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| Image by KAVOWO from Pixabay |
Colin didn’t like to be kept waiting, but that’s exactly what he had been doing for almost a half hour in Emmalee’s hotel lobby. He was considering that she might not come. Perhaps he had overestimated her anxiety. But just before he could begin to consider himself disappointed, she strolled into the lobby, fully dressed.
So, he hadn’t overestimated her. He had simply underestimated her femininity.
“I suppose I should have told you we’re just going for a drive.” He told her.
“I suppose there are many things you should have told me.”
“Are you regretting your scene earlier today? Because that wasn’t my fault.”
She stayed silent, and Colin began walking toward the door. Thankfully, she followed. He had worried she would cause another scene, and he really wasn’t in the mood to play any games right now. He had only prepared for a brief drive around the block, enough time to give her just enough information to keep her interested.
Colin had a car waiting for them at the curb when they stepped outside. The driver was another associate of Harlem’s, and had the car door opened for them already. Colin gestured for Emma to get in first, but she hesitated.
“I don’t trust you.” She said.
“Understood.” Colin nodded. “Get in.”
“I’m not getting in a car with a stranger. I don’t even know your name.” She shook her head and took a step back. “I don’t trust you. I’m not getting in.”
Colin sighed and rolled his eyes.
“Trust goes both ways.” He said. “I’m trusting that you’ll get in this car and hear what I have to tell you in confidence, and you’re trusting I won’t kill you and will give you the information you seek.” He waved his hand toward the car again. “So get in.”
Emma hesitated, clasping her hands tightly in front of her waist. She met Colin’s gaze, and held it for a while. Then, she sighed and immediately climbed into the car, as if another second of hesitation would have her running back up to her hotel room.
Colin got in after her and the driver shut the door before getting into the driver’s seat. The driver was already informed of the route, so he began driving immediately while Colin and Emma sat in silence for a moment. Colin was staring at Emma, taking in the anxious expression on her face, the way she clasped her hands tightly in her lap, the smooth curve of her neck as she looked out the window, intentionally avoiding Colin’s gaze. Finally, she looked at him, her green eyes staring into his forcefully.
“Well?” She said.
“Madame Delveaux was reported missing four days before her - or really your - appearance in New York,” Colin said, “by her mother. Which wouldn’t have been suspicious if her mother hadn’t been dead for three months already. Care to explain?”
“Perhaps she wanted attention. Daddy issues.”
“Is that so?”
Emma shrugged, and looked back out the window.
“I don’t see how my story has anything to do with yours, and that’s the only reason I’m here. Who are you? What do you want with me?” She asked.
“That’s pretty straightforward for somebody who likes to play games.”
“That doesn’t answer my questions. Who are you?”
“A friend.”
“I don’t have friends.”
“Well, then. Why should I help you?”
Emma sighed.
“What’s your name?” She asked. “Can you at least answer that?”
“I don’t know. Does it matter? If we’re not friends?”
She clenched her fists, and glared at him.
“I don’t understand what you want from me.” She said through clenched teeth.
“You’re not supposed to.” He grinned. “Not yet.”
“I don’t even know what that’s supposed to mean!” She took a deep breath, and looked at him. “Did Sergei send you? Is that what this is about?”
Colin was caught off guard. There was nothing about a Sergei in her file.
“Sergei?” He asked.
She looked out the window again.
“Nevermind.” She said.
There was silence as Colin tried to recall any mention of Sergei. Her file had only contained her various identities and how she had stolen them. There had been nothing about Sergei, though. Colin was sure of it. He’d memorized every detail of the file. Who was this Sergei? What did he have to do with Emmalee? Or perhaps the better question was why she was so afraid of him? Is that why she was on the run? Constantly changing identities? Perhaps it was more than just boredom fueling her escape into different lives.
Colin was so lost trying to figure everything out that he didn’t realize Emma had been slowly shifting towards the car door. By the time he snapped back to the present long enough to gauge her next move, she already had the door open and was prepared to jump. He quickly grabbed a hold of the green dress she was wearing, but she was already gone. He watched her tumble onto the street, gripping nothing but a ripped piece of green cloth.
“Stop the car!” He yelled to the driver, and the driver slammed on his brakes.
Colin hopped out of the car, and dashed toward Emma.
But she had already disappeared.
A fictional interpretation of a song by Passion Pit.
Frenemy: a person with whom one is friendly despite a fundamental dislike or rivalry.
Amanda Tilsdy became equal parts my best friend and my greatest enemy the day her boyfriend, Chad, kissed me in the middle of Times Square. Hundreds of people around, but in that moment it was just us. And after the kiss he leaned close to my ear and whispered “Our little secret.”
It was the first secret I had ever kept from Amanda.
And after that, I spent every moment with Amanda, every sleepover, every nightly phone call, every lunch period at our special table in the cafeteria, imagining that kiss with Chad, hoping he would break her heart, leave her, come to me. Amanda was my best friend, but with just one moment, she also became my biggest rival, and therefore my enemy.
“What’s the matter with you?” Amanda asks. “Hello?” She waves a freshly manicured hand in front of my face. “Are you there?”
“Yes, of course.” I say.
“Well? What do you think?”
She’s standing in front of the dressing room mirror in a frilly, pink dress, her prom dress. She knows how much I hate pink, and shopping, and especially pink clothes shopping, but she dragged me along anyway, and all I can think is how much I hate her. I hate her for wearing pink. I hate her for shopping. And I especially hate her for sinking her pink-painted nails into Chad, and refusing to let go.
“Perfect.” I say. “Very pink.”
She grins. “You’re right. It’s definitely The One.”
She spins around and around in a fluffy, pink blur and I’m thinking, Chad is The One for me, and I want to tell her because I’ve never kept secrets from Amanda, but I know I can’t. It’s our little secret.
***
It began on the summer field trip to New York. Amanda couldn’t go because she was spending the summer in Bora Bora with her father and his new girlfriend half his age. Not that Amanda minded. The new girlfriend was willing to do just about anything Amanda asked her to in order to get on her good side, and Amanda’s father was paying for Amanda to stay in the suite of her choice.
I was bummed at first, of course. Amanda and I had been looking forward to the summer trip to New York since we were freshman. It was the single most exciting monument of our upcoming seniorship, and we were supposed to take New York by storm together. We had plans to ditch the school crowd and travel around the city on our own. We had plans for an epic adventure, tossed aside as soon as the offer of Bora Bora was presented to Amanda.
But Chad was there. Amanda and Chad had been dating for about three months by that point, but they hadn’t seen each other all summer. Chad worked at the local crab shack, and had barely been able to manage to get the two weeks off for the senior summer field trip. Amanda was allergic to seafood so she never visited him while he was working, and on weekends, she preferred to spend all her time shopping with her father’s unlimited credit card.
Chad and Amanda came from different worlds. I never understood what they saw in each other. Amanda complained about Chad incessantly, and during the trip, Chad didn’t speak of Amanda at all. I thought they had broken up.
So I let him kiss me.
And then, when school started two weeks later, I found out why Chad asked me to keep the kiss a secret.
***
Should I be mad at Chad for lying to me? I realized that I couldn’t because he hadn’t lied to me. Not really. I had assumed that he and Amanda had broken up. But they hadn’t. He gave me no reason to assume otherwise.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were still with Amanda?” I asked Chad.
I stormed into his work demanding answers after the first day of school after spending the whole day watching Amanda kiss the same lips I had kissed in Times Square only a week earlier.
“I thought you knew, I swear.” Chad said. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t ever speak to me again.” I said, and then I left.
But he did. He came over to my house that night after work, still dressed in his uniform, and told me everything. How much he loved me, how much I mattered to him, how much he wanted to break up with Amanda and be with me, but was too afraid.
“I don’t want her to hate you.” He said. “She’s your best friend. I can’t ruin that.”
So it became our little secret. My nightly phone calls with Amanda were replaced by nightly phone calls with Chad, and our slumber parties were cut short so I could spend the night with Chad instead. I started noticing all the ways Amanda wasn’t right for Chad, started hoping, started praying, their relationship would end.
I got carried away from Amanda with each passing day.
***
In high school, it’s all too easy to take everything that matters for granted. In a way, we all revert back to our childhood years when we believed becoming a princess or a superhero is a realistic option. All the boys want to drive fast cars, and speed away with a pretty girl. And all the girls want shiny hair and a boy to grant her every wish. Perhaps because we like the drama it brings. Or perhaps because we realize high school is our last chance to be children. After graduation, we realize, our life begins. And that’s a scary thought.
But whatever the reason, I fell into the delusion, and lost sight of what mattered to me.
I got carried away with dreams that weren’t reality and wishes that would never come true. By the time reality sunk in, I had lost my best friend. And Chad? He was long gone too.
The truth is, getting carried away is easy while facing reality is hard. But if we never face reality, we’ll get smacked with it in the worst possible way. I know this now. And next time, I’ll make sure I don’t get carried away.
