The diary’s spine was settled between Ariel’s thighs, laying open in her lap like a napkin. From across the campfire, her eyes met mine. I vowed to read it; that was already certain.
When morning arrived with its overcast heat, everyone threw on their swimsuits and marched, flip-flops clapping, to the lake at the bottom of the weedy hill. I feigned nausea, and waved goodbye from the hammock, swaying until I heard a splash. Barefoot, I hopped over pinecones towards the tent and located Ariel’s duffel at her sleeping bag’s foot, untouched since she had last probed its insides an hour ago. I started to rummage, clawing away her cropped tank-tops and crimped underwear until my fingers pinched the pink diary with the dimpled leather cover. In lumpy cursive on the inside: “Property of Ariel and Amelia. You’re not welcome.”
We were five middle school girls in the Catskills, celebrating the onset of summer vacation with tick checks, crumbly s’mores, and the watchful eyes of one chaperoning mother. It would be the last time I saw any of them, except for Ariel. I was moving to San Diego in two weeks, which I guessed was the only reason I had been invited along.
Ariel and I had flickered in and out of intense closeness since we were six years old. When I met her in kindergarten –– with her densely freckled face, muscular legs, and scraped knees –– my mom took one look at her and gulped. She was loud, especially when she tried not to be, with a fondness for trouble: scaring the kids at our elementary school with tales of the Bermuda triangle, showing me stepsister porn in the bathroom of our fifth-grade graduation, teaching me how to shave my armpits, poorly, when I was nine.
But recently she seemed hardened by an aloofness that would only momentarily and erratically dissipate, as had happened the day before, when we were swimming. I paddled away from the other girls to float on my back and close my eyes in deeper water. She swam to me and then stroked my heavy hair between her forefinger and thumb. When I opened my eyes, she smiled, her freckled face unevenly lit from below by the undulating water, and she splashed a polite wave onto my sun-warmed stomach before diving away. I waded, blinking at the pebbly shoreline and the soles of her kicking feet, pink and spotless from the lake water. Later, they would be black, and her left heel would accommodate a fat splinter. The chaperone sterilized some tweezers with a lighter, then pulled the splinter out, whole, like a baby.
When I scanned the diary’s entries for keywords, clues, and secrets, my hands numb with anticipation, what I finally discovered was banal: estimations of girls’ bra sizes, lists of celebrity crushes, an unfortunate rendering of our chaperone. I wrote it off, smugly, until I came across the last entry, written in Ariel’s handwriting and smudged with a dull eraser. At Pearl’s party last year, she wanted to kiss me, but I couldn’t give in.
I ripped the page out with one soft tug. I would’ve preferred to have been called ugly or stupid. Her staged ambivalence stung worse. I’d been reduced to some mortifying experiment, like the first dog who was launched into space. Of course, it hadn’t even happened that way. She was the one who suggested we practice for our future boyfriends and when I agreed, she leaned in, her velvet tongue writhing in my mouth.
Before long, I could hear everyone’s voices ascending the hill, animating the campsite with tales of sunburns, odd-shaped bruises, and someone who had stepped in deer dung. I crawled towards my sleeping bag and folded myself like a fist, knees to chin, while I peered through the netted window where a maple tree dangled only a few inches away. I never noticed trees, not when I had something better to do, and there was a perverse pleasure in insulting the lushness that surrounded me.
I stayed curled like that, licking my chapped lips, and cursing the birches, oaks, and maples of upstate New York, all bloated from the humidity. Evening fell, and everyone huddled in blanket capes around the campfire, roasting marshmallows then feeding them to each other like brides and grooms. I couldn’t decide how to handle things, whether to confess or wait for a confrontation or inspect the tent for tape so that I could seal the slash. Then the trip came and went, and my desire to admit wilted accordingly.
My apartment was nearly empty when I returned. My mom had boxed and shipped everything to San Diego prematurely, or as she would say, “ahead of schedule.” We behaved like squatters for two weeks, sleeping on yoga mats in curtainless bedrooms, eating wet chicken salad sandwiches on the floor, tossing every piece of trash into the chute down the hall, so when Ariel called me four days before I left, saying she wanted to say goodbye, I didn’t mind the hour commute to her apartment, though really, I never had.
I arrived in the early afternoon and with the spare keys they left in a broken rainboot by the front door, I let myself in like I always did. I woke Ariel up from the mushy leather couch, poking her gut with my big toe. She loved to sleep. It was easy for her. We hugged, and she wrapped her arms over mine, then lifted my feet off the ground, squeezing me like a basketball she was trying to deflate. I yipped, lightheaded and soothed by the intensity of her welcome.
“Let’s go out,” she said, reaching into the back pocket of her shorts for a dented pack of cigarettes. “I swiped them from a party last night.” She seemed proud, so I raised my eyebrows in forged interest.
We started down the hallway, but instead of turning into her room, she whipped her head left and right, then quietly opened the door to her older sister Layla’s room.
“I know she has a lighter somewhere.”
“She smokes?”
Ariel laughed. “She lights candles.”
I headed to the dresser, and Ariel kneeled in front of the nightstand. I hunted for something hard in a drawer of Spandex, sports bras, and volleyball jerseys, but the only things out of place were a pair of dangly silver earrings and a postcard from Yellowstone, left blank except for the words Dear Melissa. In the distance, I heard the lock click and the front door open, but Ariel, her nose in a candle, appeared not to notice, so I pretended I didn’t either, even as the blood started whisking in my ears.
“What are you doing?” Layla asked from the doorway, flicking the lights on. Her long black hair was pulled into a ponytail and sweat ran in rivulets down her neck. Her thigh had a big purple bruise with an egg yolk center and her kneepads were pulled down to her ankles.
“Oh, we were just looking for that red tank-top,” Ariel responded, coolly. “The one with the star.”
“In my nightstand?”
“I don’t know where you put your stuff.”
“What’s that?” Layla pointed to the rectangular bulge in Ariel’s shorts.
“Nothing.”
Layla crossed the room and Ariel swatted her reaching hand, but Layla gripped her wrists and pulled the pack out with ease. I looked away for Ariel’s sake, but I could still roughly make out the shape of her body, bent and yielding.
“I just found those,” Ariel whined. “They’re not even mine.”
“Out of my room.”
Layla marched ahead of us, and we heard the faucet run. “They’re done for,” she yelled. Ariel groaned and mimed wrapping a noose around her neck, then slipped on a pair of sneakers. On our way out, I spotted Layla out of the corner of my eye, filling her water bottle with ice, a cigarette tucked behind her ear. She smirked and, as the door shut, wished me luck in San Diego.
It was a humid, breezy day with hurried clouds and our hair kept blowing into our mouths as we chatted about small things like summer plans and bee stings. It was charming and forced, not exactly awkward, but the ease between us was gone. We walked until we passed Addiction, a tattoo and piercing studio that also sold rainbow bongs and vape mods the size of guinea pigs. Ariel peered into the display case behind the window. Glinting silver skulls, gold barbells, and glass pipes winked back. She told me she was going to get her tongue pierced. I think she wanted to leave me with a powerful image before I moved, a final sheathe to encase our memories, the last assertion of her tongue’s boldness and promised future. Afterwards, I folded ice cubes into paper towels and held the frozen lump to her swollen tongue, pruning her communication to grunts and fingers, a language I was gaining proficiency in at an alarming pace.
“Hhmmmrgghh…” I grabbed her laptop charger.
“Mmmppgaaa…” I replaced the waterlogged paper towel with a fresh one. Her dark hair fanned across her faded yellow pillowcase, and her hairline was dappled with freckles and sweat. I reapplied ice to her ballooning tongue and told her I was sorry. I promised I would never do something like that again, then we both started laughing. That’s how we said goodbye.
…
For the first time in five years, my gloved finger hovers over the buzzer to their unit. I’ll never forget Ariel’s apartment number, 2B, because we used to think 2B was a bra size, a big one.
One afternoon, when we were twelve, Ariel and I came across wet cement and dragged our fingers through the thick, cold sludge, spelling out “TMA + ARH.” I had been looking for that square of sidewalk when suddenly I realized I was only a block away from Ariel’s apartment. Peering at the call box now, I notice her last name flanked next to the 2B button. What are the chances of Ariel being there, or Layla for that matter? I press the button and wait.
“Hello?” A voice says. I think it’s Ariel’s mom.
“Hi, hi. It’s Tessa. You know, Tessa Applebaum? I found myself in the neighborhood and wanted to say hi.”
“Come on up, Tessa,” she says, and the grated metal door vibrates, welcoming me in.
I climb the narrow stairwell, gripping the banisters and swinging myself around the corners. A large fluorescent light on the ceiling buzzes. Arriving at their front door, I hear shuffling feet and muted voices. I think someone says my name. I knock, and the door swings open, revealing Ariel’s mom, Carol. She’s in blue jeans and an apron.
“Tessa!” she says. I forgot how satisfyingly raspy her voice is, all hoarse, deep, and rich. “This is such a surprise. Come in, come in. I hope you’re not too bummed, but Ariel isn’t here right now. Just me and Layla.”
I smile, hiding my disappointment. If only she could see how I’ve come into myself. I still look young for my age, but all the various features that contort in puberty, nose and jaw and lips, have finally found their correct proportions. There is no more mystery to how my face will end up.
And then I notice a school portrait of Ariel on the fireplace mantel, framed, and dated to 2016, our junior year of high school. She has short, shaggy bleached hair, a little stringy, and a septum piercing. Her smile is vast, almost mocking.
Carol leads me into the kitchen, which is warm and smells like coffee and lentils. “To what do we owe this visit, Tessa? I have only a million questions for you,” she says as she returns to the large pot of bubbling stew on the stove. Layla sits at the dining table on her laptop, but as I walk closer, she stands up and makes her way towards me, arms outstretched. She’s taller than I remember. The top of my head barely clears her chin as we hug, and even through her oversized cashmere sweater, I can feel her broad shoulder muscles contract and slacken with her breath.
“Wow. It’s so crazy to see you both,” I say, shaking my head and tugging at my gloves. “Well, my mom and I are spending Thanksgiving at my grandma’s, but tonight I had dinner at that hand-pulled noodle place a few blocks away and as I was walking home, I realized I was right in front of your building, so I thought I would say hi. Hi!”
“Oh, how funny,” Carol says, adding a pinch of salt. “Well, I don’t even know where to start. I mean you were in San Diego, I know that much, but what are you doing now?”
I let out a laugh and my cheeks flush. Then, I unzip my jacket and unwind my scarf from my neck, holding the pile in front of my stomach. “Yeah, I’m at Berkeley, actually. UC Berkeley that is, but some people just call it Cal.”
“Put your stuff down wherever you want, honey. Get comfortable.” I do as she says, moving closer to Layla who looks up at me as my belongings rattle on the table. Her hair is still long, thick, and black, the fraying ends brushing her belly button, and the purple halfmoons under her eyes are deep, almost concave. Her face is round but not smooth like a moon or a porcelain plate. It’s more angular and shadowed like a sundial.
“But Berkeley! Look at you. How are you liking it so far?”
“Oh, you know,” I say. “Honestly, the first semester has been one big blur, so it’s hard to tell whether I’ve been, you know, enjoying it, but it’s been interesting.”
“It’s hard,” Carol acknowledges before inviting me to eat. “We have plenty of food here.”
“Are you sure I’m not intruding?”
“Oh please,” Layla says. “You could never intrude.”
Carol points her wooden spoon towards Layla and looks at me. “Exactly. Take a seat, take a seat.” And I do, sliding into the chair next to Layla while Carol goes to the cupboard and grabs bowls. “Tessa, do you want any?”
“Oh, sure. I’ll have a bit, thank you.” I’ll have to portion my bites, I think, careful not to undermine my story by revealing my ravenousness. “It just smells so good.”
Carol ladles in the soup and brings us our dinner along with three spoons. I thought this whole night had been riding on Ariel’s presence, in the closure and joy our reunion would bring, but it’s Layla and Carol’s warmth and our unmistakable familiarity that console me. The ten years I spent closely orbiting this family, attending their annual Christmas parties, curling up on their couch for movie nights, devouring syrupy pancakes on lazy weekend mornings, has left traces of itself in our looks and smiles, gestures drenched in knowingness.
Seated, we raise the spoons to our mouths in unison. I look at Layla and she looks back, our lips curled, blowing on hot steaming broth, and she smiles, her dimples making their first appearance of the night.
“How’s Ariel?” I say once I’ve swallowed. “I mean, where even is she?”
“She’s spending Thanksgiving in Seattle with some friends,” Carol responds. “She’s at University of Washington doing painting, sculpture, anything she can get her hands on, really. Um, what else? There’s just so much to—”
“She’s the same as ever,” Layla interjects. “New piercings, new hairstyles, new tattoos, but the same Ariel through and through.”
“Of course,” I say.
Layla unknowingly answered a question that has gnawed at me for years, and whether her comment is perfectly true or only remotely true is beside the point. Her claim of Ariel’s sameness, of an enduring consistency, means that she isn’t a stranger to me yet, that there is, at the very least, a kernel I could recognize, perhaps even understand better than anyone.
After I moved, Ariel and I didn’t keep in touch. I texted her occasionally and she’d respond, but never further the conversation, so our communication fizzled into nonexistence. Though I still thought about her often, rewinding the memories of us dressing up in her mom’s bras, an ocean of space between the padding and our flat chests, taking turns making circles on each other’s laps and licking the crossroads of each other’s top and bottom lips. The first few times I recalled these memories, I felt disoriented, as if I had stared straight into the sun, but over time, as my mind grew accustomed to summoning these moments during a boring class or as I fell asleep, they began to calm me in that way only secrets can and reassure me that Ariel and I would always be tethered, that I would always be her first.
As if reading my mind, Carol says, “I wish you two girls kept in touch more – you had such a special bond.” She stops herself, briefly. “Anyway, I’m sure she’ll be disappointed she missed you.”
We finish the meal and clear the table. Layla and I reserve what’s left of the soup and put it away in the fridge as Carol fills the dishwasher.
“By the way, your place looks amazing,” I say. “I’ve missed it.”
“Oh, thanks. I did some redecorating last year and it turned out okay. I think maroon is nice for the living room.”
“I hope this isn’t weird, but would you mind if I looked around? I just want to see how the rest of the place has changed.”
“For sure,” Layla responds. “Follow me.”
Without waiting, she walks down the long and dimly lit hallway, dotted with crooked family photos, and drawings of Ariel’s. I want to greet each frame, but I notice her already at the end, staring at her toes, so I make my way towards her.
“Do you want to see my room or Ariel’s first?”
There are two doors on either side of us. “Hmmm. Let’s do yours first.”
Layla’s door is covered in sticker residue, failed attempts to peel off summer camp insignias and band logos. She turns the knob and I follow her in, the smell of vanilla drifting in clouds. She closes the door behind me as I snoop around –– a surprise, since I hadn’t expected us to stay for long. I find myself in front of her walnut dresser inspecting her knick-knacks: an elephant figurine, a stick of natural deodorant, and gold medal scored like a volleyball.
“Do you still play?” I ask, nodding to the medal with my chin.
She shakes her head. “My knee blew up a couple months ago.” And when I look down, I can see that her right knee is puffy and red like dough that’s been left to rise.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” she says. “I think I did it on purpose.” This makes her laugh, and so I giggle nervously too. Her undivided attention almost frightens me, my chest hums. I glance at her, and she tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. She looks just like Ariel without the freckles.
Moving to her closet in the back of the room, she opens the double doors, grabs a short sequined dress, and pulls out the wooden hanger. “Remember this? I always used to find it in Ariel’s room after you’d been over.”
She passes the dress to me and I hold it out, examining its shiny silver scales. I place it in front of my body, moving towards the full-length mirror in the corner while stroking my fingers over the sequins.
“It was always my idea to take it,” I confess.
“If you want to put it on now,” she says, “You can.”
I look at the dress, now draped over my forehead, then rest it on the bed. Grabbing the bottom of my shirt, I lift it up over my head and toss it on the floor with the same frivolousness I would wield in my own bedroom. My hand glides across my stomach, feeling my ribs and the little bit of sweat that’s collected in the ridges. I look at Layla, her back turned and fingers slipping between hangers, giving me a thin veil of privacy while I undress. I’m standing in my bra and underwear, a little cold, some goosebumps rising like steam on my arms and stomach. We used to be naked together all the time— Layla, Ariel, and I — when we were young. Streaking through the house, trying on each other’s clothes, doodling on each other’s stomachs with bubblegum-scented pens. But she hasn’t seen me like this, all curved and grown in. I want her to look at me, to see my body and notice how I’ve changed, but she doesn’t, or at least not in any way I can tell.
And if Ariel could see me now, standing half-naked in her sister’s room, I am certain her eyes would deaden and her lips would scrunch, threatening to almost disappear completely. This was the look she gave when she hated me most. I wonder what, if anything, has changed between them. It was always a little fraught growing up. Attention is never paid equally between two siblings, one of them always eclipses the other, and Ariel was the child in the spotlight, whose whereabouts and grades and attitude Carol fussed over before realizing the futility of her attempts.
When I step into the dress, it’s heavy and unsurprisingly itchy, but it fits. “Can you zip me up?” I ask, my voice settling into a slightly higher pitch. Layla comes towards me and the zipper purrs until it reaches the back of my neck. Her dimples surface while she looks me up and down, her eyes dramatically flicking from my toes to my face, making a show of her appraisal.
I rub my hands against the sequins some more, up from my shoulders and down to my hips, scratching my palms. Now that I’m in the dress, I’m not sure what to do. It’s funny, Ariel used to make me feel something similar, used to pull out that same proclivity for more in me. I’ve always been drawn to people like this, who can perceive my willingness and shape it.
“I wonder if Ariel likes Seattle,” I ask. “I’ve never been.”
I see Layla move to the foot of the bed through the mirror.
She exhales and glances at the ticking ceiling fan, preoccupied. “Well, the thing is,” she finally says, “I don’t know, but my mom tells me she’s having fun.”
“Oh?”
“We’re just not very close.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “That’s hard. She can be hard.”
“Right, you’re no stranger.”
“Well, I guess I am now.”
Then I join her on the bed, which groans under our weight. She lies down next to me, stretching her arms back and lifting her hips, yawning.
“So why did you come tonight?” Layla asks, turning towards me, chin in palm.
“Like I said, I was in the neighborhood.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“Well, if you must know, I was kind of hoping to see you. I mean Ariel too, but mostly, I was really hoping you’d be here.”
We peer at each other and then dart our eyes away and then look at each other again. We both know I’m lying and for a moment I think she will make me admit it, declare my statement duplicitous, but Layla, unlike her sister, doesn’t push. She leans closer but I will not meet her where she wants me, a gesture that delights us both, dragging that special second before a desire is actualized, before the thing to which you’ve attached your wants can disappoint. The coarse stitches of her dress itch my sides and I tug at the collar that has edged up my neck.
Gaby Edwards is a writer living in Brooklyn, currently working on a short story collection.
Megan DeCino is an artist currently living and working in Homer, Alaska. More of her work can be found on instagram: @megandecino