Kissing Ellie. Honestly, I hadn't ever imagined kissing her. We were friends, just good friends in my mind. We'd become friends in grade 11 when Ashley sent me to her group. At first I was so pissed at her, at Ashley, because I didn't want everyone to know that I was crazy. That I was sick and broken. That's how I felt and then I go to that group and there's someone from school, Ellie, and I wanted to crawl under the floor.
But it was okay. Ellie was cool, and she wasn't really judgmental. It was almost as if she liked it, she liked that I had these, I don't know, issues. She had issues, too. Her mom had been an alcoholic, was one, her dad was off in Iraq, she'd been cutting. That whole cutting thing kind of scared me. Self mutilation. It was weird. I mean, yeah, I'd tried to kill myself in grade nine and probably would have if Sean hadn't pulled me off the train tracks. But I wasn't really trying to hurt myself. I was trying to end all the pain I was in. She was doing something different. Anyway, I don't know.
I guess I was aware, in a sort of compartmentalized way, that Ellie liked me. That time that Marco and Jimmy took off out of the Dot and left me and Ellie alone like they were setting us up or something, I mean, I knew then. But I tried to tell her we were friends, that that's all I ever wanted with her.
Manny. When I first met Manny with Emma in the library she was so cute, so…something. I don't know. I really liked her. That was grade nine, God that was so long ago. And I was dealing with my dad then, I still lived with him when I met Manny. I didn't have much free time for liking girls but then I moved in with Joey and things became easier. I went to that dance, that dress up 80's dance and Manny and Emma had snuck in and I danced with her. That was great. It was so sort of innocent. Manny and me, things got all serious and it was almost like committing adultery against Ashley. But that dance in grade nine, the 80's dance, that was this nice moment we had.
And Ashley. I mean, with Ashley, it's like we really got each other. I felt like she totally understood things like no one else could. I know I hurt her with Manny and everything. But in grade 11 we got back together and for a little while there things were perfect again.
I could feel Ellie's arms around my neck, her face tilted up to mine as she kissed me. Her eyes were closed but mine were open. This was not good. This was not a good choice. I lied to her just so she wouldn't tell Joey, just so I could keep doing the coke that I needed to do. This was low. I understood that because I knew how much she liked me, even though I tried to ignore it. I knew that she found reasons to touch me, that she smiled at me in that certain way, that her voice changed when she spoke to me. I saw all the signs and now that it was to my benefit I was using that. It was like I was turning her emotions against her just so I could get what I wanted. I felt sick.
The kiss broke, she pulled away and smiled. It was this delirious kind of happiness that scared me because I knew it wouldn't last. I looked at her, my eyes half shut.
"I love you," I said, and watched her smile widen even more, heard the little giggle. Part of me was thinking how sorry I was for what I was doing, and thinking that I wanted her to be really happy someday, with someone who would appreciate her and not just use her like I was doing.
"I love you, too," she said, and then she titled her head up again for another kiss and I leaned in like I always did with all these girls and kissed her. For the moment of this kiss I could still ignore it. I could ignore the fact that I just lied spectacularly to a girl who had been my good friend. I could ignore my craving shriveling need for the line of cocaine.
"So don't tell Joey, okay? I need it," I said, and I saw the crumbling start to take place. She went from happiness to confusion to anger in all of three seconds. Reality does tend to reassert itself. She yelled at me and shoved me and I stumbled back, and she threw the packet of cocaine at me and left, her hair swirling around her.
I grabbed up the packet and dumped a little on the surface of the coffee table that was in here, leaned over and snorted it up. I shouldn't have kissed her. That was really unfair to her. But I panicked. I didn't know what I was doing.