Falling From Disgrace

“She’ll be alright,” Carl assured while he walked Adrianna to the door. “It’s been… hard for her, to say the least.”

Adrianna swallowed thickly and nodded. She was so stupid for going there.

“Come back and see us again soon, kiddo, okay?” Carl said as he hugged her goodbye. “It was good to see you.”

“You, too,” she whispered back. “Take care.”

By Saturday evening Adrianna was wondering why in the hell she even decided to go home. Her four days of withdrawal were more pleasant than visiting her hometown where every hour that passed made the black cloud hanging over her head more and more ominous. Her mother came around and started talking to her like nothing had happened but her father hadn’t left the den since Friday evening, not even coming out for supper. Again that night, Adrianna found herself alone in her bedroom wondering why Jack still hadn’t called her. Talk about feeling like she was kid again. She was crying in her room waiting on a boy to call.

After another restless night, Adrianna decided she would head back to the city earlier than she had planned. Rather than take the last train, she would go home on the four o’clock one. She would have rather gone home first thing in the morning but there was one last thing she needed to do.

Rachel’s grave was located way in the back of the cemetery and, needing a walk to stretch, Adrianna parked near the entrance and trekked up the narrow, paved road to find it. When she saw the yellow tulips that were wilting next to the headstone, she tossed them to the side. Rachel hated yellow and she hated tulips. Reaching into her purse, Adrianna placed the sprigs of jasmine she had brought on the ground and then a box of cinnamon Hot Tamales, Rachel’s favorite, next to them. Crossing her legs beneath her, she sat, opened the box, and popped a few of the red, chewy, candies into her mouth.

“I saw your parents today. Your Dad is still cool but your mom isn’t doing so well, Rae. If you have any pull up there will ask someone to help her out? Try to pay her a visit in her dreams or something. Let her know you’re all right.

“Jason is getting married, but I’m sure you know that. Are you mad? I don’t think you’re mad, you were never mad at anyone. He wants me to go to their wedding but I can’t go. It should have been you marrying Jason and I’ll never be able to sit there and watch him get married without losing my shit. If I do end up meeting her somehow, I promise to hate her.”

Adrianna ate a few more candies and then twirled the jasmine between her thumb and first finger. Bringing it to her nose, she inhaled deeply.

“You were the better of the two of us, you know that. If I had died and you didn’t, I know you’d have gone on to finish school and you’d be a doctor right now. Look at me. What a fucking ‘Lifetime Movie of the Week’ I’ve become.”

Hot tears burned her cheeks while she wept over her friend’s grave.

“I’m trying, I really am, to let go of this but the ironic thing is, the only one who would know what to say to me is you. Like with the acorn incident.”

When they were ten, Adrianna and Rachel had been having a picnic on the front lawn of Rachel’s house. Acting like fools, they took turns tossing peanuts into each other’s mouths. As a joke, Adrianna grabbed an acorn that had fallen from the tree they were sitting under and onto their blanket. She tossed it, directly into Rachel’s mouth, thinking that as soon as she felt it wasn’t a peanut she would spit it out. Instead, she bit down and cracked one of her molars.

Rachel was fine after the dentist pulled the tooth, but Adrianna had been hysterical. She felt awful, putting her friend through that pain. Though her parents told her not to worry, Rachel’s parents told her not to worry, Adrianna cried for hours. It finally took Rachel, whose cheek was all puffed out from cotton, and who was still a little loopy from the nitrous gas, to say, “Would you get over it, you big marshmallow! It was a baby tooth anyhow,” for Adrianna to feel better.

“I wish you were here to talk some sense into me,” Adrianna continued. “I’ll keep my eyes and ears open if you should decide to send me some kind of sign or, ya know, haunt me. Just don’t do it at night, okay?”