Bittersweet Read Free Page A

the sound of my voice as though I were a gnat.
    “Hey, Ev,” I said gingerly. She did not answer. I reached out to touch her sleeve.
    “Not now,” Ev hissed.
    “I thought we could—”
    “What part of
not now
don’t you understand?” She turned toward me, rage on her face.
    I knew well what it was to be dismissed. And I knew enough about Ev to know that she had spent much of her life dismissing. But it seemed so incongruous after the night we’d had—after I’d lied for her, and she’d finally acted like my friend—and so I remained frozen, watching Tilde steer Ev to the Lexus that Birch brought around.
    She didn’t come home that night. Which was fine. Normal, even. I had lived for months with Ev with no expectations of her—not of friendship, or loyalty—but by the next day, her dismissal wasgnawing at me, rubbing me raw, like the heels she’d lent me, making blisters I should have anticipated, and tried to prevent.
    Despite pulling on her boots and letting them cup my arches; despite allowing myself to wish, with every step I took, that the previous night’s unpleasantness had been an anomaly, the day turned worse. Six classes, five papers, four midterm projects on the horizon, a thirty-pound backpack, the onset of a sore throat, pants sodden with snowmelt, and a hollow, growing loneliness inside. Trudging up our hall as evening fell, I could smell the telltale cigarette smoke whispering from under our door and remembered our RA’s offhand comment about how next time it happened she’d be in her rights to fine us fifty bucks, and I allowed myself to feel angry. Ev had returned, but so what? I had asthma. I couldn’t survive in a room filled with smoke—she was literally trying to suffocate me. My asthma medication’s one benefit—justification for the extra weight I carried—wouldn’t do me any good if I were dead.
    I gritted my teeth and told myself to be strong, that I didn’t need the damn boots. I could just write to my father and ask for a pair (why hadn’t I done that already?). I didn’t need a Degas-bestowing supermodel snob lying around my room, reminding me what a nothing I was. I gripped the doorknob and told myself to say it how Ev would say it, formulated “Fuck, Ev, could you smoke somewhere else?” (I would make my voice nonchalant, as though my objection was philosophical and not an expression of poverty), and barged in.
    She usually smoked atop her desk beside the window, cigarette perched in the corner of her mouth, or cross-legged on the top bunk, ashing into an empty soda bottle. But this time, she wasn’t there. As I dropped my bag, I imagined with delighted gloom that she’d left a cigarette smoldering on the bedclothes before heading out to some glamorous destination—the Russian Tea Room, a private rooftop in Tribeca. The whole dorm was doomed to go up in flames,and I would go down with it. She would be forced to remember me forever.
    And then I heard it: a sniffle. I squinted at the top bunk. The comforter quivered.
    “Ev?”
    The sound of soft crying.
    I approached. I was still in my drenched jeans, but this was electrifying.
    I stood at that awkward angle, neck craned up. She was really under there. I wondered what to do as her voice began to break into a full, throaty sob. “Are you okay?” I asked.
    I didn’t expect her to answer. And I certainly didn’t mean to put my hand on her back. Had I been thinking clearly, I never would have dared—my anger was too proud; the gesture, too intimate. But my little touch elicited unexpected results. First, it made her cry harder. Then it made her turn in the bed, so that her face and mine were much closer than they’d ever been and I could see every millimeter of her flooding, Tiffany-blue eyes; her stained, rosy cheeks; her greasy blond hair, limp for the first time since I’d known her. Her mouth faltered, and I couldn’t help but put my hand to her hot temple. She looked so much more human this close