Disclaimer: Not mine.
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Lights: Looking Back – Under the Surface
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It's hard, sometimes, trying to dig up buried deep recollections. Memories come and go, you file them away in the back of your head as a reminder, a token of proof that these things actually happened.
Because it becomes difficult to recognize that such things have truly occurred. I never wanted to look back, I still don't, not really. You hardly have a choice in the matters of memories, though, now do you? They creep up on you like a dark shadow, consume you and cripple you.
There are many good ones, and I know that one day I'll remember those. That they will rush to the surface of the ocean in my brain, bob up and down and I'll see my best friend for what she was and how she should be remembered.
But, now, when thoughts come without warning, I only see the negative. The things I was unable to notice or change. The things that shook me, but not enough to look for help. I knew they were wrong, that they weren't Kate. Not the Katey I knew.
She became a new person, broken pieces of her old self into a cold, harden, robot. She went to school, she rehearsed, and sometimes she barely spoke to me.
In January, two months after we sent in our applications for Julliard, we were notified of the formal live audition that would accompany our applications. It was to be taken place in downtown Chicago at a prominent theater the last Saturday of that month.
It wasn't like we already knew, but we still practiced non-stop. Kate did so, always, more than I did. She worked herself raw, her feet were shreds of skin and broken toenails.
The Friday before the audition, when we should have been working harder than ever, we both decided, or should I say that I talked Kate into not rehearsing. I made the argument of, "We've been so brutal on our bodies, we know this shit backwards and forwards, let's just take a break."
And for some weird reason, she agreed. She actually agreed without arguing back with me. She put up no fight and it was refreshing to say the least, that she wanted to take my advice of all things. We decided on skipping school that day. We left our neighborhood early on in the day and rented out a small hotel room near where the audition was taking place. It was to be one of those bonding experiences. Or, I thought it was going to be. We needed that, needed a much needed patch sewn on the remaining ripped parts of our friendship.
It wasn't. It was completely unlike how I imagined the night was going to be. Instead of sitting around being lazy, talking, and watching girly movies that I picked out and shoved into my overnight bag, Kate hogged the bathroom for over an hour. When she finally emerged from it, she looked twice her age.
"Think it's enough for not having an I.D.?" Her blond hair was pin straight, and fell in layers down her back. She was dressed in a short – very short – black dress and silver colored spiked heels.
"What the hell is that outfit for?" I said, my jaw somewhat dropping still at the site of her. I sat on the bed with baggy sweats and a messy bun in my frizzy hair.
"You're such a stick in the mud sometimes. We're alone, on a Friday night, in the city. I don't know about you, but I'm going out." Kate walked over to the hotel room dresser, picking up her purse and unzipping, taking out lipgloss.
"You never told me you were going to go out. I didn't bring anything to wear."
She slid the lip wand over lips back and forth, and then smacking them together to blend the sheer color in. "Sucks to be you, then, Iz."
I pursed my lips together and crossed my arms over my chest, angry and hurt all at once at her choice of words. "What happened to being so worried about tomorrow?"
Kate turned to look at me, a cold smile on her face. "You were right, I've been working way too hard. I think I've earned this break. Tomorrow I'll be all business but tonight I'm having fun."
"But – " I started to argue, trying to conjure up some idea to make her stay.
"Enough, I'm going. Don't wait up for me, all right? I'll see you in the morning." And, with those last words, she grabbed her clutch, tucking it underneath her arm and was out the door before I had the chance to blink.
I spent the remainder of the evening worrying. I kept debating on whether or not to get dressed in my sloppy jeans and go out looking for her. This was a big city though, especially the location we were in, bars and clubs on every street corner. She could be anywhere and it wasn't like she wouldn't be let it, Kate had been to these over twenty-one place more times than I care to count. She had that charm about her, a serpent like quality that clouded a bouncer's judgment.
Most likely, she was at some club, dancing with a guy way too old for her and letting him go broke with buying her drinks.
It wasn't like she was totally alone. She had her cell and I was here, boring old, reliable Izzy who'd go to the ends of the earth to pick her sorry ass up if she fell.
I paced and paced from one end of the hotel room to the other, mulling it over in my head, gnawing at my thumbnail until it was sore. And as that last thought occurred to me, I heard the annoying, recorded iPhone voice of "You have a text message." ring loudly from the dresser.
Instantly, I knew it wasn't my phone, my text notification was a light bell tinging sound. Kate, however, was always afraid she'd miss a message and insisted on having a loud, unforgettable way of getting her texts. But, most importantly, she forgot her phone. She was out there, alone, and she forgot her phone.
I rushed over to where it's located, and tapped the screen, sliding the unlock bar and touched the message icon. It was a breach in her privacy, but a thought crossed my mind that maybe she's texting from someone elses' phone, to see if her's is still at the hotel. It was a dumb idea, I knew that, but panic makes me think very dumb things.
My hopes were crushed shortly, as the message wasn't from Kate herself, it was from Leah Clearwater. Reading it was wrong, and I shouldn't have, but I did anyway.
Leah: You there? You weren't in school today, I was worried.
It was one message and yet quite intimate. Leah worried about Kate. And it was clearly obvious that they spoke more than either of them let on. I stared at the screen, and then another message appeared, again from Leah.
Leah: Listen, don't be upset, all right? I'm not mad anymore. Just call me, Katey.
I pressed the top button of the phone, letting it go black and told myself to not go back there in search of answers. Prying wasn't the way to get answers from the person I thought I knew best, asking questions was. I told myself, that that's what I would do the second she walked through that door. I would ask what was going on. Why was she not telling me she talked to Leah? What was the big deal in hiding their obvious friendship?
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When anxiety hits me, it's a rare thing that I'm able to relax, and this case was no exception to the rule. When I wasn't pacing the room backwards and forwards, waring the carpeted floor raw, I lay in bed with my eyes wide open. Sleep would never come like this, with nagging stress and a pool of inquiries taking me over.
I felt a tremble through my body, a drastic shake starting from my toes escalating to the top of my head, when I heard my phone vibrate on the side table next to the bed. I reached for it, my hands trembled as I clumsily tried to answer it. "Hello?" I didn't bother to glance at the number calling.
"Hi, is this Izzy?" The voice belonged to a male, a male who had no idea who he was talking to.
"Yes, who's this?"
"I'm Mark, one of the bartenders at Flush," he paused, and I let out a deep breath. "You're friend said to call you. Kate? Ring a bell?"
I rolled my eyes. "That depends. How much trouble is she in?"
Mark laughed, irritated, yet still able to find the humor in the situation. "She says she's out of money and can't get a cab home, forgot her phone and urged me to call you."
"Ah, I see. Where is she right now?"
"At the moment? Propped up against me, drooling, and half asleep. You may want to come and pick her up. We're on Rush Street. I'll be outside with her."
"Thanks, I'll be right over," I said as I clicked off my phone. I think deep down I figured that this would happen. I was always the reliable one, always the one to call when you needed help out of a sticky situation. Especially when that sticky situation involved Kate making an ass out of herself.
In less than five minutes I managed to dress myself and call a cab as fast as could. The ride down was short lived and just as bartender said, he was standing out on the corner of the sidewalk as we pulled up, Kate tucked underneath his arm.
I thanked him as he neatly placed her in the backseat of the cab beside me and as the door clicked closed, Kate fell across my legs, her eyes shut and fast asleep.
When we arrived back at the hotel, Kate woke up enough for me to help her change. When I finally got everything put together and my nerves took a break of being so frayed, I dumped myself onto the bed, finally feeling the comfort in the mattress beneath my wrung out body.
Kate shifted over to my space, her head taking the same position it had in the cab, across my lap. I sat up at the sudden weight on top of me, and looked down at her.
Her face was soft with a hint of pink scattered across her cheeks, a small reminder of the alcohol running through her system. I silently prayed she wouldn't feel it in the morning. The horrible reminder of a hangover is always the worst, and it's even more terrible when your college career depends on this one chance. If she was a mess on what she considered the most important day in her life, she would never forgive herself.
My hands sunk into her hair, my fingers running through it from her forehead down to her scalp. It was a comforting motion I did for her on those quiet occasions when Kate needed comfort, when she finally gave in and allowed herself to be vulnerable.
Her eyes fluttered open, deep blue and oddly clear, no sign of a boozy haze. "Izzaboo," she slurred. It was a funny nickname that only she called me.
"Katydid," I smiled, still stroking her hair.
"This time next year we'll be on our own, together. Just you and me." she said, a slight waver in her voice.
"Is that what you want, Katey, just you and me?" I asked, trying to gear up to my initial curiosity concerning Leah. But it didn't come, because once I had asked that question, Kate's face crumpled and a frown appeared.
Something I never thought of until right that moment left my mouth, before I could manage to think it over. "Maybe, me going with you – us being together in New York – maybe it's a mistake, Kate. Maybe we need that time to grow up without each other, you know?"
Kate's face smoothed at my choice of words and though a smile didn't appear, a stillness in her being did. She reached up to my face and tucked one of the loose strands of my hair, behind me ear. "But, Izzy," she said, "If you don't come who will be there for me? Who will rub my head and tell me everything is going to be all right? More than anyone else in this world, I need you. You're my other half."
It was the most absolute source of gratitude, I had heard her say. This acknowledgment that she knew I would always be there for her. I should have felt angry or upset that I was always the caregiver, but I didn't. I stopped questioning things, and easily tried to forget about them, because in that one moment, Kate had the ability to wipe away my uneasiness.
I thought that as long as I was around, so was she.
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