Beautiful by Amy Reed

hers, saying, “Stop, please, stop.” I am dizzy. I want to go to sleep.
    â€œI’m sorry,” she says.
    â€œDon’t be sorry,” I breathe into her. I say it with everything inside me.
    And she cries. She is silent, but I can feel her sobs shaking both of us. Her eyes are closed but there are tears seeping out and her fingers are tearing into my back. Her tiny, brittle nails are cutting though my pajamas, bruising my skin beneath.
    â€œIt’s okay,” I keep saying, even though I know it is not, even though I know I have no right to say it. I move my hand beneath her pajama shirt, rest it on the ridge of the scar across her spine. I feel her heart beating through her back, fragile and fast like a bird. I kiss her forehead and pull her close. I say, “Breathe,” and she does, and I never want to move again.
    We fall asleep like this, on top of the covers, drunk and stoned. I wake in the middle of the night and cover us with blankets. She has her eyes closed tighter than any eyes I’ve ever seen.

(ELEVEN)
    â€œWhere’s Sarah?” I say.
    Alex is walking fast and it’s hard to keep up because her legs are twice as long as mine.
    â€œI don’t know,” she says.
    â€œSlow down.”
    â€œYou hurry up,” she says without even looking at me.
    I am practically jogging to keep up with her. It is hard to jog in heels, especially when you have a hangover.
    It’s eight o’clock now and we just bought drugs from a guy in a car with tinted windows. I don’t know what we got, how Alex got the hundred dollars she bought it with, or even where we’re going, because Alex keeps pretending she doesn’t hear me whenever I ask her anything,or she gives me an answer that doesn’t really answer anything at all.
    â€œSarah didn’t want to come?” I ask her now.
    â€œShe wasn’t invited,” Alex says.
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œWhy do you care so fucking much?” She stops walking and turns around. Her nose is practically touching mine and I can smell her sour breath and cheap perfume. “You’re my best friend, not hers,” she says.
    I don’t say anything. I have made her angry.
    â€œRight?” she says. She looks like she wants to kill me.
    I say nothing. I can feel the tears welling up. I can feel my chest and throat hot and tight like someone’s standing on me.
    â€œRight?” she says again. She pushes my shoulder hard, and I step back. “Say it,” she says.
    â€œI’m sorry,” I say, and now I am really crying. The tears are running down my face and smearing my makeup and there are thick, dull nails hammering into my chest.
    â€œSay it,” she says again, her voice low, growling. She is holding me by the shoulders, her big hands crushing me.
    â€œYou’re my best friend,” I whine through snot.
    â€œSay it again.” Her hands move to my throat. I can feel her thumb on my vein, my pulse magnified by the pressure,pounding in my skull. My breath is stopped. My voice is trapped under her hand and throbbing.
    â€œYou’re my best friend,” I cough, and it sounds like someone dying.
    She lets go and I breathe and she lights a cigarette. She starts walking and I stumble after her, tasting her trail of smoke and perfume. I feel the skin around my neck with my hands, checking to make sure everything’s intact. People walk by us, looking straight ahead or out at the water, anything to not catch my eye, anything to not acknowledge that they see me.
    I feel my face and it is wet. I run my finger across the bottom of my eye and it is lined with black mascara, each one of my eyelashes imprinted with tiny brushstrokes. I look at my hands and they are smeared with foundation, like paint the same color as my skin, and it looks like I am melting, like the palms of my hands are turning into jelly, like they have given up on being solid.
    Alex slows down so she is