"What's the point?" Holly J. said. I looked at her, squinting my eyes against the sun. We were eating our lunch outside on the stone wall that edged Degrassi.
"What do you mean?" I said. I chewed my bolony sandwich. Holly J. and me, we looked a lot alike. We had the same straight dark blond hair and the same tiny nose and doll eyes. We were both the same height and had the same slender frame. I liked looking so much like my best friend, but I didn't think she liked it as much.
"What I mean, Anya, is what is the point to anything? High school? It's a joke. Boys. What do they matter? What does anything matter?"
The dullness of her voice, the hopelessness of those questions scared me. I took another bite of my sandwich and shrugged.
"I don't know. It's just what it is, I guess,"
She gave me that look like I might possibly be the dumbest person she's ever come across and I cringed. The thing was, sometimes I agreed with her.
"Thanks, Anya. You're a lot of help, like always,"
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After school, Sav carried my books. I smiled at him but I was worried about Holly J. Maybe he could see it in my eyes.
"What's wrong?" he said, tucking a stray strand of hair behind my ear.
"It's Holly J. She seems weird lately," I said. I liked Sav. I liked his straight black hair, his big dark eyes.
"Weird? Like how?" he said. I tried to explain the strange questions, the hopeless tone. It was eerie. I couldn't put my finger on it. But he tried to reassure me.
"I'm sure she's fine. Maybe she was just in a weird mood," he said, and I shrugged and then agreed. Maybe.
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Struggling through my homework. School didn't come easily to me. For years I thought I was stupid. It wasn't a thought that went away easily. My cell phone rang, and when it did it lit up blue.
"Hello?" I said.
"Hi," It was Sav. My heart started beating faster at the sound of his voice. I smiled.
"What's up?" I said, tapping my pencil against the remainder of my homework.
"Nothing. Lucas and me are going for a ride in my new car…want to come?" he said. I wanted to, but Holly J. had invited me over. With her weird mood and all I thought I should probably go over to her house. I told him and sounded sorry because I was, but he understood.
"Okay. Well, listen, I'll see you tomorrow, okay?" he said.
"Yeah," I nearly whispered, "okay,"
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Holly J. was still in a dark mood. Her curtains were drawn, making the room dark. I remembered some line from Shakespeare that I heard in Ms. Kwan's class, "he made for himself an artificial night," I thought it was from "Romeo and Juliet" but I wasn't sure. I hadn't done too well on that test.
"Look," she said, and she showed me a handful of chalk white pills.
"Holly J., what are those?" I said, my doll eyes wide.
"Pain pills. If you take enough of these you just float away," she said.
"What? What are you talking about? You can't, Holly J., you can't do that,"
I wasn't getting through. She wasn't listening. There was a wall up between us.
"You could take them, too. Then we'd both float away,"
And suddenly it didn't seem so bad. An easy way out. Sure, I liked Sav. But so much of the time there was worry, this endless grinding worry and an underlying anxiety and the feeling that nothing was right and nothing would ever be right. So maybe Holly J. had a point.
"Here," she said, and she poured half the pills into my outstretched hand. They felt chalky, like little bits of chalk from the chalk tray, no more harmful than that.
"Take them and lay down next to me," Holly J. said in this serene voice, and I felt hypnotized. She had the colored glass lamps in her room and it made it glow. The curtains blocked all the light from outside, but maybe outside didn't matter anymore.
"Okay," I said, and at the same time we swallowed our handful of pills. No one would come to save us, but maybe we didn't want to be saved. We laid down next to each other and waited for the pills to do their work.