Those supermarket cocktails aren’t very strong, which is why Amy bought the bottle of vodka. We’re now on our third one—margaritas topped off with voddie—and I’m well on my way to being a little bit squiffy.
“I so love your hair!” Amy says for about the squinchillionth time, and strokes it. I actually kind of like that. It makes my spine feel all fizzy and melty. Maybe this is why cats arch their backs when they’re stroked. “You look like someone’s poured pure liquid amethyst over your head.” She slurs a little over “amethyst,” which comes out more like “ameshyst.” This makes me giggle and take another long suck on my straw. I wince. God, that’s strong.
“And you look just like Harley Quinn,” I say. “She always was the best and mosht beautiful.” And she does. One side turquoise, the other pink. She looks even more like a fey creature than usual, with her enormous liquid brown eyes and her sculpted cheekbones and those pink, slightly parting lips . . .
Jesus Christ. I think I need to slow up on these cocktails.
As it turns out, Amy’s idea of a Proper Girls’-Night-In Entertainment isn’t some crappy rom-com but is in fact a bunch of nasty, low-budget horror DVDs she cadged in a three-for-a-tenner deal. Color me surprised. She also ordered half the pizza menu after declaring that she was “shtarving” and clutched her nonexistent stomach as if that would emphasize the point.
She’s poured out another cocktail-slushie for us. We’re dangerously low on vodka now, something I think is probably for the best. I hope she doesn’t suggest going out to get more—she’s half my size but is definitely handling the huge amounts of alcohol better. I literally have no idea how she does it. Metabolism? Must be. Either that or she really is a moon-child from beyond the stars who was raised on mead and little else.
The buzzer to the flats goes off just as we’re anticipating yet another contrived-yet-secretly-terrifying jump scare, and I have to stop myself from screaming, which makes Amy laugh hysterically. She asks me to pause the film and then runs out of her room shrieking “Pizza! Pizza! Pizza!” while I sit awkwardly on her bed, blinking in an attempt at trying to stop the room from spinning.
A few moments later, Amy comes back bearing gifts . . . and what gifts they are. Three large pizzas, garlic bread with cheese, potato wedges, mozzarella sticks, BBQ chicken wings, sour cream dips, and a large bottle of Coke. I have to stop myself from drooling as she lays out the feast on her floor. She plonks herself in front of it and pats at the space next to her, inviting me to sit with her. I grab what remains of both our cocktail slushies and pick my way through the food mountain to join her.
“Need a plate?” she says, with a mischievous grin.
“Are you kidding me?” I quip back.
And she laughs, long and hard, before picking up a quite frankly enormous slice of pepperoni and cramming half of it in her mouth. I think it’s safe to say that it’s one of the sexiest things I’ve ever seen in my life, and I stare to the point where she has to nod meaningfully at the food while saying something that might be “tuck in” if her mouth wasn’t already full to bursting with pizza.
I reach out for a slice, grinning, and then hesitate as the don’t eat in front of others instinct kicks in. I’ve said it so many times to myself now that I’ve conditioned myself; can’t be greedy, don’t eat that, mustn’t let them think I actually like this, where’s the salad, the salad, the savior, my last bastion of defense, something green, something healthy—
“You all right?” Amy wipes her mouth with the back of one hand, her half-eaten slice drooping from the other.
I glance at her. She’s put her hair up in pigtails. There’s a smear of tomato sauce on her chin. She doesn’t care. She’s never had to care. Look at her. She’s perfect.
The old, hated jealousy unfurls like an infected flower within me. Why can’t I be like that? Why can’t I eat whatever I like and not have to worry? Why can’t I sit there, with tomato sauce on my chin, and still look like a fucking goddess? It’s not fair. It’s not fair, because it’s ruining something good, making me hate someone I actually really like, someone who genuinely seems to be able to accept me for who I am, or at least I think she does, I hope she does, I—
Fuck it. I grab the next slice and defiantly chew off its point. Screw that voice. Screw all of it. This is my moment of rebellion—true rebellion, not a virtual, made-up one—and it tastes sweet.
“Oh! Forgot! Film!” Amy staggers to her feet, cramming what’s left of her pizza slice into her mouth. She grabs the TV controller, sending the potato wedges flying. “Whoops!” she giggles, and flicks the movie back on, catapulting us both back into a world of almost pornographic violence. “You gotta watch horror when you eat pizza,” Amy explains. “Cos pizza and violence, pizza and violence, they go together like a horse and carriage . . .”
She sings the last bit, badly.
“That doesn’t rhyme,” I giggle back.
“Oh, fuck it, it doesn’t need to rhyme! Eat, my amethystial beauty—eat!” She picks up a bit of garlic bread and feeds it to me. I try not to choke, both on cheese and on joy, because this is what it should be all about. Not petty sniping and insults and making people feel bad, but laughter and sharing and not giving a crap what anyone else thinks.
And there it is. The revelation. I reckon there’s a choir somewhere, hitting the high notes as something fundamental clicks into place within me.
When Amy reaches for her phone to take a selfie with me, for the first time ever, I don’t protest. I don’t even flinch.
I want this moment to be remembered forever.