“You’re wasting your life,” she had said, me glowering in my sweatpants as she shimmied on some cutoff shorts. She was wearing makeup, too, which was weird to look at. She never wore makeup. “You’re only young once.”
It hurt to realize she had started to think of our Friday nights together as a waste, but I knew what she meant. We had been doing the same thing for practically a decade: bike rides to 7-Eleven to spend our allowance on sweet things and Slurpees before hightailing it back home. Staying up late, giddy and gossiping, then sleeping in in the mornings before doing it all over again. Of course, things evolved as we grew older, swapping gummy worms for wine we grabbed out of her parents’ refrigerator, occasionally the good stuff Eliza found hidden in her dad’s office, but the thing that stayed the same was the way I lived for those weekends, clinging to them even harder once I sensed her desire to start doing something different.
I remember wondering if that kind of power imbalance was normal in a friendship—if every pair consisted of one half who seemed to love the other just a little bit more—but I didn’t want to question it. I was content with the way things were.
I never felt like I needed anybody else—but slowly, inevitably, Eliza did.
“I’m sorry,” I say to her now, my fingertips touching her static face. I wish I could take back every stupid argument, every meaningless fight. Her death had shocked the Outer Banks, sending a ripple of uncomfortable contemplation across everyone who ever knew her. It was a stark reminder that none of us are immortal—especially the ones, like Eliza, who lived like they were. And it had scared me for a while, realizing that any second could be the end of it: something as simple as a trip into traffic, a cramp while you’re swimming. That a life as bright as hers could be extinguished without even the courtesy of a heads-up. But at the same time, the abruptness of it all made me realize that she was right.
You’re only young once, and only if you’re lucky.
“Margot.” I jump at the sudden banging on my door. “Girls are up. Get out here.”
I take one last glance at the picture, guilt washing over me. It’s pretty obvious, now, what I’m doing here. I’m trying to replace her. Eliza is my phantom limb: an amputation that still hurts me, haunts me, despite the fact that she doesn’t even exist. She is the dull, constant throb that wakes me in the night and doubles me over; sometimes, in those early morning hours, I forget she’s even gone. I’ll click open my eyes and reach out to the side, half expecting to feel her warm body beside me like during those summertime sleepovers. My fingers dragging their way across my comforter, searching for the familiar feel of her—but then, every time, I find it cold and empty, the pain increasing until it’s so unbearable I think I might faint.
I know now that if I’m ever going to move on, if I’m ever going to be whole, I need something to take her place. Someone else who can slip into her skin; who can give me everything she once did—or, rather, someone who can show me who I am without her. Because the truth is, I’ve only ever been Eliza’s best friend, ever since that first day in kindergarten when we clicked so easily. And even though we were opposites—me, brainy and bookish, and her, wild and alive—I was the yin to her yang, the quiet sidekick who talked reason into her ear when she got the sudden urge to do something stupid. I used to think that her standing next to me was the contrast I needed to stand out on my own, but I know now that was never the case. Instead, she was simply something I could cling to; a safety blanket that felt familiar and warm.
While nobody else ever remembered my face, knew my name, when I walked into a room with her, I saw it click: the recognition, the respect. Eliza’s friend.
“Coming!” I yell, standing up before propping the photo onto the mantel.
That’s why, when Eliza died, it felt like my identity did, too. Her death erased us both completely and I wonder if that’s the reason why I feel so drawn to Lucy. Why my eyes always gravitated to her when she walked down the hall or lay out on campus. Why I agreed to any of this. There are certain similarities between them and I wonder now if I had sensed them all along, my subconscious pulling me toward the closest thing I could find to my friend. After all, being loved by Eliza was like a sudden hit of adrenaline—a gateway drug, something addicting and freeing that left you craving your next hit the second she stepped away. And if Eliza was adrenaline, that makes Lucy something even more. Something more addicting, more dangerous.