Chapter three:
When I was a kid, my mother used to bake the most delicious cookies. They were healthy, too, not the kind that are filled with sugar and colorings. High in additives and preservatives or whatever. They were made from beetroot and chocolate, which shouldn’t work, but it did. It’s another odd combination that I find myself lying awake thinking about at night.
How can two opposites work so well together?
They say opposites attract, and I think that’s how it was with Carrie and me.
Carrie.
She’s laughing. Or crying. I can’t be sure anymore. And there is so much blood.
But I love her. I would do it all again for her.
Right?
Because if I wouldn’t, what does that mean? About her? About me?
About everything?
We were opposite in every way—a strange combination of personalities and looks. But we worked. We went together perfectly. Like my mother’s chocolate-and-beetroot cookies.
My memories aren’t always red.
Some of them are bright and pretty and full of color.
Those are the best ones.
The ones that didn’t ruin me.
The first time I saw her, she was playing in the dirt with a stick. She was six and I was eight. Her hair was slicked back from her face, and it looked damp. She had been crying; I could tell because she had tear stains down her dirty cheeks.
Those were probably the first things I loved about her.
Her tears.
They were real.
The realest thing about her.
Those tears would change my life.
*
“Why is your hair so wet?” I asked, my hands shoved deep into my shorts pockets. I’d been watching her for twenty minutes and my curiosity had finally got the better of me despite my mom’s words ringing in my ears about asking too many questions of people.
She looked up at me, her eyes glassy and sad. “My mom said I have bugs in my hair,” she said, reaching up to scratch at her head.
“Eww,” I replied, feeling sort of grossed out by the girl with dirty tear-stained cheeks and bugs in her hair.
“She put some cream in it to make them go away,” she said.
I sat down next to her then, making sure there was enough distance between us that the bugs couldn’t jump across onto me. “Why are you crying?” I asked.
Her cheeks flushed pink and she looked away. “I killed a worm.” She poked the worm that was cut into two halves with a stick. It was gross and it made my stomach feel sick. I’d never known anyone to kill something intentionally before.
“Why?” I whispered as if I might get in trouble by my mom if she knew about the worm.
“Because it needs to suffer for being both the bottom and the top.” She poked the worm again, almost angrily.
