Even If I Die Alone

Chapter One: Spit Sisters

How many true pairs of best friends do you know? I mean, the real kind of best friends, the girls who know each other so well, inside and out, that they can almost finish the other's sentence. It's a scientific fact that twins can create their own language between each other, even before they're capable of coherent speech. When two girls are together as long as twins are, and are raised the same way that twins are, they can form that same sort of language. Risa and Clara were no exception. Before they could make full words other than 'ma', 'da', and 'mine', they would babble and giggle together for hours, the same way old ladies in a retirement home do. They were born each into the same month of 1882, two days apart. Their mothers were best friends and neighbors, and they passed that friendship on to the girls. Risa was in the room the day Clara was born, and from then on, never went a day without seeing her. Both poor girls, there was never a chance to go on vacation, and when they were sick, they simply visited the other. People in their apartment building would be surprised to see one alone. One of their neighbors once started a rumor that Risa was dead because she saw Clara walking down the hall alone.

It's hard to keep a friendship throughout your entire life, especially with someone who knows you so well. If you know someone the very best, you learn all their faults, along with all the remarkable things about them. But Clara and Risa stuck together, and even if they had a fight, they would make up a day later.

When they were just toddlers, they ran along the streets of Brooklyn as if it was the hall between their apartments. It wasn't dangerous to them, it was just a big street with lots of people on it. They would always wave hello to the big boys selling newspapers on the corners, the ones with the easy laughter and the happy grins. Those boys were their heroes, the boys who could live without their parents and family, just live by themselves. The girls would follow the boys around like trained puppies, hoping that maybe one of them would say hi to them, even a nod would be enough. There was one boy in particular who caught the girl's eyes. He was tall and lanky, with a perfect smile and glowing emerald eyes. Both girls had a crush on him, they would sit around for hours and plan their weddings.

His name was Simon Timmings, and he was to become one of the greatest leaders Brooklyn had ever seen, other than Spot Conlon, of course. He was four years older than the girls, but that didn't stop them from following him all over the city. He didn't mind, of course, he even let them sell some of his papers. They were so cute that almost anyone would by from them. And it wasn't just that… They had a way of connecting with their customers, even at the young age of four.

When they were five, they started going to the distribution office early every morning and buying their own papers, then selling them for the rest of the day. When they had both sold every last paper, they would go to a bench and put their money in the middle, then dole it out evenly between the two. This ritual never left them, every day until the day they stopped selling newspapers, they would meet on the same bench and split the money exactly down the middle, neither caring if they had gotten way more money that day, because they knew that any other day, the other might have gotten the majority.

When Risa was six, her dad lost his job. Her parents started counting on Risa for her money, and Risa reluctantly gave it to them. Clara started saving only enough money to get a stack of papers the next morning, and gave the rest of her earnings to Risa. Eventually, Risa's dad found a job, in Connecticut. They had to move two days after he was given the job. Two days for Risa to say goodbye to the life she had known and loved for so long.

The night before they left, Risa sat in her room, holding Clara's hand and crying. The two small children were quiet, listening to Risa's parents argue through the thin walls of the apartment. Her mother was crying, saying she didn't want to leave Clara's mother, she loved her almost as much as she loved her own family. They argued far into the night, Clara and Risa never moving, afraid that if they made too much noise, they would stop their fighting and Risa's mom wouldn't win. But Risa's mom didn't win. Risa heard her mother reluctantly sigh, tears falling. "I don't want to leave my life," she had said resolutely, giving up. Risa, on the other hand, did not give up so easily. She said a fake goodbye to Clara that night, acting as though she was leaving her, but instead she left her parents. She walked into the dark night, just a little girl climbing down a fire escape at four in the morning, headed towards a house filled with smelly boys and dirty clothes.

She snuck quietly up the stairs of the Newsboys Lodging House, looking around as she did. The floor was filthy, dirt and mud everywhere, and the walls had large chunks missing. She walked into the first door she saw, finding that it was filled with sleeping boys. There were bunk beds and cots everywhere, crowding the place, and at the end of every bunk or cot, there was a small trunk, with clothes shoved inside carelessly. Risa could see that there was no room for her, but she wasn't about to give up. She looked at the small faces, trying to find a certain one by the moonlight. Then, she saw the handsome face of Simon, his arm slung carelessly across his forehead. She tiptoed over to him, avoiding all the beds and trunks on the way. She knelt down by his bed and gently shook him. He opened his eyes slowly, looking over at the girl kneeling next to him.

"Risa?" he muttered, sitting up. "What are you doing here."

"I need a place to live," she said strongly, ready to face whatever challenge he shoved forth.

Simon looked her up and down, just a little girl, but he knew what she could do selling those papers, and he knew she was just as strong, maybe stronger, than any boy here. So he did something that caused a change in the way the Brooklyn Newsies worked. He let a girl join their ranks. He let her sleep in their room, work with them, and live the same way as them.

Risa slept in Simon's bed that night, he slept on the ground. The next morning, when Clara realized what had happened in the night, she snuck out too, and became the second girl in the Brooklyn Newsboys history.

Risa and Clara never heard from their parents again. They didn't care enough to search for them, and the girls didn't care enough to tell them where they were. One day, Clara watched her parents leave her house, headed down the road the same direction Risa's parents had left. Clara smiled a sad smile, watching her parents do exactly what she had done. They gave up their prior life to be with those they loved. Maybe that's what parents are for, someone to give you life, then abandon you so you can learn to grow on your own. As people grow, they learn that can't always depend on others, but to learn that at the young age of six is a sad thing, a sad thing indeed. Growing up isn't easy, and it shouldn't have to happen before you can read.

The girls fit in well at the lodging house. The boys were slobs, the girls soon discovered, but instead of giving up and letting the world become their trash can, the girls started to clean up after them, not wanting to live in their own filth. The girls also started to cook for them, as they were the only two capable of making anything edible in the small kitchen next to the bedroom. The girls didn't mind that they had taken on the stereotypical life of a woman, they actually enjoyed that the boys respected them for what they did, they would pick their own clothes of the floor, afraid that the girls would yell at them if they found them there. They would even bring dirty dishes to the sink for the girls, never going as far as washing them, but it was still something.

At the tender age of 12, despite the rumors of who started the spit shake, Risa and Clara began a new craze. It had actually started when they were 4 and they had decided that if they swapped spit they would become Spit Sisters. One boy caught them doing it in the year 1894, and so began a frenzy. Spit went flying everywhere in the beginning, not many people actually spitting in their palm, not wanting to feel the sticky saliva between their fingers. At first people spat onto the ground, mixing their spit in one spot, but that took too much time, and you needed good aim, which so few are born with. Eventually, people got over their disgust and spit in their hands. Don't listen to the rumors, Spot Conlon didn't start it, Jack Kelley didn't start it, and don't let anyone tell you Racetrack started it, he made that rumor up himself.

Their was another boy who caught the girls' eyes at a young age. His name was Scalp, a name that was given to him because of an unfortunate case of dandruff he had, that always had him scratching at his scalp. Scalp idolized Simon more than the girls did, he wanted to be exactly like Simon, and he tried, hard, to complete that goal. But, while Simon was nice to the girls, he was cruel to Scalp. He made fun of the poor boy when he tried to imitate him, and he would laugh at him behind his back with the other boys. The girls lost a lot of respect for Simon when he acted like that, and they gave him the nickname Harsh, which stuck with him until the day he died.

Scalp was a quiet boy, very shy, and he was rather chubby in the beginning. He blushed very easily, and didn't talk to anyone but the girls. When people started being mean to him about Harsh, he ignored it, but the girls knew it was bothering him. He would talk less and less, and he began to retreat into a shell. No matter what Risa or Clara did, he just grew more and more frustrated at the world. When he was only seven, he left the Brooklyn Newsies and joined the Queens Newsies. The girls didn't speak to him at all afterwards, completely unsure of how he would react to a letter or visit from them. Brooklyn quickly forgot about that shy boy, and eventually Clara and Risa even let it go too. They went back to treating Harsh like royalty. The only difference Scalp had made was Simon's nickname, because it didn't leave along with the memory of that chubby little kid.

A man they called Potsy was the leader of the Brooklyn Newsies at the time when the girls joined them. But one night, Potsy didn't come back to the lodging house, and was never seen again. Harsh immediately took up the position, and became leader at only twelve.

Spot Conlon joined the Newsies in 1880, at the young age of 8. Everyone automatically liked him, he had a strong sense of leadership and was tough, as tough as many of the older boys and even as tough as Risa and Clara. Everyone knew Spot Conlon was destined for great things, knew that they would one day speak his name with pride. They would proudly stand up and say "I knew Spot Conlon back in the day, before this and that happened to him." But that day was not to come for a while, fate would almost cause it to never come.

Clara grew quite fond of Spot from the beginning, too fond for her own good. She followed that boy like a puppy with wide eyes, begging him to turn around and love her. This made Risa sick, she couldn't even look at Spot without imagining her best friend trailing behind him. She liked Spot, too, genuinely, but she didn't realize that while she liked him as a friend, he liked her as much, much more.

If you had told anyone that Risa and Spot would become reigning King and Queen, they would have considered you a nut case. Everyone assumed Spot would return Clara's crush, and the two would marry and live happily ever after. But such did not happen as expected. Clara grew out of her crush, a fact that astonished many. She actually became angry with him quite often, had to be calmed down by Risa hissing soothing things into her ear. That's how it always was. Clara showed her emotions, wore them on her sleeve, but Risa hid things, never wanted people to take her emotions as a weakness. That, in itself, was her biggest weakness.

Before Spot was with Risa, he had a reputation, one that was only half true. It was true he was no longer a virgin, it was true he had become a bit of a lady's man, but it was not true that he had no heart, it simply belonged to someone else. Someone who wouldn't share the love, so he searched for it in other places.

Many times, you expect someone to become the way Spot was because of his father. It's a classic story, his father doesn't give him love, he searches for it in other women along the way, he becomes a hardened shell of a man, getting loved but never loving in return. But, alas, this was not true. Spot's father never hit him, Spot never went without food, his father was a good man. He was a butcher in Brooklyn for many years, and loved Spot as much as a man who sliced animals for a living could love someone. His only fault was that he was not careful, not careful at all. Spot was only 6 when his mom got the telegram, telling her that her husband had been in a "butcher's accident." In other words, the knife had slipped out of his hand and stabbed him in the stomach, causing severe internal and external bleeding.

But how is it that a man who grew up in a butcher's shop, can suddenly "drop" the knife and stab himself in the stomach so roughly. How must he have been cutting the meat to do so? It seemed another hand must have been involved in this murder…

After that, Spot's mother abandoned him. She left him with the newsies when he was 8, and, after 2 years of being the man of the house, he had grown his hard outer shell, his leadership abilities, his capability of handling sticky situations. Handling a wreck of a woman for 2 years wasn't easy. He had to cook for her, clean for her, pay the bills somehow, which often involved stealing, and at the same time find time to grow as a child. He seemed to have missed the growing as a child part, he had become a man at the young age of 6.

His heart belonged to Risa from the start. Of course, no one knew this, not even Ashes, Spot's best friend. Ashes had always thought that Spot had just enjoyed the chase, only wanted Risa because she didn't want him. No one knew this but Clara, that is. Spot had accidentally told Clara one evening. They were 14, sitting on the roof, legs swinging over the side, and he had blurted it out when Clara asked him why they weren't together. "Because I'm in love with Risa." It wasn't "Because I have a crush on Risa," "Because I want up Risa's skirt," no, it was love. True love. That's when Clara began to get angry at him, angry at him for acting like something he wasn't, pretending he didn't love Risa when she knew he did. And yet Risa could always calm Clara down in time. Before she said something she'd regret. Clara moved on from Spot easily, the two staying friends, despite her sudden bouts of anger.

Before Spot went out with a girl, no matter how beautiful or sweet or wonderful the girl was, he would always tell her that he wasn't going to get involved. And yet he always knew how to choose the one's that didn't care, the ones that were too drunk or high or horny, or just wanted to be able to say that they were once held by Spot Conlon. Who knows why so many girls slept with Spot so willingly, maybe we never will, but they did, and Spot never turned them down.

Risa didn't know of this, Risa was far too hidden in herself. She held her emotions in, taking them out only in a small black diary she carried everywhere, a diary so small it would fit into her trouser pocket. This diary one day would make the not yet leader of Brooklyn, the almighty Spot Conlon, curl into a ball and cry as he had never cried before. But that wouldn't be until much later, until their story had progressed.

Spot and Risa grew close during their teen years. Risa learned that Spot wasn't just a cocky boy, that he had deep troubles within, and she tried to help him as much as she could, she didn't get annoyed when he hid behind his attitude. When Clara would yell, Risa would just try to make her best friend stop, because she knew Clara didn't understand that Spot was dealing with a lot. Risa always thought Spot thought of her as a best friend as she did to him, but she was wrong, and as she grew, she realized that she didn't think of Spot as just a best friend either.

Spot hid his love as much as Risa hid her emotions. No one thought they would end up together at this rate. And, before Spot could confess that love to her, he had other things to deal with. Like ruling his kingdom, the great kingdom of Brooklyn, handed down to him that year by the previous fearless ruler. And when Spot was 16, a new problem was to arise. One he chose not to deal with, one that almost cost him his life.

A/N: Check it out, I'm up way earlier than I expected. And I think we all owe it to the gorgeous Banoonie Po, my best friend in the world. Without all that nagging, this never would be. Now that you're entraptured by my story, I hope, I suppose I should tell you some things about the wonder that is my life. One, I am a girl of many things, one of those things involving wearing earrings on my finger as rings, another involving being scared out of my mind by Ju-On, one of the many Japanese movies my brother loves to show me. Two, I just saw the movie Garden State, and it is possibly the most amazing movie ever created. See, I know what you're all thinking. You're going: Oh my, she likes it better than Newsies. She should be stoned to death. Well suck it, it was amazing. There's no beating it, I'm afraid. Three, I'm 14, a freshman, shiver, and I hope my young age does not show in my writing. Four, my name is Sara, but don't assume that because of that I'm a snob. It is a really snob-like name, I must say. But my name shows I'm free spirited because it has no h at the end, and Sarah's are more likely to be pompous bitches who eat babies. Five, I am currently looking at my damn sexy school picture (I totally had straight hair in it... wacko), my sister's smocking hot senior picture (she's laying in what looks a bit like that pink insilation stuff they put in house walls), a picture of Dan, my brother, in a suit holding a gun to the camera, and a senior picture of my good freind Brennan, in which he is holding a large stuffed gingerbread man. I think that describes quite a bit of my life. If anyone who is reading this is a fan of good Japanese cinema, and by good I mean no anime, or of Garden State, the soundtrack of Garden State, or bands on the soundtrack of Garden State, contact me. You seem like the type of person I like to associate myself with. Email me: or contact me via AIM: StarburstQueen34.

What follows is a long list of Thanks:

Katherine- Was this soon enough? Now write more in your reviews, you dolt, and please continue to review!

Bitemytoesmrmoe- Thanks, I quite liked that line! By the way, your name is seriously the most amazing I've ever heard. You must be wonderful in bed.

BlackWiltedRose- Why thank you, thank you very much. I'm glad I caught your interest, now enough about me... let's talk about you.

Dreamer- What's with the signing your name in all caps? Man, you sound cool, I gotta say. Be my friend?

sYaOrAnRoXmiSoX- I'm not even gonna ask about your name... You seem to like those crazy little text tricks. Such as: Oo and . OH I TOTALLY GET IT! THEY'RE FACES! My God, you're a genius. Marry me?

Elyse- Maybe that man is infact solient green, therefore the people. See, now that didn't make sense unless you've seen or read Solient Green. Have you seen or read Solient Green?

Love97- Glad you reviewed, as I love your story to death. Honestly, to death. I tried to kill it. Didn't work. I called it a fairytail, by the way, because I was reading the book Snow as I was working on that, and Snow is like the rewriten fairytail of Snow White. It's a great book, I suggest you read it immediately.

Midnight Flare- Now see, your review... that just made me pretty damn happy. You are an amazing creature, yes, creature, and I hope you review again and again and again. By the way, I think I should hook you up with my friend Kevin, he can sit for hours in front of my fireplace. It's semi-creepy. Only problem is he's going out with one of my best friends... that might get in the way...

THANK YOU EVERYONE WHO REVIEWED! I LOVE YOU TO DEATH! Please review, new and old alike. I want criticism though, otherwise how am I going to improve? And if you just want to talk, you can email me, I quite like talking, if you can't tell. Keep up with me, bitches!

I love you all to death,
-Sara/Irish