All Our Lives ✔

8|

"Quiet him," Sebri snapped.

I put the man's tongue firmly between the scissors I held. In my other hand, I raised a feather, waving it like a conductor.

"Very still, now," I whispered.

And I lowered the feather slowly to his nose...

∞

Sebri already had something to wear for the homecoming dance, so it was just me who needed a dress.

But when I emerged after wiggling into my first choice, Sebri's shout dunked me in sobering ice water.

"What the hell, Kera? Your arms are toothpicks!" She quickly looked around before lowering her voice to a hiss, though no one was around—the shock stronger than her anger. "You hypocrite. You're always on me about taking care of myself...how did you get like this?"

For a moment, I couldn't think. Sebri was in front of me, out of breath, her beautiful eyes wide.

When I was preoccupied—as I had been with whatever struggle she'd been going through, not that she'd bring that up—I lost weight. Mom had already warned me, in a fury, to get my act together. (All of Mom's warnings were threats, so I had taken her seriously.)

I was a bit stung that Sebri had nothing to say about how I looked at the moment other than to point out my weight, which was normally not an issue.

"Can we not do this here..." I said, frowning at the clump of chiffon in my hand.

At my height, shifts in weight appeared a lot more extreme. Basically, it looked worse than it really was.

"Oh, you don't want to hear about my concern? But I've been hearing all about yours..." Sebri said through her teeth. 

I blinked the blurriness from my eyes, slightly overwhelmed. I was great at confrontation, would even go as far as saying it was my thing (I'd be a good lawyer, according to Mom, even though I was "all insults, no substance"). But not with family, and right now, not with my best friend.

"You should go," I said. "I want to pick something in peace."

"Angel, don't," she said. 

I threw out my arms. "This is what stress looks like, Sebri. Welcome to the worry club! Except your problem is that you don't care about yourself enough. My problem is that I care about you too much."

I couldn't manage another word, even when Sebri apologized from outside the dressing room door. The hurt and vulnerability I was feeling had turned hard, as tended to happen when a hemorrhage of emotions needed to be stopped.

I was afraid of what might spill out next, so the best solution was to keep my mouth shut. 

She finally understood what I'd been experiencing since we'd gotten close, and the first thing she did was call me a hypocrite. Granted, I'd never let things get this bad before, but senior year was so damn aggressive that it left little time for anything but panicked flailing. Although I respected her for it, not all of us could be effortlessly intelligent like Sebri.

"Okay, I'll...I'll go wait for you at the food court," she said loudly, as if she was afraid I might not hear her. There was a light thump at the door, and I knew she'd either placed her hand there or the back of her head.

My anger toward Sebri was growing day by day, and it made me afraid. Half the time I just wanted to scream and scream at her.

The other half, I wanted to tear my own hair out.