6

My phone vibrated, but I didn't pick it up. I rarely did. Sunday afternoon with nothing to do, I was lying on my back on my bed, staring at the ceiling, thinking about nothing. I listened to the phone purr against the fake wood of my night table. I listened to it ring until it forwarded to voicemail. After a brief pause, the phone vibrated again, signaling that the caller had left a message.

I listened to it. "Hi, uh, Darcy. It's Alvin. You know, Monica's brother. I saw you at that party... anyway, um, there's something I wanted to ask you about. I mean, I need your help with something. Get back to me, okay?" There was a long pause, but he didn't hang up, "It's about Sniffles. It's important."

5

I had nightmares every night. I dreamed I was sitting alone in the living room, watching TV. I ate chicken flavored rice with a spoon and drank Diet Coke. It was raining, making the tree outside the window sway gracefully. I was warm and cozy and full, cuddling under the blanket that my grandmother crocheted for me when I went away to summer camp. I had a cat, and it curled in a ball near my feet, warming my toes. We were fluffy and cute together.

Then there was an explosion and we were blown to smithereens. My skin charred in the fiery heat, and I felt it peeling off. I inhaled ash, and could feel my life slipping away into burning darkness.

4

Everyone was getting drunk but me. Conversations were getting out of hand, people were starting to make less and less sense. Everything got louder. Someone kicked a beer over in the kitchen, and it was making my flip flops stick to the floor.

3

Channing wanted us to dye our hair. My mom generally didn't have strict rules, but she had vehemently opposed to my dying my hair in the past. She said my hair was naturally lovely, and that other people would pay to have my coloring.

2

We woke up when the bus jolted to a stop in front of school. Dusty kept his arm around my shoulder as he rubbed his eyes. I leaned forward and cleared my throat, surprised awake and not quite ready to look out the window and be stared back at by the face of the school. Seeing it made me shiver.

The bus had filled up with kids, of course, and as they loaded off the bus, most of them glanced sideways at us, trying to figure us out. . Dusty took his arm off me and hooked his bag on his shoulder. "Fuck," he sighed, patting my knee with his hand to get me to move out of his way. "Later," me mumbled, squishing past me into the line of kids waiting to get off the bus.

1

Freshman year, Monica died the night of the Homecoming dance. They found her in her brother's car, crunched against a tree down near the river. No one had ever noticed us before she killed herself, but when she did, everyone claimed to be her best friend, so that they'd get attention.

They had a prayer service in the chapel, and for a week the school chaplain let kids come in his office during study period to eat candy and talk about death instead of doing their chem worksheets. But two weeks later, the football team won the championship, school pride overran everything, and Monica was forgotten by everyone but me. “Monica” used to be the name of my best friend. The one I went to tap dance classes with in fourth grade, the one who I smoked clove cigarettes with in the park, the one who forgave me for not going to her thirteenth birthday party because I was mad at her for inviting the girl who cheated off my biology midterm. “Monica” used to be a name I threw around all the time because she called my house and rode my bus home from school and slept over on school nights so we could watch black and white movies together.

But “Monica” doesn’t even exist anymore. The girl with the birthmark on the back of her knee and the triangle-shaped baby toe was just a figment of my imagination. We’d videotaped ourselves acting out our favorite movie scenes and dropped condoms full of water out of the second floor window of her house when her brothers’ friends used to smoke on the front porch. But “Monica” is a principle now. An event. Teachers use her as an example, a cautionary tale. Don't drive fast at night, or you'll end up like Monica. You never know what can happen, think of Monica. Life is short, remember Monica?