The Same Girl [ON HOLD]

Four💔

Upstairs in my room, Sie pans my wardrobe with her camera, doing her best announcer voice: "in a world were summer dreams really do come true, Kasey and Sie pan the vacation of their lives. There will be beaches. There will be bathing suits. And there will be boys. But something lurks just below the surface, threatening to ruin the A. B. S. E. if these clever, beautiful gal-pals don't turn their attention to its immediate resolution- Kasey's wardrobe is a total nightmare!"

Owing to Sie's tireless quest for the smallest ratio of fabric to skin legally allowed, her summer attire- and even most of her winter clothes- is always beach ready, with cute halters, short skirts and scrappy sandals.

Owing to my mother's tireless quest for the ultimate deal, combined with her standard-issue fashion immunity, my wardrobe- taken as a collection- should be tried, convicted, and hung. Almost completely devoid of anything cute, short, or scrappy, my wardrobe houses many half-price, off-season sale items typically excavated from the basements of overcrowded department stores where I had to elbow my way past middle-age women bargain hunting in the loose underwear bins. The only things I actually wear is the stuff that I bought myself.

"Where do you suggest we start?" I ask, fingering the dresses that hang in front of us.

" I don't even know," she told me. She turned the camera to face herself and dozens an exaggerated shrug. "Just take ti all out and throw it on the bed."

I'm not in the mood to dismantle my entire wardrobe, but I do as she asks because it makes her smile, just a little bit, so I don't fight her. Sometimes when she looks happy like this, I watch her fro,t eh corner of my eye and wonder if my best friend is still in there somewhere, the one who used to stage elaborate weddings for our dolls and deal me an extra thousand dollars in Monopoly so we could conspire abasing Mitch.

In the post-death part of our relationship, I don't know if I'll ever see that Sie again. We're such different people now; if I ever met her on the street today, just like this, we would never be friends. But once in a while, her smile comes back and I see her, really see her, and I know I'd do anything to keep her there a little longer, to keep her from slipping back into the coma of silence that nearly overtook her two years ago.

Even if it means talking about boys and trying on make-up and drinking horrible, fake milkshakes.

"Kasey Hoffmann's wardrobe malfunction, take one." Sie films while I toss heaps of unwearable clothes onto my bed by the armful. I have a few passable favourites, supplemented by the frequent raids of Sie's closet or something I've bought, but I force most of the embarrassing ensembles into hiding, where they wait in vain for the day, when they, like their more stylish brethren, might be called into fashion service.

"God, Kasey. What are these?" Sie sets down the camera to grab a pair of old jeans with her thumb and forefinger, as though pants can transfer a contagious disease. I look up, "they're my old favourite jeans from middle school. They have good memories."

"Kasey, ankle zippers never have good memories. And what the hell is thing thing? It's completely ruined."

My mouth goes dry as Sie pulls a white singlet from the plastic bag I've kept it in for the past two years, stuffed behind all the shoes on the closet floor. It has splotches of purple and blue, crusty and fading from its original birthday cake colours. At first, I didn't want to wash it because it reminded me on that night and everything it was supposed to turn into. After he died, I couldn't bring myself to wash it, or get rid of it, or do anything with it.

Ever.

"Garbage pile," Sie announces, ready to chuck it out.

"Don't!" I dive towards her and snatch the shirt out of her hand with more force than I intended. It's the only surviving witness of the night Mitch and I changed over from friends to whatever it was we became, and it's nearly impossible for me not to cry.