Elizabeth IV

June 8th, 2012

I could hear “Somebody that I used to know” playing inside of Emily’s house as I waited outside.

I couldn’t believe I was actually doing this, especially alone. I wondered what people would say if this got out on Twitter. Cody promised that Andrew wouldn’t say anything but part of me already expects the text from Megan. She’s already hurt that I hadn’t spent as much of my time during the first week of Summer with her as she’d hope.

The whole week has been odd. Cody and I haven’t stopped texting each other. It’s just like middle school but this time we both know what we want. The only problem is that I don’t know what he wants. I just wanted a summer fling. I hoped he wanted the same thing.

Emily opened the door. She wore a black tank top and short shorts. I’ve finally got to see her body without anything hiding it. It confirms what I already thought. Emily’s anorexic. She’s skinny, too skinny as in I’m afraid I’ll break her if I were to tackle her, skinny. Emily has those heavy black bags under her eyes again. She hasn’t been sleeping and I wondered if it was because of me.

“Hey! You made it!” She greeted me with a hug. Her breath stank of alcohol and weed.

Emily house was pretty. Her mom clearly knew how to match colors with furniture so I compliment her on it. Anyone else would have tweeted it already, but Emily only tells me that it’s her dad. Her mom lives in New York. “Oh,” is all I said when she was taking me to her room.

Andrew was laughing even before I entered the room. He was sitting on Emily’s bed with a pipe in his hand. Sara was sitting next to him with a smile that faded as soon as she saw me walk in. Cody and Chris were playing a video game on the bed. Isaac and Stephanie were sitting across Andrew and Sara.

“You’re a f*****g f****t, Isaac!” Andrew yelled when he regained his composure. What a dick. He’s an idiot for thinking that he could get with me last week. “Oh! Little Miss Perfect is here.”

All the attention was turned to me. I was used to it, but this time it was different. No one here really gives a s**t about who I was.

“You made it,” Cody smiled, but besides that, didn’t give me much attention.

“You want a hit?” Stephanie asked, getting the pipe from Andrew.

I immediately thought this was a mistake. This was nothing like the kickbacks I had with my friends. My friends don’t smoke when I hang out with them in their houses. That’s my one rule. We drank, talked and hung out by the pool. We didn’t sit around a circle inside a mildly hot room.

“No thanks,” I said, taking a good look at Emily’s room. She really likes taking pictures as there are hundreds on her walls. It’s all friends and all Cody. She’s so obviously in love with him I don’t see how Cody just doesn’t want that. Emily’s a nice girl, they’ve been friends since they were kids, and are together all the time. Either he knows something about Emily I don’t, (Which is as much as everyone else) or he’s just stupid and blind.

“Right, Elizabeth doesn’t smoke, I forgot,” Emily said. She turned to me. “Wanna head downstairs and help me get the drinks ready?”

“Uh, sure.” The one thing Emily has on me is a bigger kitchen. Her dad must love cooking because I haven’t seen so much out in the open just ready to be used. Emily told me to get the juice out of the fridge as she got one of those big glass bowls. “Punch, really?”

“Do you rather drink hard alcohol with no chaser? Because that’s all I have.”

I sighed as I helped her mix the drink together. I looked at my phone to look at a text from Megan for a second. She wanted to hang out. I replied and said my mom was keeping me busy. When I looked back up, Emily was pouring a bit of everclear in punch. “Are you crazy?!”

“Only a little,” she laughed, “So what’s the deal with you and Cody?”

That seemed to be the most popular question for the week. “I don’t know. You’re not mad, are you?”

Emily shrugged, “Why would I be?”

I’m not the person who has ever held back. “Because you’re in love with him?

Emily laughed with her hand over her mouth, “He’s just my best friend, don’t get the wrong idea, Elizabeth.”

“So you’re not in love with him?”

“We’re in love with each other,” Okay. Emily had officially lost me. “But we’re not gonna date each other until we’re ready.”

“Okay, that doesn’t make any sense.”

“What I mean is that our friendship is too important right now.” This was Emily’s way of saying she didn’t care if I wanted to date Cody. I think. “If we’re asking questions, then why did you decide to join us?”

I started to think that Cody didn’t tell her we fucked. Yeah, that's the right word. Usually, I would say hooked up but that was a f**k. It was a good f**k. I get that craving again.

“I don’t know,” I responded, taking a spoon and tasting the punch. I couldn’t even notice there’s everclear in it. “I don’t know what’s going on in my life anymore.”

“What do you mean?”

“Sorry. We’re not friends.”

Emily crossed her hands, “Well now that you accepted the invitation that makes you my friend, whether you like it or not.”

“So it’s that it? You and Cody are just using me to be relevant again?” I said in a much bitcher tone than I intended. I immediately felt bad but I couldn’t lose my composure.

“No,” Emily mugged. “Believe it or not, we don’t care if you’re Taylor Swift or a street beggar as long as you’re don’t make everything about you. Take Andrew for example, you won’t find a bigger dick but at least he’ll let you do you.”

I was shocked. Nobody, but I mean nobody has ever talked back to me like that in a long time. At first, I was pissed, but that faded away the moment I felt that I wasn’t on top anymore. I wasn’t this person everyone was looking up to and it felt good. Emily may have a frail and weak body, but her words spoke of that natural confidence. This is how Emily and I became friends, even though I think she was at least a bit jealous and didn’t like me.

I found myself staring at the spinning ceiling on top of Emily’s couch. There was some music playing but I don’t remember what it was. “You okay?” Cody asked. I nodded, closing my eyes. I was at that stage where I was drunk enough to think I was having sober thought but couldn’t act on them. Cody left somewhere, leaving me to the spinning ceiling again. But I was drunk, like actually drunk. There are generally two different drunks.

Social party drunk, where you’re able to drink a lot more than you actually can because you need to keep up appearances and be social.

Solitary drunk, or in other words, what I am right now. I don’t have to worry about staying sober so everything started to spin faster.

Andrew’s face popped in. “Man, you girls can’t handle your drinks.”

I groaned, “Go awaaay.”

He laughed and sat on top of my heels. “You should really try smoking. How can you say you don’t do things when you don’t even know if you like it?”

“Hmm,” My eyes closed, “I can’t be corrupted.”

“Corrupted by what? Smoking a bit of weed isn’t going to be the end of the world.”

“You...you Andrew, wouldn’t understand.”

“Drew, leave her alone,” Emily said from somewhere.

“Try me.”

I groaned, opening my eyes again. “My brother…” I mumbled.

That got the ball rolling. All the negative thoughts kept rushing back. My brother, Matthew, came back. I haven’t seen him in five years. He might be dead, who knows. All I knew is that he was my best friend growing up and then one day he just vanished.