6
ELLE
IT’S IMPORTANT FOR ME to give you some context about Tabby. You need to know how she met Mark. It was because of me, so this is all partially my fault. I forced her to go mini-golfing last summer since my dad had a Groupon he didn’t want to waste.
“I hate mini golf,” Tabby said. “You have to wear those ugly shoes that a thousand people’s feet have been in.”
“That’s bowling. I promise that if you go with me, I’ll get you ice cream after.”
We never did get the ice cream, though. We took so long mini-golfing that the group behind us—a bunch of boys who looked a few years older—caught up. Tabby had grown frustrated at that point and went to kick the ball in with her foot.
One of the boys laughed. Tabby spun around. “Is something funny?”
“Your, uh, technique. It’s interesting.” He leaned on his golf club.
“And you can do better?”
He shrugged. “Well, I don’t need to use my foot.”
“What can I say? When there’s a problem, I fix it. I don’t need some guy to mansplain something to me.”
“Mansplain?” He was laughing, but she wasn’t.
“Yeah. When some asshole guy tells a girl how to do something better.”
And that was the start of them. Tabby was always obsessed with the idea of having someone to argue with. Her parents were still together, but they were more like placeholders than actual people. They didn’t bicker or disagree, because neither of them had any fight left.
Tabby loved Mark. He wasn’t a perfect boyfriend, and she wasn’t a perfect girlfriend. They hurt each other by accident. They hurt each other on purpose. Sometimes there’s such a fine line between the two that you barely notice it until you’re jamming the proverbial knife in deep enough to graze bone.
Now, here’s something about me and Tabby. We’ve been friends since the first week of eighth grade, and it was blood that brought us together. Specifically, I was bleeding, and she was there. Me, staring at my underwear in a school bathroom stall, frantically pinching the ruined pink of my skirt between a wad of toilet paper, willing the stain to disappear. I had waited until it was totally quiet before leaving the stall, where I tried pulling the skirt away from my ass and sticking it under the sink tap. That was how Tabby found me. She was the new girl, and stories had already circulated about her. How she came from New York, how her dad was a musician who had a big hit in the nineties, how she was a child model, how she wasn’t a virgin. How that big black cross necklace she sometimes wore was really filled with cocaine.
I knew I would cry when she laughed at me, standing there with my bloody underwear and wet skirt. I braced myself for the impact. But she just reached into her purse and pulled out a tampon.
“Here,” she said. “I always carry extra.”
I didn’t want to tell her that it was my first time bleeding, a moment I knew Mom would want to celebrate with me when I got home from school. I had no idea how to use a tampon, but it was too embarrassing to admit that to Tabby. I somehow didn’t have to.
“The first time I got mine, I was at a pool party. Wearing a white bikini. That was when I knew there was no God.” She laughed, which was more like a bark. “These ones have plastic applicators. As far as I’m concerned, there is no other kind. Just kind of squat and push it in. I’m here if you need help.”
I really fucking hoped I didn’t, and luckily, it only took me a couple minutes of trying in the stall before it went in without much resistance. By the time I came out and washed my hands, Tabby had shrugged out of her oversized plaid shirt, which she proceeded to tie around my waist.
“There. Now nobody will ever know what happened. Plus, your outfit looks cooler now.”
I laughed, and so did she. I wanted to hug her, but I didn’t. I spent the entire night totally paranoid that she had told everyone about me and my period, about the mess she covered up. The next day, I figured it would be awkward to see her in the halls, but it wasn’t. She came over to my locker and started talking to me, and after that, we never really stopped talking. She meant it when she said nobody would ever know what had happened.
Tabby and I have things in common. We were both named after our grandmothers—Tabitha and Eleanor—and we both hate our names, so when high school started, we ditched them for the nicknames they had the decency to lend themselves to. She became Tabby and I became Elle, and we became different with the loss of those extra letters, girls who wanted to lose more.
We both like to be the center of attention. Sometimes it’s like we’re fighting for a spotlight that doesn’t even exist. I’m not content to orbit her sun, nor she mine. Usually with girls there’s one friend who is okay with being behind the scenes, propping the other one up, always the sidekick, loyal and a bit shy. We’re unbalanced that way, both outspoken, clamoring to get everyone else to notice us. Sometimes they notice too much.
We both like Real Housewives and karaoke and jalapeños. We love Halloween because it means we can dress up without being judged for wanting to show skin (at least, not as much). We spend too much time on Snapchat, filtering the shit out of our faces. We want to travel somewhere together after high school is over, even though we never did agree where. Tabby says Australia, and I say Thailand. Somewhere we can work as waitresses and live in hostels and chew through boys like candy.
And then there’s the other thing we have in common: Beck Rutherford. But I’ll tell you more about him later. I don’t want you to hate me right away.
