The recreational drug haze that I stumbled through the last eight months was beginning to lift.

Or was it that you’d sunken so low you could finally see that you were in a fog?

The floor was cold and gritty, like bathroom tile, but it felt so good against my burning skin. I really had nothing to escape, except boredom. All I wanted to was sleep.

You are creating your own problems, sister.

"I really hate the way you upper-middle class suburban girls all feel so alienated. Waaa waaa waaaa!" Ryan grabbed me under my arms and pulled me up on the couch. "Take your Prozac, sweetheart. Idolatry of Sylvia Plath gets a little pathetic after age 18."

You don’t even like Sylvia Plath.

Ryan, having no room to lecture, grabbed his bong from the coffee table and began to pack the bowl.

He’s no damned tortured artist himself.

I didn’t feel like picking a fight with him now. I was floating on the pillows; they too, were cool and soothing against my skin. I was lulled into a nod by the white noise of the television static.

* * * *

I put on Tom Waits’ Rain Dogs CD and pushed the repeat button on my stereo so "Downtown Train" played over and over. My bottom lip quivered, but I couldn’t really get out a full cry.

You’d think you could do that right.

Ryan came in after what seemed like hours. He turned down the volume and turned off the lights.

You pretended to sleep. Coward.

I felt him watching me for a few moments, then he walked out of my bedroom and shut the door behind him. I used to be in love with him.

Used to be?

He never noticed. I probably would always love him.

It will probably never make a difference.

* * * *

My dad was an alcoholic.

He had a lot of issues starting with abandonment and ending with fidelity.

My mom was a workaholic.

She was always either stressed out or worn out.

From the ages of seven to twelve, I spent most of my time in my room escaping my family, but I wasn’t a particularly sad or lonely child. Their divorce and their problems didn’t destroy me.

That was their thing, not yours.

I went on with the tennis lessons, ballet recitals and summer camps thrust upon me. I played Barbies with the neighborhood girls, had a poster of John Travolta on my bedroom wall, and read Judy Blume religiously.

You were more or less well adjusted. Nothing to cry about in therapy.

My dad usually kept his appointments to see my sister, brother and I -- every other weekend and two weeks during school breaks.

You were luckier than most.

* * * *

"I think Ryan is so lucky to have you as a best friend," Ashley said one morning as she was leaving our apartment. Her long sandy blond hair was pulled back in braided pigtails.

Her face glowed angelic.

"I want you to know that you’re very special to him. He wants to protect you and I think that’s very sweet."

Oh, look, here comes the pity parade!

From the day I met Ryan he swore he didn’t believe in girlfriends, simply flavors of the month.

But Ashley single-handedly changed all that.

He was in love with her. She was stunning in personality and appearance - I want to loathe every single molecule in her being.

But she makes it so difficult.

She genuinely wants to be my friend and she moves with such honesty and innocence toward her goal.

Ashley’s about as sweet and nice as Holly fucking Hobby. It pisses you off, doesn’t it? You could strangle her with her own pigtails.

Sometimes I felt nauseous from all the hate and jealousy I secretly wage against her.

She has no way of knowing.

* * * *

After a particularly rough night out at the bars,

You mean a binge, don’t you?

I used to crawl in bed with Ryan.

Going for the pity fuck.

He’d wrap his arms around me or rub my neck until I passed out. Sometimes under the covers we’d take off our clothes and press our naked bodies against one another.

To see how long you could keep things platonic.

I was a professional at manipulating him into sex.

Externally playing him, you internally annihilated yourself.

With Ryan and I, it was always fucking just for the sake of fucking no matter that I memorized the fine laugh lines around his eyes or the irregularity of his breathing.

You could feel the traces of his lips on your skin for hours afterwards even if he couldn’t remember if your eyes were blue or green.

* * * *

I tried to escape from underneath Lori’s shadow, but it was too monstrous. It swallowed up every ray of light I emitted.

Your sister is perfect. Kind of like Ashley.

She always had boyfriends who came to the front door and she never dyed her hair jet-black. She gracefully glided from prom queen to wife and mother of three.

Dad never missed her softball games. Mom never grounded her.

They never understood how she could be so cheerful and social, so grounded and stable and how I was always so sulky and sarcastic, so indifferent and temperamental.

Bad character traits for suburban princess.

I used to stare at her a lot and she acted like she didn’t notice. Even though I felt so totally inferior in her presence, I was drawn to her.

And what about your brother?

Christopher was the middle child stuck between the polar opposites that were his sisters. Chris was good at sports, but not great; he was well liked, but not popular. All the neighborhood boys hung out in our backyard skateboarding on his half-pipe. I often overheard him defending me when his friends said I was creepy. He said I was just as weird as all of their sisters.

"Am I really like your friends’ sisters?" I ‘d ask.

You so wanted to be like all of those happy girls. You wanted to fit in.

"Yeah, sure," he say. "You all scream when a Duran Duran video comes on MTV, you all sing and dance pretending to be Madonna in the bathroom mirror, you all whine, hog the phone, say stupid things. You just need to be a lot less bitchy."

Remember a smile brightens everyone’s day. It’s the secret to popularity.

* * * *

Ryan ruffled the back of my hair as he passed by my loafing body in front of the TV. "You do plan on leaving the house sometime this week, right?"

I shrugged my shoulders, not looking away from General Hospital.

You were still in your pajamas from two days ago.

I didn’t want to go anywhere. I could barely handle leaving my bedroom, but I couldn’t concentrate enough to read anymore. The words all scrambled and ran into each other’s meanings.

If only you had a television set of your own.

"You make me worry about you sometimes, Kiddo."

There’s nothing tragic about you, remember?

"We used to have so much fun. Everything’s different now. Let me help you."

I glanced over at him and noticed the empty Finlandia bottle clutched in his hand.

You thought you stashed it behind the bookshelves in a mostly consumed bag of Mother’s Circus Parade cookies.

I watched his eyes narrowed with concern. There are times that I don’t even care that he cares about me.

That’s when you know it’s bad.

* * * *

Ryan and I went to Paris once.

You replay Paris like "Downtown Train". It was almost a year ago for Christ’s sake.

We were walking from the Anvers métro station up Butte Montmartre toward our two-star hotel. The clouds broke open and it began to pour. Ryan pulled me into him and swirled me around. We ran, then walked in the rain, arm in arm. At the top of the street, standing in awe of the Sacré-Cœur basilica, he dipped me back. We began to laugh, then slowly dance.

"We’ll always have Paris," he whispered.

No, he didn’t. That’s so cheesy! What’d he do next? Hum "As Time Goes By?"

Small bubbles formed in the rain puddles around us. The rain pattered against Ryan’s leather jacket.

Holding for the sake of holding.

If he ever had loved me, it would have been then.

It wasn’t.

It never would be.

You came back from Europe and he fell in love with Ashley. Ha ha ha!

* * * *