New Girl - By Paige Harbison Page 0,98

eyes, it wasn’t a rainy scene on turbulent waters as I had expected. It was that moment right before the sun sets, when all the sky is golden, and the water sparkles invitingly as if it had never done any harm to anyone.

And there was Becca again, as perfect as she had looked the last time we’d met in my dreams.

She smiled at me. “Hello.”

My throat was tight, but this time I could speak. “Becca.”

She considered me for a moment. “I wish I had met you.”

“M-me?”

“Yes, you. You would have been a worthy adversary for me. I think I would have liked you.” She laughed the coquettish laugh I’d always imagined she would have. “You would not have liked me, however.”

She paused and her smile faded. “You are everything I ever wanted or pretended to be.”

My voice was gone from me again, and all I could do was listen.

“I went about it all wrong. I lied and cheated and craved attention, while never seeing why I should deserve it. But you didn’t scratch your way to the top. You lived a year in my shadow, but somehow you still never lost your light. You wondered what was so wrong about you that people wouldn’t want to be around you, but then you realized that you were someone worth knowing, and did not understand why no one else could see that. I was popular and adored for pretending to be a person like you. But I hated myself, and felt ugly and shameful.”

She shook her golden head and looked down at her lap. “Max never wanted me, but I made him stay by making him feel guilty. Johnny never wanted me either, but I appealed to his weaknesses to obtain him. The main weakness being that he’d never felt that he was as good as Max, and I made him feel like he was better. My family wanted me to be more, but all I could do was push them away. You never would have done the things I did. And I’m sorry that you ever had to feel like there was something wrong with you. Believe me, I was the messed-up one.”

“Th-this is all just a dream.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Right.” Her face went very serious, and she kneeled in front of me. “I was never going to change. And I let my own internal misery end my own life and ruin everyone’s around me if they got close enough. Please find Dana. Tell her to step down. Ask her what I ever did to earn her friendship. Tell her she will be okay.”

I shook my head, not understanding. Becca grabbed my shoulders and spun me back around. Suddenly I was walking in the darkness, but I couldn’t see where to. Finally my surroundings materialized around me, and I saw that I was on the top floor of the old mansion, where some storage rooms were and I didn’t know what else. I’d never been up here. There was a dim light at the end of the hallway. I blinked, becoming more and more aware as I grew closer. It was a balcony that looked out at the ocean. There was someone there. I blinked again. It was a tall, thin figure standing on a chair, about to step onto the wide ledge of the balcony.

“Dana!” I yelled her name, and it echoed in the hallway. She started, and then righted herself. She wanted to see who I was. Her eyes grew wide.

“Becca?”

She was looking straight into my eyes. Something besides my own volition led me to nod.

“This is a dream, isn’t it?” Dana said it quietly, sounding resigned.

“Yes. Dana, you have to get down from there. You don’t want to do this.”

“I don’t. I know. But it’s going to happen anyway, isn’t it? Why should I live, if it’s just going to be awful like this forever?”

“It won’t be.” The words came from my mouth without my ever thinking them. “You will be okay. I never earned your friendship. You gave it all to me, and I never gave you anything back. You did nothing wrong other than being my friend to begin with. You didn’t have to try and save me. You knew I was screwed up, but you couldn’t stop me from ruining my life. You tried to be nice to me and listen, but it’s not your fault that you couldn’t change me.”

She looked as though she was taking in what my lips were saying.

“It’ll be