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Marlene has known, for a long time now, that it would happen.
Mary’s boyfriend is named Graham, and he’s at least a head taller than Marlene, with his flat chest and Adam’s apple and bulge in his Levi’s. Mary has a hand wrapped around his forearm when she breaks the news.
“Graham and I are dating,” she says, laying her head on Graham’s shoulder.
Marlene swallows the rock in her throat. “That’s really great, Mary.”
It isn’t. Marlene knows what this means, and she feels the old familiar anger boiling in her gut. She likes to answer things with her mouth or her fist, and both are rearing to have a go at Graham and his stupid face.
The problem is that nobody else will ever bear Marlene. She’s heard the whispers: that she’s a freak, she’s trailer trash, she reeks of cigarettes, her mom is a hooker and they don’t even know who her dad is. Most of it isn’t true, except for the cigarette part, but it doesn’t matter—kids talk. Whatever popular boys like Graham say becomes the truth, because they decide it is.
A response forms, over the years. There’s only so many times you can hear someone call your mother a slut before you start punching. And when the punching got her too many detentions, Marlene reached for her words—all the horrible ones she knew that her mother made her swore never to say. When that didn’t work, she went back to hitting. And so, on top of everything else, Marlene became the basket case who’d knock your teeth out for talking to her.
It’s a shame, really, that Mary’s been stuck with Marlene for all these years. Mary had the utter misfortune of their mothers being sort-of friends, and so Marlene spent most of her afternoons growing up being babysat by the picture-perfect Mr. and Mrs. Macdonald. They had a blow-up argument sometime later, their mothers, but by that point Mary and Marlene had become inseparable.
For thirteen years, Mary has been Marlene’s best friend: the one she went running to when her mom had too much to drink, or one of her boyfriends got too handsy; the one she blubbered to over the landline when she got her first period; the one who taught her how to braid hair; her date to every school dance since middle school.
And for the past few years, now, it hasn’t made very much sense. Mary is pretty—she’s gorgeous, with her pinkish cheeks and big brown eyes. Marlene could map the freckles that are splattered across her cheeks, could draw the curve of every knuckle on her thin hands with her eyes closed. Marlene never had any of that: her own fingers were short and stubby, her eyes were small and a rather imposing brownish black, and her botched box bleach hair always stuck up at the ends. Mary aced every one of her classes, but Marlene rarely even showed up anymore. Mary spent her afternoons at cheer practice, but Marlene spent them rolling joints in the skate park. Mary was nominated for homecoming queen last year, but everyone in their grade called Marlene a burnout stoner behind her back. Mary had a big house with extra bedrooms and parents who loved each other, and Marlene had a trailer to herself most nights. Mary was going to go somewhere—somewhere that involved a tall boy like Graham and two kids and a white picket fence—and Marlene was going to stay right where she was, forever.
Because Mary is so smart, she knows something’s wrong the day that she introduces Graham to Marlene. Marlene kind of hates that Mary knows her so well and can catch her in her spirals before she’s had enough time to wallow in them, but it’s comforting to know that at least Mary knows her, if no-one else. She finds her at the skate park after cheer practice, using their chemistry textbook as a rolling tray.
“What’s wrong?”
Marlene looks up to see Mary, the sun gleaming from behind her head. She’s in her cheer uniform—the one that makes Marlene’s mouth oddly dry. “What d’you mean?”
Mary takes her time to settle next to Marlene on the concrete, smoothing out the pleats of her skirt. Marlene looks around to make sure there aren’t any wandering eyes landing on her, but the 14-year-olds that frequent the spot are keeping to themselves. “You’ve been weird all afternoon. And you blew off all your classes after lunch and didn’t even tell me where you were going.”
If she focuses enough, Marlene can hear it—the disdain. Mary resents the way Marlene blows off school, and she’s chewed her out for it enough times. In Mary’s mind, they’re going to go off to college together, be roommates and start their lives together away from this town. But Marlene knows better: she’ll never get the grades to get into anything other than the shitty state school, and she wouldn’t be able to afford college, anyway.
She can see the end of it already, and Graham is just the beginning. Mary’s going to realise she can do a whole lot better than a loser like Marlene, and she’s going to leave. She and Graham are going to live the life that they were supposed to have, and Mary will forget all about Marlene, trapped here.
The anger is there, bubbling up in her stomach. It’d be so much easier to just cut it off now—make Mary run off quick, rather than suffer the pain of watching her drift off slowly. Marlene could do it, like she does with everyone else: toughen up, harden, pretend that it doesn’t even matter to her that Mary is going, that she doesn’t notice it at all.
“None of your fuckin’ business.”
Mary plucks a dandelion growing between the cracks in the concrete and throws it at Marlene. It doesn’t quite make the distance, falling limp in between them. When they were kids, they used to pick the dandelions in Marlene’s overgrown yard and hold them up to their chins to see the yellow tint of their skin in the reflection. Mary had taken her face into Marlene’s hands and tilted it up to see the underside of her chin. Means you like butter.
“Don’t do that to me. You don’t get to shut me out, like you do everyone else.”
The rock is back in Marlene’s throat. How could it be explained? How does she say it—that’s she jealous Graham gets to have all the parts of Mary that she wanted for herself? It’s normal that girls their age get boyfriends. Marlene’s the odd one out here, wanting to cling on to a childhood friendship even as the world is screaming at her to grow up and move on. It’s weird, the way she feels—it’s decidedly not normal. A sixteen-year-old girl shouldn’t want her girl best friend to be her prom date, and yet Marlene feels sick at the idea of Mary bringing Graham, instead. She hates the idea of them alone together at all, of wandering hands in his truck or the press of warm skin together. She hates it, it makes her shudder, and that is not normal at all.
She shouldn’t want Mary all to herself, and yet she does.
Knowing that Marlene isn’t going to budge, Mary presses harder. “Do you... not like Graham?”
It hurts, the quiet voice she asks it in. She sounds hurt, already, and it makes Marlene’s stomach churn. It isn’t fair on her, and it isn’t fair on Graham, either. He hasn’t done anything besides make Mary happy, and Marlene wants to zap him off the face of the earth, because she was mine first. Graham can love her and give her everything she’s ever wanted—a bed to share at college, a big white wedding, two kids and a white picket fence. Marlene should be happy for her, and instead she’s turned into a ball of misery.
“No, it’s not that,” she says, setting the chemistry book aside in favor of twirling between her fingers the dandelion that Mary had picked.
Mary’s even quieter when she next speaks. “Then what is it?”
It isn’t ever like this. Mary doesn’t ever need to wonder about Marlene, not anymore—she can practically read Marlene’s mind, can pinpoint the exact causes of her stress or anxiety before Marlene even knows it herself. Marlene can tell that she’s uncomfortable with this sitting between them, and it makes her feel even worse for having created it.
“I don’t—” Marlene’s voice cuts out, and it takes her a moment to find the words again. “Everything’s gonna change, you’re gonna change. And I want you to, Mary, because I want you to get everything you want in life, but I’m—I’m not. I’m gonna stay the same. I’m not gonna go to college, I’m never gonna get away from my mom, I’m gonna live and die in that moldy bedroom. You’ve got your whole life ahead of you, and I’ve got nothing. Just this fuckin’ skate park and a genetic predisposition for alcoholism.”
Mary leans forward to put her hand on Marlene’s knee. Something jumps in Marlene’s chest. “That’s not true,” she says, so earnestly that it almost sounds believable. “I’m not changing, okay? I’m just dating a boy, that’s all.”
That’s not all. There’s so much more, so many infinite layers to the fact that Mary is just dating a boy. Marlene’s known since she was twelve that she was never going to ‘just date a boy,’ and there’s nothing she can do about it. She’s going to be the weird kid for the rest of her life, because she was made that way. There’s no changing it now.
It’s the one thing that Mary will never be able to understand. Marlene knows that she wants to, desperately wants to get to the bottom of it all and clear every inch of air between them, but she can’t. If Mary ever found out, if she ever knew what Marlene thought of her late at night, she’d probably never speak to her again.
Marlene takes the only option she’s got: she lies. “‘Course, Mary. I know. I’m just—bein’ dramatic, you know.”
Inside of her, there’s the pleading voice of a child: please don’t leave me, please don’t leave me. Leave a little piece of yourself for me, I need it. I’m needy and fragile and small, and I need you to be with me forever. I need you to forget about him and stay with me and pretend to be eight years old picking daffodils forever.
Mary sits back, still studying Marlene’s face like she doesn’t quite believe it. “It’s gonna be fine, Marls. And you’ve got a whole life ahead of you,” she says, pushing at Marlene’s shoulder, “you’ve just gotta show up to class a little more.”
“Right. You’re right, I know.”
Marlene watches Mary, counts the freckles on her cheeks and measures the expanse of the sun shining across her face. Today, like every single day before it, Marlene finds her totally, astonishingly beautiful.
I will always love you. I will always love you. I will, always.