So Much It Hurts by Monique Polak Page A

party and for saying no the last few times she wanted to go for coffee. “I’m over it, Iris. I know how obsessed you get when you’re writing a paper for English. It totally sucked that you missed my party, but hey, your mom had food poisoning. It’s not like you could’ve abandoned her. Not when it was coming out both ends,” Katie said.
    â€œIt was pretty gross.”
    I’m getting better at lying. Probably because I’m getting so much practice. But I still don’t enjoy it. Mostly because I’m worried I’ll screw up and let the truth slip out. I don’t worry about that happening when I’m onstage. Onstage, lying’s allowed.
    I see the white headlights of a metro car coming down the tunnel. The car pulls up, the silver doors slide open, and Katie and I grab facing seats.
    â€œCan you imagine ever being so depressed you’d jump in front of a metro?” Katie can be kind of morbid sometimes—and loud too. “Just like that. Splat.” She smacks her thigh to demonstrate.
    â€œI can’t imagine. I think the people who do it must have serious mental problems. They’re not just regular depressed.”
    â€œI guess it’d be over quickly,” Katie says. “That’s probably the appeal.”
    â€œYeah, but think of all the people you’d traumatize. The ones who saw your splattered remains.” When I’m with Katie, I get a little morbid too.
    â€œEven worse,” Katie says, shaking her head, “think of all the people who’d be late for their appointments downtown, all because of your splattered remains.”
    I shouldn’t laugh. It’s a bad joke. But it is funny, so I do. Katie bumps her knee against mine. For a minute, it feels like nothing’s changed between us. I bump knees back.
    â€œI miss you, Iris,” Katie says out of nowhere.
    I’m afraid to look at her when she says that. Afraid she’ll know I’ve been keeping something from her. “I miss you too,” I say to my clunky black boots.
    â€œHas it ever occurred to you,” Katie asks, “that maybe you study too much?”
    â€œHas it ever occurred to you that maybe you study too little?”
    Katie rolls her eyes. “Nope, that’s never occurred to me.”
    She only brings up Facebook when we’re transferring at the Lionel-Groulx terminus. So much for my hoping she hasn’t been online. “I saw you changed your status to In a relationship and then you changed it back to Single . What’s up with that? Don’t tell me you gave Tommy another chance!” Katie has never had a very high opinion of Tommy. “I would so never give Antoine another chance.”
    â€œThen how come you two are back on speaking terms?”
    â€œThat’s different. We don’t do much speaking.”
    â€œKatie!”
    It could be worse. Katie must not have seen what I wrote about feeling tuned in to “M.”
    â€œI kind of did give Tommy another chance,” I tell her.
    â€œI thought you hated him.”
    â€œI never said I hated him. I just said I wasn’t in love with him.”
    â€œYou really need to come out dancing with me one of these nights,” Katie says. “It’d be good for you.”
    How can I tell Katie that going clubbing with a bunch of silly underage teenage girls trying to act grown up is the last thing I’m interested in? They go to clubs to meet guys, and I’ve already met the perfect guy. If anything, I feel sorry for Katie. What if she never meets anyone who makes her feel the way Mick makes me feel?
    â€œYou’d have totally loved the after-hours club we went to Saturday. I didn’t get home till ten in the morning.”
    â€œYou must’ve been wrecked. What’d you tell your parents?”
    Katie nudges me. “What do you think I told them?
    That I slept over at your house.”
    Thank God our moms don’t