All I’ve been focusing on are the good experiences I’ve had with Elliott. I think that’s human nature to want to focus on the good and try to forget the bad.

     Elliott got really bad the summer before our senior year.

    At first, he was only drinking at the occasional party and the only recreational drug was weed, but soon he was drinking heavily, and he started taking harder drugs. He had changed and I had no idea why.

     It was at Jordan Long’s house party did everything seem to go downhill. Jordan Long had graduated three years before us, but he was most known for his parties. Elliott and I had gone to one or two of his parties, but never without the other. This time he had gone without me.

When I parked my car in front of Jordan’s house. Already I could feel dread spider-walking its way into my heart.

    Even from outside the music was blaring and inside, coupled with the mix of cigarette and blunt smoke and the reek of alcohol it had been disorienting. Before all this, these parties had been fun, if circumstances had been different maybe this party would have been the same. But this party… something had been off about it.

    I had weaved my way through the throng of party goers. I wasn’t there to party or have a good time, I was there to find Elliott.

    I had searched every room of the two-story house; even the rooms that had been occupied and I still couldn’t find him. It felt like an eternity before I did. I found him by the pool, Missy Colton on his lap.

   Jealousy and hurt had ripped through me, but I shoved those feelings to the pit of my stomach. I spotted the cocaine on the poolside table, all cut and pushed into neat lines. My jealousy and hurt were replaced with rage.

He had noticed me as I stormed over to the group. He gave me a drunken smile.

   “Queenie! My Queenie! What are you doing here?” Missy slipped from his lap when he had stood up to try and embrace me.

I had side-stepped away from him.

    “What are you doing here Elliott? What are you doing?” I had been trying my best to stay calm.

    “What’s it look like, I’m having fun! I’m partying!” he came over, threw his arm around my shoulders, trapping me to his side. “Join me, Queenie!”
We were drawing attention to ourselves, classmates – friends from school were watching us.

     “No, Ellie. I’m not –“
He cut me off with a loud groan, “Oh come on Queenie don’t be a party crasher! Party with me, you know you want too. Pretty please.” He had leaned down close to me, his nose brushing against my cheek, his lips left soft kisses against the shell of my ear.

    If things have been different, I would have relished in this moment. I would have committed it to memory. But this wasn’t Elliott, this was some stranger. And through the angry haze, I shoved him hard. Caught off guard, he tripped backwards right into Jordan’s pool.
He came roaring to the surface, coughing and sputtering.

    “What the hell, Eleanor?”
I stood with my arms crossed, I was sure my face was burning with embarrassment.

     “That’s what I’m supposed to say. You’re doing coke now? What’s next?”

Elliott scoffed and he had rolled his eyes.

    “Why are you acting like this, Elliott?!”

    “Acting like what Eleanor?!”

    “Like a fucking asshole! What’s going on? Your dad called me in tears worried about you! He said you were supposed to be at home!”
He had snorted, “What’s going on is none of your business!”

     “None of my business? Elliott, you’re my best friend – “

    “That’s right, my best friend but that’s it! You’re not my mom, you’re not my girlfriend! So, stay out of my business! And let me live my life!”
My heart was breaking, breaking, broken and I’m sure that it had shown on my face because for a fraction of a second his face fell as if there had been a moment of clarity.

    “’Living life?’ You call drinking yourself into a – a stupor and doing coke is ‘living life?’ You’re not living, you’re sabotaging your life!” I had started yelling, angry tears streaking down my cheeks.

      “Oh, fuck off Eleanor! You don’t know a damn thing about living and having fun! You’re just a boring, bitchy stick in the mud, whose greatest mission in life is to ruin my high!”

     His words had died around us, everyone outside had fallen silent, watching our spectacle. I sucked in deep, ragged breathes; I had been seeing red. My mind was blank and blood roaring in my ears. I wanted to say things to hurt him, I wanted him to feel as hurt as I did at that moment, but the words were lodged in my throat. So, I swallowed them.

     “Pathetic.” Was all I spat out; all I could muster up to say.

In my daze, I turned away from him and left that house. I never looked back, he wasn’t following, he was always too stubborn.

I left Elliott standing in that pool; an utter stranger to me.