Her house was trashed. A champagne bottle was shattered on the ground by the foyer, it's contents spilling out surrounding her cracked phone. A couple of framed pictures lay on the book shelf, surprisingly unharmed. But despite the mess, Dana sat in the middle of it all, smiling while she put a couple of mugs on the coffee table in the living room.
“Coffee or tea?” She asked, her voice cracking.
“Tea. I'm sure you remember what kind I like.” I mimic her forced smile.
“Green, with lemon, hardly any sugar. It hasn't been too long since you left.”
“Well, it feels like it,” As I say this I have to raise my voice as she walks into the kitchen to get the tea, “Hardly anyone has reached out, after I moved.”
She came back with the kettle and a tea bag with a bowl of sugar and a saucer with lemons on a tray. A rose gold flask is in her hands, and as she started to unscrew it, I hold her arm. I could tell that she knew what I was trying to say, but she just shook her head, pouring the smooth amber liquid into a small and dainty white tea cup.
“Well everyone at school still talks about you. They miss you. Even if you left with a couple of enemies,” She replies to my statement of neglect as she stirs her brandy with a small spoon,
“Yeah, I'm sure.” I take more than a sip of the tea and I soon regret it as the piping hot liquid rolls down my throat. But I decide to look around, and I come to the realization that there was more damage done to the place than what I saw when I walked in. The curtains were burnt, with little holes on them caused by a hot cigarette. The carpet in the living room was damaged by an endless stream of soda. A vase lay hopeless on the ground, cracked, the flowers ripped into tiny pieces.
“Dana....What happened?”
But Dana ignored me, continuing to stir the brandy. She didn't even bother to look up at me. She started to hum eerily. I took out my phone, seeing if there was an explanation for any of this, but nothing could explain this disaster. An absence of texts, status updates, or tweets hit me in the face. I walked to the patio, looking out at the city. A traffic jam kept half of the Manhattan from getting any damn where. A mom was walking her child on a pink leash. A lush in a tux stumbled around, yelling out obscenities to anyone who passed him.
“I know you noticed.” Dana's voice sounds as if she was crying.
Who the hell wouldn't notice? “Yeah.” I turned around and leaned against the railing, “I mean, if you don't wanna talk about it, it's OK.”
“I don't. But I kind of need to...get it out.”
She sits on a black wooden bench I never noticed. “I didn't graduate. I guess skipping History didn't really benefit anything.”
“Oh really?” My sarcasm shocks even me, but she smirks.
“And my parents cut me off.”
“Oh.” It doesn't surprise me. Dana would spend her trust fund on a purse and shoes if she could, but then her common sense would kick in and she'll get the shoes instead. I remember one time she got so bad her dad cut her black card in half, but she just ran to her grandfather and he handed her a stack and gave her a hug. It always baffled me; I was the only scholarship student at the school and socialites didn't mind treating me like an endangered species, but it didn't bother me because I treated them the same, just a little more snidely.
I sit next to her and I take a hold of her hand, “You can always get a job,” I look at her when I say this to witness her face cringe, “My dad's looking for a new employee at the bakery.”
“Free cronuts for emplyees?”
I chuckle, “I'm sure he can find a recipe.”
She smiles and even laughs, that same shrill laugh.
As she gets up, she turns towards me and tugs at my blazer, “It wouldn't be too much of me to ask you to help me clean up? I had to let the maid go.”
“Sure.”
But I couldn't help but look at her skinny wrists, where behind the tennis bracelet sheltered by diamonds were scars, scars that were familiar. Except they were fresh.
I took a broom from the bathroom, but then I see it. The razor. I close the door, and I look at the mess. The porcelain sink that was once a pearly white was covered in red splatters, some pink and faded from a failed attempt at rinsing them away. A tear rolls down my chin, but I wipe it away with my sleeve and I pick up the razor with a napkin, throwing it in a waist bin in the corner. A can of Ajax is in the cabinet under the sink sitting oddly next to a bottle of Chanel No.5 and a jar of St. Ives. I wet the skin, scrubbing away the blood with an annoyingly yellow sponge and sprinkle the Ajax in the sink. Sitting on the edge of the tub, I search the room for any more signs of distress. The razor was the only thing that she used. I finish cleaning the sink and I open the door to find Dana, picking up pieces of the champagne bottle. She looks up at me with a face that held more hope than earlier, but she sees that I'd just came from the bathroom.
“I-I-I didn't know what else to do.”
I just shake my head and hug her. I could feel her shake as she cried. “It's OK, just no more. No more.”
