Gracie
Ishift, grabbing the bottom of my dress and pulling it tight, as if it’ll go any further down. I suddenly feel very exposed, crowded. I can feel Owen and Devon nearby. I don’t know if they’re looking at me, but I can practically feel their eyes burning the side of my head. Even if they aren’t looking at me, I can feel them. I stare at Colton, refusing to look anywhere else because if I do, I will look right at Devon and Owen. Which I know isn’t the best idea right now. Or probably ever.
“So, let’s play,” Landon urges. “How’re we playing?”
“We ask a question about ourselves, and the others guess,” Colton explains and goes into the examples he’d given me earlier, but I make the mistake of looking.
I catch Devon’s eye. Owen is no longer looking at me, but he is. Devon’s face is void of all emotion, eyes blank as he stares at me. I don’t know for sure if Marcy will win this game. She knows quite a bit about me, but I am sure that Devon and Owen would rack up points pretty damn fast if they play. At least they would with knowing things about me. Or the old me. Am I still who I was? My chest tightens, and my breath hitches. It takes my entire willpower to pull my eyes from Devon’s and lower them to the table.
“Are you sure we should play this? I mean, Gracie and I are best friends,” Marcy boasts.
I feel the heat in my cheeks as I look up at shake my head, knowing the bile of truth has had to come out eventually. “This is a good game, Marcy. I just… I don’t know how well I know you anymore.”
Marcy’s eyebrows raise in surprise, but she quickly recovers and nods, pressing her lips together. I see the hurt flash in her eyes before she tries to hide it. I know my words probably sting, but it’s the truth. I really don’t know how much I know about Marcy anymore. In high school, instead of spending afternoons with her, I was out under bridges sticking needles in my arms and wasting my days away. I barely remember shit, let alone anything deep about my best friend. Guilt twists in my stomach.
“It’s okay,” Marcy says after a moment, her face lighting up. “You’re here now. That’s what matters.”
I nod and look back at the table, avoiding Colton’s eyes. It's already bad enough that he knows I can’t drink, but now there are more questions I’m sure are brewing on his tongue. Colton doesn’t ask, though, not yet anyway, and I really hope he doesn’t for a while. Not until I’m ready to tell him.
“Okay, well, I’ll start,” Marcy offers. “I just basically ask a question about myself, and you guys guess, right?”
I look up to see her looking at Colton in question, and he nods, then looks around.
“We should probably keep tally,” Colton says.
I get up quickly and go to the refrigerator, yanking a blank sheet off the grocery list pad and taking it back to the table, scooting it close to him before I take the pen with it and hand it to Colton. I watch as he writes down the names, taking my seat again.
“Okay, what is my favorite color?” Marcy questions, putting the game into gear.
Purple. Right? It was her favorite color in seventh grade, the soonest I can remember her telling me. Flustered, I still open my mouth to reply, but Landon beats it to me.
“Yellow,” Landon announces, and Marcy giggles, clapping excitedly, bouncing a little in her seat.
“That’s right!” She giggles again.
I shrink down in my seat. Purple definitely wasn’t the answer. It’s the ultimate thing to tell me that I probably don’t know shit about my best friend anymore.
“What’s my favorite color?” Colton challenges, repeating the same question, but neither Marcy nor Landon seem to mind as they start spewing colors.
“Green?” Landon’s guess.
“Purple?” Marcy’s guess.
Both are wrong and wrong again as they each say a different color. After guessing a few more times and still getting them wrong, Colton looks at me curiously.
“You haven’t guessed, Gracie.”
“I—” I shake my head and pull myself to sit up straighter. I feel really lousy about the game, but I guess I have to try. “I don’t know. White?”
Colton snickers and shakes his head. “No.”
“Brown?” Marcy finally guesses.
“Yes!” Colton announces, and Marcy squeals.
I stare at my best friend. She’s really pretty, and I’ve always been jealous of her beauty and her slightly slanted eyes. But right now, I’m jealous that she hadn’t gotten addicted. She’d tried drugs too. I was there when she first tried. But besides smoking weed, nothing caught her attention like they sang my name. Because of them, I don’t even know who Marcy is as a person, let alone my best friend. Am I even allowed to call her my best friend if I know shit about her?
“Okay, what’s my favorite color?” Landon interjects.