Lizzy
by Josie Eanes
Lizzy and I were the closest of friends, the type of friends who did drugs together and spray painted each others’ names under bridges in the dangerous hours of the night. Lizzy was a complicated person, the exact type of person I always clung to. She was someone I could analyze and unpack. She was someone I could think about. Something bad had happened to her when she was younger, something involving a male family member, and since then she had lived life with a strong apprehension to others. She had told me this one night as we sat on her bed, petting her cats and taking turns sipping from her mom’s boxed wine. It explained a lot. She believed that everyone was out to get her and she believed it with all of her heart, even about her closest friends.
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Lizzy and I used to go to parties instead of school dances. Of course, we couldn’t just tell our parents we were ditching the dance to go drink, we had to put on an act. I had gone to what I now identify as a tacky dress shop in the mall with Lizzy the week before the dance and bought a bright red dress, one that barely covered my butt and clung to my waist as tightly as possible. My mom had vetoed it instantly. I was just sixteen and I could either choose short or tight, not both.
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“Winnie you can’t wear this honey,” she said, noticing the sour look that formed on my face.
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“But Mom, it cost me forty-five dollars.”
Forty five dollars was a lot for a sixteen year old who didn’t have a job.
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“Why don’t we just go buy you a new dress,” she suggested.
I quickly realized that my chances of winning this fight were slim-to-none.
“I’ll just wear the one from last year.”
It occurred to me that I would wrap my new dress around the two bottles of vodka I had bought from my neighbor. The insulation would prevent the bottles from clinking in my bag and keep Lizzy’s parents from knowing that I was bringing alcohol into their house.
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I always bought drinks for me and my friends. I always did everything. I hung around my pedophile neighbor who dropped out of college to sell vapes and alcohol to under-aged girls. I texted my drug dealer Jake to secure us a sober driver.
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will u be sober homecoming
i mean i’m gonna be smoking
that doesn’t count
​
He eventually agreed to drive Lizzy, Stella, and I to Yuri’s blow-off-homecoming-party. Yuri threw small parties down by the river accompanied by a bonfire, bongs, and lots of beer. Lizzy, Stella, and I were the only girls that ever got invited to these parties and we held some pride in that, although it was probably because Yuri was too nervous to invite girls he didn’t know his entire life. Jake and Yuri didn’t drink, they smoked and so it was always bring your own drinks. That’s why I brought two bottles of vodka to Lizzy’s, where we always got ready.
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“I think we need more than this.”
Lizzy looked down at the two bottles I had set on her bed. Her bushy black cat rubbed his face on the corner of the bottle. She had six black cats and I could never remember all of their names.
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“Who would I buy them from now?” I said, clearly annoyed.
It was thirty minutes before the dance started, and most of the people from our high school went at least for a little bit. I opened the smaller bottle and took a swig. I needed to drink my money’s worth before anyone else could get their hands on my vodka.
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“You could text Carlos. He’s probably at the dance by now but he might have beer in his trunk when he comes to the party later,” Caroline said, looking up from Lizzy’s brightly lit mirror.
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Lizzy had taken it upon herself to invite five other girls, something Stella and I discovered when Caroline opened Lizzy’s front door and let us in.
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“Fine. Just tell him to meet us in the school lot right before the dance. We can just grab it out of his trunk or something.” My grip tightened on the bottle of vodka. I wasn’t getting stuck with beer. I took another drink.
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Caroline nodded. I liked Caroline. She was confident and slept with a lot of guys and I found something admirable in that. She was bullied out of her private Catholic school for being too promiscuous, but she never talked about it. She was complicated, wanting something serious but needing something fleeting. She applied false eyelashes gingerly to her lids, widening her eyes and blinking rapidly after their adhesion. Her long blonde hair sat freshly curled on her shoulders and she began to pick at some food stuck in her braces. We made eye contact in the mirror and she smiled for a second, then went back to poking at her teeth with her acrylics. I noticed Stella squeezed in between the wall and a few pillows. She was the socially anxious type and the last minute invite of half a dozen girls she didn’t know had thrown her completely off. I could tell, I had known her since Kindergarten.
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“Hey. Are you okay?” I asked, already predicting her response.
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“No,” she whispered.
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I could sense the annoyance in her tone and I was glad I wasn’t the only one who was pissed at Lizzy. Being unhappy with her took the effort of two and even then, whenever we had issues whoever was opposing her would usually give up and apologize. My phone buzzed and lit up several times. Jake was here. I took one last swig from my drink and then stuffed it in my bag.
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***
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“Well, I guess we can give it a shot.” Jake said, nervously glancing at the group of eight girls, and then back at his ancient Camry.
We viciously crammed ourselves into his car. Lizzy took shotgun of course, and by the end of it, me and Stella ended up being sacrificed to the backseat floorboard. Without hesitation, Jake slammed on the gas, but the incline of the street and the weight of the car made his tires screech and burn. He rammed his foot against the pedal again, and this time an even louder screech emitted from the vehicle as it jolted forward a few feet. He pressed down on the gas one final time, and this time alongside the squealing tires, was a shout.
“Hey!”
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I pushed myself up to the window using Caroline’s knee as leverage. Standing just a couple feet outside of the car was Lizzy’s dad.
“Well, shit.” I sunk back down onto the floorboard.
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Lizzy jumped out of the car and Jake put it in park. Lizzy’s dad grabbed her arm and dragged her inside the house, nearly stepping on another black cat who sat at their doorstep. I reached for the bottle that sat in my bag at my feet. We waited in silence except for my consistent sips of vodka and a couple whispers from me to Stella. “This wouldn’t have happened if she hadn't invited a million others.”
Stella nodded in agreement, but her eyes never focused on mine. They stayed glued to the floorboard. I took another sip from my bottle and then a few more.
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I was thirteen the first time I had gotten drunk. It was Halloween and I was particularly depressed. My sister was sick, the type of sick where you don’t get better, and the whole holiday had felt wrong. I didn’t have a costume because I usually matched with my sister and it rained. It rained really hard. Passing her room, saturated with the dim light from a singular lamp, I could hear her crying tears for what would become the first of many missed Halloweens. While all of the adults sat in the living room talking in hushed whispers about out of state treatment and shittydoctors, I took a few sips of wine in the kitchen. And then a few more. It started with whatever Icould get my hands on. Lizzy’s mom’s boxed wine, my dad’s leftover hard cider from the fridge. And then I realized that if I wore a baggy jacket and went on a neighborhood “walk,” I could have my own supply.
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An aggressive wrap on the backseat driver’s side window caused me to jolt back up. Lizzy looked down on me and motioned with her finger to roll down the window. She was wearing a black dress with a fake corset on top and it contrasted nicely with her hot pink hair. It used to be dyed black, but the pink made her look softer, as much as that was possible for Lizzy. She had a sharp nose and a sharp jawline and sharply plucked eyebrows. She was pretty but she never got the attention she wanted from boys. She never complained about it but by the time even Stella had had her first kiss, Lizzy was starting to break.
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“I have to drive.” she said angrily before the window was even fully down. “I don’t know how I’m gonna drink and do that but whatever.”
She looked back at me.
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I broke eye contact, denying her the answer she clearly wanted; I was not going to drive. She had made this bed and now she had to lay in it.
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“Can I at least have a bottle for our car?” she asked, her nails still tapping at the window. I raised the bottle up from the floor board and gave her an awkward smile. It was halfway empty.
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“Where’s the other one?” she asked through gritted teeth.
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I shrugged. I had lost track of it a long time ago.
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“Look. Carlos will be at the party after the dance.” I tried hard not to slur my words.
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“So I get stuck with the beer?” Lizzy fumed.
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Something about the way she looked at me, like I had done something horribly wrong made me feel something simmering in my chest. Something nasty.
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“I bought all of it didn’t I?” My vision doubled a little as I spoke. “If the beer isn’t good enough for you then I’ll let someone else drink it.”
Lizzy’s face twisted in anger, her brows furrowed and her lips parted slightly like she was going to say something that she couldn’t take back. But she didn’t. She just muttered “bitch” under her breath and stomped across the street to her car.
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After a moment, Stella and the other girls happily jumped out of the car and ran over to Lizzy’s. Maybe it was the immense effort Jake’s car had gone through just to not roll back down the hill, maybe it was the clear smell of weed in the car, or maybe it was the thick tension that sat in the air, but only Caroline and I remained. We sat in the back, no one wanting to move to the front. Jake put the car in drive and sped up the hill.
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“Wanna sip?” I was drunk already and the vodka sloshed on Caroline a little as I shoved it towards her.
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Unphased, she motioned at the cupholder in the door. My other bottle of vodka, although a lot emptier than the last time I saw it, sat comfortably. I smiled. Caroline got it.
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It was winter time, which meant the sun started setting at 4:30. I always hated getting out of school only to find that it would be dark an hour later, but once I started going to parties, I changed my mind. I liked when it got dark early because parties started earlier and on nights when I had to go home, my curfew came less quickly. I glanced over at Caroline. She was scrolling through her phone, double tapping everything that popped up. I looked out of my window. It was so dark and rural that I couldn’t make out anything but my own reflection. I tried to shift my focus away from myself and back onto the darkness that was the outside of the car, but it was too hard and I was too drunk, so I looked out of the front windshield instead. With the help of the car’s headlights, I could tell we were going down a steep hill, trees shrouding us on both sides. I glanced at Jake. He had a joint between his fingers that I hadn’t noticed him light, and he inhaled and exhaled slowly, clearly thinking about something important. The smoke pressed against the windshield like it was trying to escape, but it couldn’t, so it faded back into the air. I looked away, back to my reflection, the one I was trying to avoid. It was the wrong moment to look away.
“Fuck!” Jake screamed.
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I whipped my head around just in time to see a deer leap across the road. For a split second, I thought it had made it and my chest relaxed a little. Then I heard a deep, unforgettable crunch and the squealing of brakes as Jake’s car came to a halt.
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“Winnie. Don’t look back,” Jake said. He had turned to face the backseat but his eyes were focused on the road behind us.
Slowly, I turned around to find what he was looking at. The deer lay helplessly in the road, its body twitching and writhing in pain. It was nearly decapitated and its head was twisted at a horrible angle. I screamed and I didn’t stop. Caroline’s hand found mine but I couldn’t feel it, not really. Jake ran his fingers through his hair, cussing under his breath. I couldn’t stop screaming and I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the deer. Away from the blood smear that coated the road. Away from the deer’s open mouth that was screaming alongside my screams. Headlights illuminated the deer’s body even more as a car pulled up beside us. Lizzy’s car. I kept my eyes locked on the deer, even when I saw a flash of pink hair in my peripheral vision outside of the passenger side window. I kept my eyes on the deer even as Lizzy’s arms wrapped around my body and even as she gently pulled me from the car. Lizzy opened the passenger door of her car and sat me down in the seat. It was already empty for me.
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“He said he’s going to call animal control. You know. To put it out of its misery.” Lizzy said as we drove away.
“Yeah.” I said, staring at the road behind us.
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At the party, it was evident that the tension from the deer and my fight with Lizzy had dissolved amidst the smoke from the bonfire and the haze in everyone’s eyes from the alcohol. Lizzy and Stella danced arm and arm, spinning using the crook of their elbows. Their shadows danced in the light of the fire where I sat with Jake. In my eyeline, Caroline and Carlos were aggressively making out, Caroline’s hand still gripping my bottle of vodka. Jake and I watched them, the intensity of their kisses radiating over everyone at the party. We would probably hook up later on in the night once my memories of the deer and my fight with Lizzy faded to the back of my mind.
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I looked back at Lizzy. Stella had spun out and landed on the ground, emitting her usual shrill and loud laughter. Lizzy laughed along and while helping her up, made eye contact with me. I smiled a little bit, proceeding with caution. She smiled back and continued her rotating dance with Stella. I wondered how long it would be until our next fight and if she would push me away completely. I leaned back, releasing the tension in my arms until I was on my back on the ground. I stared up at the moon and the stars and the deep black sky, obscured lightly by the bonfire smoke. I allowed myself to relax, letting the grass tickle my bare skin knowing that tonight’s fight would not be that fight.