chair where I stay for a while. I let the others play some drinking games without me, which are pretty entertaining from the side, and just like that the night goes by.

I guess it isn’t that bad.