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It’s the last day of school, and Boscha feels sick to her stomach. The end of an era is approaching, and as she struts down the hallway, she can barely breathe. People wave at her, people cower, people stare defiantly back, emboldened by the fact there’s nothing she can do to ruin them anymore.
She doesn’t care. She feels ruined herself.
The whole world knows that her iron tight grip on this school is slacking, and finally, finally, she’s become weak enough to have the strength to let go. None of this means anything to her now.
So Boscha walks, and she lets her eyes wander to the ground as she approaches her locker, knowing who will be waiting for her there. She can’t find the strength to look up anymore.
“Boscha!”
The warmth of a hug envelopes her almost before the joyous shriek reaches her ears, and her eyes jolt open at the sudden contact. There, she sees Skara, all shining with excitement and the promise of something new and interesting. This isn’t the end of an era for her, it’s an opportunity to become something greater than she is now.
For a moment, Boscha lets all of it go and just enjoys Skara’s presence in a way she won’t be able to soon.
“Let me go, turd.”
She prays that the other girl does just the opposite. Skara, ever used to her snappish comments, only squeezes tighter. Boscha silently thanks some god up there that she doesn’t believe in.
Skara does eventually pull away, studying her with those gleaming gray eyes. Boscha tries for a smile, but knows that comes out as more of a twisted grimace.
“Oh my god, it’s finally over! Ya know? Crazy… I’m so damn excited to get out of here.”
She can tell that Skara means her words wholeheartedly. There’s nothing dark and twisted and bitter in her unbridled glee.
“Yeah. Crazy.”
Her words come out flatter than she wants them to be, and it's no surprise when Skara picks up on it with a frown.
“What’s up with you?”
Boscha tries to think of an answer, a way to somehow explain that losing Skara might kill her, or an excuse to use the restroom because she really feels sick now, when the tardy bell saves her. As quickly as the frown came, it fades from Skara’s face at the all too familiar sound.
“Gotta run! I’ll see ya later!”
She turns on her heel and practically skips down the hall, disappearing among the crowd that parts effortlessly for her. People fear Boscha, but they love Skara in the way they love the sun.
“Yeah. See you.”
Angrily, she reaches into her locker for her books, and slams it shut much louder than necessary.
~~~
They have just one class together that year, which was much to Boscha’s chagrin when they had received their schedules last August. Thankfully, it’s Calculus, which she would’ve not made it through had Skara not been there to entertain her by making faces behind their decrepit old teacher’s back.
Today, they’re not doing anything in class but talking about summer plans, playing cards, messing around, and the usual end of year activities. One girl had brought a whole pie, which had been slowly disappearing over the duration of the period.
She’s not paying attention to any of it. She’s watching Skara’s earrings, which are miniature grand pianos, jiggle slightly as she taps at her phone screen. Boscha loves those stupid earrings. She’d never say so, because they look so ridiculous, but Skara makes them seem high fashion just by putting them on her body.
Boscha trails her eyes across her friend’s form, taking in the poofy blouse and the jean shorts and the platform sneakers, and she can’t help but absentmindedly think about how Skara could wear that outfit on the runway and still be more glamorous than any model.
Her hair is styled differently today. Maybe she spent more time with it in the morning, making it all curly like that, getting the tangles out with her tongue between her teeth. She can almost see her face in the mirror—
“Boscha?”
She’s been staring.
It’s all she can do to yank herself out of the strange haze that she’s fallen into, sit up straight and try not to act like a weirdo caught doing something she’s not supposed to. Skara narrows her eyes anyway.
“What’s up with you? You’ve been acting weird all day. You seemed upset this morning, then there was the milk thing at lunch, and now you look like you’re on a different planet.”
Boscha fumbles for an excuse, and she flicks her hand limply in Skara’s direction.
“Your earrings.”
Her friend raises an eyebrow.
“My earrings.”
“They’re weird. They’re kinda funny.”
Skara looks almost hurt for the briefest of seconds, crossing her arms.
“You don’t like them?”
“No, no! They’re… fun. Good kind of weird, just—”
She trails off anyway when Skara gives her a megawatt smile, all white teeth and relief. Boscha gives her the same in return, feeling relief for a different reason. Relief at the fact that she doesn’t have to explain how those are the most wonderful earrings in the world, because Skara is wearing them. Because Skara is the most wonderful person in the world.
No one sees her flush a tell-tale shade of pink, as she spins in her chair and fixes her eyes on the wall behind her.
~~~
They find each other again by the stairs, just outside of the school. Skara is flanked by Cat and Amelia, and all three of them are laughing. Boscha feels almost awkward walking up to them.
Regardless, the three of them don’t notice her hesitation, the tension in her shoulders. Why would they? This is a normal part of their daily routine, meeting each other by the steps, walking together. Maybe going to the mall. Maybe going to one of their houses. It didn’t matter.
It does now, because it’s normal, because it’s the last normal she’s ever going to have with them.
But they don’t notice, and they walk together like everything is the same.
“Skara, those earrings are pretty neat. You rock them.”
It’s just an offhand comment by Amelia, but for some reason it sends her blood into flux, freezing ice cold and boiling at the same time. Her steps falter a little.
“Thank you, Amelia. Boscha hates them, though.”
She whips her head around, but Skara is only grinning goodnaturedly.
“Yeah, she said earlier that they were the ugliest earrings she’d ever seen. And that she hates my outfit too. And that she’d actually only been pretending to be my friend and that she hopes to never see my face again.”
With every rapid fire non-truth that spills from Skara’s lips, Boscha can feel her own tongue grow as heavy as lead, unable to open her mouth and retort. She knows what Skara is doing, and that it’s nothing but jokes. On any other day, she might’ve actually said those things just to poke fun.
The three of them are laughing again, harder than before, and she’s trying to have her brain stop short-circuiting because Skara is smirking at her, and can feel the heat in her cheeks.
“Shut up.”
The words come out breathy and high pitched, and Boscha doesn’t even recognize her own voice. She feels the strangest need to defend herself, to argue that she would never say that, but not even that is true. She doesn’t recognize who she’s becoming anymore.
They reach an intersection, and pause. Cat and Amelia have a grad party that they’re going to tonight, so they say their goodbyes and head straight towards Cat’s house to get ready.
Boscha and Skara are left alone.
The wind whistles past them, swirling dried leaves into the air, and blowing a few strands of pink hair into her eyes. She watches, detached, as Skara lifts her hand so slightly, acting on the impulse to push the hair from her face. Boscha swallows thickly, and hastily brushes her hair back behind her ears. The hand goes down.
Her heart hammers in her throat. She thinks she might be dying.
“So…”
Skara’s eyebrow raises quizzically.
“Do you want to like, come over for a few hours?”
Boscha watches Skara’s face fall, dejectedly.
“I can’t, remember? My parents are taking me to that super fancy restaurant tonight.”
Ah. She did know that. Skara had told her a week ago.
“I’ll see you at graduation though! Which. Is. Tomorrow!!!”
In exclamation, Skara wraps her arms around Boscha and picks her up, spinning her around as she cheers. Her enthusiasm is so infectious that Boscha can’t help the smile that makes its way onto her face, and she wants to just forget everything and stay here forever.
“Put me down, stupid! You’re gonna drop me on my ass.”
Skara laughs, but does eventually set her back on her feet. Boscha feels dizzy for all the wrong reasons. She grins, ruefully.
“For someone so small, you sure do have a lot of muscle.”
This prompts Skara to comically flex her biceps, which does draw a laugh out of her. The air, at least, is slightly lighter now.
“What are you going to do tonight?”
Boscha shrugs.
“Whatever I feel like. Probably going to lay down for a while when I get home.”
Skara looks at her closer, concerned.
“Are you feeling okay?”
Ever the mom friend. Ever the one who worries, who cares.
“Just tired.”
She is tired. That much isn’t a lie.
Skara only reaches out and takes her hand, squeezing it gently. Boscha’s heart squeezes right alongside it. It’s the kind of gesture that says, this isn’t a goodbye, it’s a see you later. Skara pulls away after a long moment, and Boscha’s palm suddenly feels clammy and cold without the contact.
“Take care of yourself.”
“Yeah, fine.”
Skara smiles, and the warmth of it sits heavily inside her chest.
“Well, gotta run. See ya tomorrow!”
Boscha waves weakly, and they turn away from each other. Skara goes right, and she goes left. Her footsteps are quiet, carried away in the open air, and she feels like her legs are shackled together. She could turn around, she knows it, she could turn around and walk Skara home and her friend wouldn’t even question it.
But she doesn’t. She lets her feet drag against the pavement and ignores the chasm growing between them.
~~~
Boscha watches Skara cross the stage the very next evening, grinning like she’d just won the lottery, watches her receive her diploma with a smile and a handshake. She cheers for her too, when they read her name.
She is happy in a way. There’s a sense of satisfaction in finally completing her public school education, after twelve long years. There’s a sense of satisfaction in watching her best friend in the whole wide world graduate right alongside her.
She doesn’t let herself linger on the after, for those few moments while Skara glows brighter than anything she’s even seen before.
The ceremony is long, of course, the speeches are boring, of course, but Boscha is excited in a way she hasn’t been for a few weeks. She turns in her chair, and Cat and Amelia are looking at her, grinning and giving thumbs up. Her gaze breaks away from them, to follow Skara as she makes her way back to her chair.
Another hour passes, and they’re all throwing their caps into the air, slapping each other on the back in congratulations. Boscha sees tears and hugs all around, but she’s focused on getting the hell out of her seat and finding her girls. She maneuvers towards Cat and Amelia, grabbing them by the arms, leading the charge to locate Skara and get out of here as fast as possible.
There’s no need, because someone is jumping on her back and wrapping their arms around her neck. She turns her head to find Skara beaming at her, and suddenly there’s never been a happier moment than this.
Giggling like little girls, the four of them make a break for the exit and run as best as they can in their heels across the parking lot, piling into Cat’s beat up old Subaru. Cat cranks the ignition and they’re home free, whooping and laughing through open windows.
There’s no better feeling than this.
After a while, Boscha rests her head against the window frame, listening to Cat’s playlist of classic y2k hits and feeling the wind whip against her face. A lazy, heavy sensation settles into her bones, and she just wants to close her eyes and let it all go. The breeze is warm, teasing a summer of hot days and hanging around the pool and ice cream, and she wishes that it enticed her as much as it did years prior.
Her eyes, like magnets to the poles, are inevitably drawn towards Skara. They’re both in the backseat, separated by only a foot of space. Skara is playing with her hair, absentmindedly tugging at the ends of it.
Gray eyes suddenly meet her own, like they knew she was watching. A fog fills her head, spreading through her body until it feels like every molecule of her is dissolving away into the wind. Skara gives Boscha a slow, lazy smile, and nudges her foot with her own. She tries not to gasp, ever thankful to the darkness that hides the furious blush spreading across her face.
Boscha takes out her phone and pretends to scroll through Instagram, ignoring the gray eyes that she knows are studying her.
~~~
Skara disappeared from her sight more than two hours ago, and Boscha’s been drinking for nearly the whole time. Her head feels like it’s made of TV static, and her vision occasionally doubles and turns her whole world into a mess of kaleidoscopic colors and shapes. She’s way more than a little tipsy now, which had been her goal at the beginning of the night.
The liquid in her cup sloshes with every step she takes, and her stomach rolls right along with it. Alcohol has blurred her senses, and she can’t think, can’t hear the rushing thoughts that would echo so loudly before, can’t see the crowd of people and make out faces. She can only register a mass of bodies, dancing to the heavy thrum of music. She feels swallowed by them.
Somehow, Boscha ends up in a bathroom, emptying the contents of her stomach into the toilet. Her drink has spilled, running red punch and vodka down the perfect, pristine white tiles.
She rests her head against the porcelain toilet bowl, feeling the coolness against her sweaty face, letting it ground her in reality. With nothing in her stomach to poison her, she feels empty again, sensation slowly returning to all of her limbs. The numbness begins its departure, and as it does, she prays it would come back again and take the pain away.
With her sobriety slowly returning, Boscha’s thoughts scream louder than before, bouncing around in her brain, and oh god, does everything hurt. A tear rolls down her cheek, leaving a wet spot where it falls onto her pants. More join it.
She wishes she knew where Skara had gone. She wishes she remembered why Skara had left her in the first place. She wants Skara, and she feels like screaming and throwing a tantrum.
Boscha finds her way to her feet, every muscle in her body trembling with the effort that it takes. Her stomach still hurts, but it hurts in the way a knot of guilt does when it sits heavy inside of you. What would people say, if someone found her like this? What would Skara say?
She turns the tap on the sink, and lets it run for a moment before splashing cold water on her face, washing away the tears and everything else. It feels nice. The cold helps to shock her back to her senses.
In the mirror, bloodshot blue eyes stare back at her, face fresh and clean of makeup. Dark circles hang in heavy bags under her eyes, making her features seem hollow and sunken. She hates the way she looks then, vulnerable and fragile like glass. Boscha rummages through her bag, pulling out mascara and concealer and lip gloss, getting to work on covering up all the cracks.
When she’s finished, a mask stares back at her, and she doesn’t recognize it.
Good.
Boscha takes a deep breath and strolls confidently out of the bathroom with a mission on her mind. She’s going to track down Skara, tell her that she’s not feeling well and that she’s going home early, then collapse in her bed with a pint of strawberry ice cream and cry herself to sleep. It’s a better plan than continuing to get blackout drunk.
She walks down the hallways, cautiously looking into rooms and scanning the mob below her to see if Skara had rejoined the dance floor. Boscha pauses, however, at one closed door, where she hears a group of people laughing and cheering.
Maybe this one, then.
Opening the door, she finds herself in what looks like a game room, people playing pool or air hockey, some watching TV on the couch in the corner. The majority of the people there are sitting in a loose circle in the middle of the room, and there’s a bottle spinning in the center of them. Much too late, as the bottle slows down, does Boscha realize what’s happening.
To her horror, it points directly at her like an accusing finger, in the space between the actual participants of the game.
“Boscha?”
She looks up and finds her, staring with wide, wide gray eyes, like she can’t believe what she’s seeing. Little whispers that had broken out turn into laughter and eventually cheers, while she looks at Skara like there’s nothing in the world but them. The two boys that the bottle had stopped between turn and glare at Boscha, but she barely notices.
Suddenly, the world is moving again, and hands push her across the room and then Skara is next to her and then they’re in a closet, where she can’t see a thing. Darkness surrounds them and it drowns out anything else.
She hears Skara laugh, nervously.
“Well, I haven't been in the closet since freshman year, so this is kinda awkward.”
It's the type of joke Boscha would laugh at, hell, she laughs at all of Skara’s jokes. But the alcohol has made her feel sluggish and stupid, and in the darkness she’s uneasy at the fact that she can’t see Skara’s face.
“Why were you playing seven minutes in heaven?”
She doesn’t mean for it to be accusing, but it comes out that way, and she can almost feel Skara’s frown in the small space between them.
“We were playing spin the bottle, but some of the guys wanted to liven it up and I got dragged along with it.”
White hot jealousy pumps through her heart, filling her body and making her burn. The thought of someone else’s lips on Skara’s makes something shrivel up inside of her and die, combusting into ashes. Boscha can’t say anything in return.
“You smell like booze.”
It’s Skara’s turn to accuse, and the jealousy quickly fades into shame.
“I’m drunk.”
When she sighs, Boscha aches so badly for a redo of tonight. She can’t stand it when Skara is disappointed in her. A silence stretches between them, and in the darkness, it’s like the other girl isn’t even there. She feels so very alone.
Skara shuffles her feet against the carpet, and Boscha hears a shaky breath escape her.
“I hate it in here.”
She feels like slapping herself. How in the world did she forget that Skara was afraid of the dark, and claustrophobic?
Wordlessly, she reaches out, finding Skara’s arm. She jumps a little at Boscha’s touch, but lets herself be drawn into an embrace, tucking her face into Boscha’s neck as their bodies are pulled together. In the quiet, she can feel Skara’s uneven heartbeat against her chest.
“Don’t think about it. Think about a wide open sky, the sun shining, the grass rippling as a breeze passes by. The clouds are white and puffy, and the day is warm…”
She carries on, not really even thinking about the words falling from her mouth, just letting herself ramble on until Skara’s heartbeat evens itself out and her breath ghosts in gentle puffs across Boscha’s neck. Despite Skara’s warmth, she shivers.
When Skara’s hand moves to absentmindedly play with the hairs at the base of her neck, she couldn’t dream of ever pulling away.
“Thank you.”
Boscha feels the words against her skin more than hears them. As her own heart begins to hammer, she fears that Skara will be able to feel it too. Things start to seem dangerous, in her addled state.
Skara’s nails scratch at the base of her neck, and she wants to sigh her approval. She yearns for it, all of it, all that she can’t have. She wants more, more, more, wants Skara to move her head ever so slightly and brush her lips against her neck. She feels guilty for even thinking about it.
There’s things Boscha could say, here in the darkness with no one around to listen, where she can’t see the look on Skara’s face. Love confessions, begging, pleading words for Skara not to leave when September comes, hands in hair and lips on one another.
It feels all too late now.
Instead, she reaches a hand up and smooths out a wrinkle in Skara’s forehead with her thumb, right above her eyebrow. The indentation is familiar, often accompanied by worried looks and frowns. Skara leans ever so slightly into her touch, wrinkle disappearing under her fingertips.
She feels a slight intake of breath from the other girl.
“Boscha—”
Whatever might’ve been said is cut off by a distant beeping, a timer going off somewhere in the background, and then light floods into the closet. It blinds her, and suddenly unfamiliar hands are reaching out and grabbing arms, and she wants to yell get off, get the hell off of me, but Skara is already gone once her eyes adjust to the brightness.
Boscha doesn’t see her for the rest of the night.
~~~
They hang out that summer, but only occasionally. Never just the two of them, either. Their friends are always there to act as a buffer to the new weirdness that has settled in their friendship.
They don’t call each other anymore. They text only to make plans for when they want to hang out with Cat and Amelia. Sometimes, when she lies awake at night unable to sleep, Boscha can barely remember the sound of her voice, of her laugh. Something sick settles into her gut whenever she thinks about the party, about how good it felt to hold Skara so close.
Summer passes in the blink of an eye.
~~~
Boscha gives Skara a ride to the airport, the day of her flight.
The ride there is quiet, her car’s stereo the only thing contributing to the noise. Sometimes, she can hear Skara humming along to the song playing, but it’s quiet, subdued. Like she’s ashamed to be heard.
They would sing in the car together, as loud as they could, even though Boscha knows she can’t carry a tune. She was never musically gifted, not like Skara. Sometimes, she would stop singing just so she could listen to Skara, who often sounded better than the actual song.
The airport is busy, filled with families saying goodbye to their loved ones, businessmen and flight attendants bustling by with their suitcases. She gets out of the car to help pull Skara’s own suitcases out of the trunk. Both of them are large, a bright cherry red, filled to the brim with the things Skara has deemed most important to her.
Skara herself just stands there, balanced on the curb, wordlessly accepting the suitcases when Boscha hands them to her.
They hug, and she feels Skara hold her a bit too tight, fingernails like claws digging into her back. She doesn’t mind. It’s what she deserves.
When they let go of each other, Boscha feels her head spin, and she has to lean back against her car for support. Skara looks at her, face closed off but eyes still drilling holes into her heart.
“You promise to call, right?”
“Of course.”
They both know that it’s a lie.
Skara grabs her bags again and hauls them onto the sidewalk next to her, and she can see how her hands are shaking.
“Bye, Boscha.”
“Bye.”
A see you later is right on the tip of her tongue, but she bites it back before it accidentally falls from her mouth. Skara turns, wheeling her suitcases behind her as she makes her way to the entrance of the airport. She pauses, once she gets there, and the last thing Boscha sees are those sad, sad gray eyes before Skara disappears through the glass doors.
Boscha gets back into her car, starts the ignition, and drives away from the terminal. She tries not to think about how beautiful Skara looks when she’s upset.
She spends the rest of her day sitting in a carpark, watching the airplanes take off as tears slowly roll down her face.