~Micky~

“I have to cancel.” 

“What?”

Andrea closed her locker and turned to me.  She ran her index finger across her temple.  “I have to work this weekend.  So I can’t go to where I thought I needed to this weekend.”

“Andrea.  Geez….”  She looked up at me.  Smiled.  It was enough to kill me with kindness.  She was one of those people you just didn't feel right getting irritated with.  “You need a vacation.”   I called after her as she waved me away. 

“No rest for the weary.”  She called back, turning to smile at me one more time before rushing off to class. 

The rest of the day my head was far from lessons and teachers’ lectures.  Andrea frustrated me.  But I could never do anything.  I could tell her everything.  I had spent more than a few nights pouring my heart out to her online.  Especially when my parents finalized the divorce or I wasn’t sure we’d have the money to pay the month’s rent… and I always felt better after.  But getting her to talk to me, really talk was still harder than ever. 

She worked two jobs: waitressing at a restaurant and secretarial work at a small office.  She never said anything about needing money.  She never complained.  We were both busy.  I was working as a janitor at school and working on cars at the local mechanic’s when I got a chance.  But I wasn’t as involved in school as she was.  I have no idea how she could work that hard and smile. 

It made me want to do better. 

Each week, the dark circles under her eyes darkened.  Her smile stopped reaching her eyes. 

And then he came into the picture. 

I had stepped into the library, intent on dragging Andrea out and away from her school work long enough to get some food down when I saw them together…and I didn’t like it.

*************************************

~Andrea~

My first serious crush was in middle school.  His name was Peter.  Brown-blonde hair and green eyes, he wasn’t exceptionally attractive…but I liked him.  He was intelligent, we were one the same level, and we bickered like an old married couple.  But he moved before graduating middle school and I didn’t think I’d see him again. 

Then he showed up at my high school with the same emerald green eyes, the same smile minus the braces. 

My heart skipped a beat.

************************************

~Micky~

I thought our friendship was really over after that.  He seemed to fill my spot.  Make her smile.  Distract her from whatever was pulling her down.  He was doing a better job than me. 

So I let go. 

A lot can happen in a month.  When you’re in high school, it feels like forever and a moment at the same time.  But I can still see her, smiling with him – for him - for those weeks.  Then the sudden shift. 

And everything seemed to fall apart at once. 

*************************************

~Andrea~ 

It felt like every breath I took left me a little closer to drowning.  I was so sick of everything and everyone around me.  I hated where I was, what I was doing, who I was.  More than anything else, I just wanted to disappear. 

It seemed like it would be so easy sometimes.  I would find myself standing in front of the medicine cabinet, imaging pouring a handful of pills down my throat.  Curling up in the corner of my dark room and just not waking up.  It all seemed so easy.  Maybe I was too much of a coward to do it.  Or maybe the reason I didn’t was just the opposite.

The suicidal thoughts were never really serious for me.  I would imagine the scene, but never once believed that I would follow through.

It wasn’t so much wanting to be dead.  I just didn’t want to think anymore.

Do you know how it feels?  To be afraid of going to bed each night although sleep is the escape you so desperately want?  Because in those minutes before your body takes over and you fall into the realm of the unconscious, it’s everything you’ve been avoiding.  To hear the same voices you heard during the day, but they’re saying criticizing remarks that you had never heard before.  To watch every mistake you’ve made flash by in an instant replay, and being sick to the stomach, kicking yourself over and over as if it would somehow make up for everything.  Like it would make me feel better about myself. 

Because no matter how much people say they wish they had my grades or my brains, I know that everything I have is nothing.  I could never be good enough. 

I got so tired.  I just wanted to curl up in a ball and disappear.  How I prayed for each passing bus to run me over.  I just wanted everything to be gone.

 ***********************************

~Micky~

It’s a horrible feeling to hear gossip about your friend…maybe the only real friend you’ve made in a long time…and not know whether or not it’s true.  To hear she fainted.  That she vomits after eating.  That she must have gotten knocked up.  Then to see that guy she smiled so brightly for suddenly interested in an underclassman. 

I hated the doubt.  I hated not knowing enough to stick up for her. 

“There she goes.”  The girl snorted.  I looked up to see Andrea push open the doors of the cafeteria and quickly exit.  The girl shook her head and leaned toward her friends.  “I heard…” she whispered, “she got pregnant.”

“No!  Really?” 

“Stephanie saw her walk into the Women’s Health Resource Center by the hospital-”

“Hey, Micky.  You okay?”  I looked down to realize I had stood up, a milk carton crushed in my hand.  Before I knew what to say, I was gone. 

Standing outside the girls’ bathroom, I hesitated.  But I went in. 

The echo of the leaky faucet.  The graffiti.  The broken window.  The girl curled in the corner.  I still see it.  I hear it. 

I knelt beside her.  “Hey.”  I whispered.  She looked up at me. 

“Micky.  What are you-“

“What are you doing here?”  I interrupted.  I cursed softly.  “What’s wrong?” 

“Everything…It’s all my fault…a mistake…” 

My mind went blank.  Because it was something I didn’t want to believe...and she was crying.