“With Flynn, yes,” I answered coldly.

“I can’t believe you’d actually spend time with that waste. What’s wrong with you?” she sneered.

I grabbed a handful of shirts and crossed over to the bed where she was sitting and placed them in my suitcase. Dania grabbed one of my nicer sweaters and curled her lip.

“What’s the point of looking nice? It’s not like he’s smart enough to realize the effort,” Dania said nastily.

I yanked the sweater away from her and folded it back up.

“Okay, let’s do this, Dania. You’re pissed. You think I’ve betrayed you or something. Which is stupid. So what, I’m dating Flynn! What does that have to do with you?” I demanded.

Dania glared at me. “It’s has to do with me because I was the one that went to visit you every single day at the gross juvenile detention facility, where you were because of that fucking freak! It’s my goddamned business because we were making plans! You said you’d help me out and get an apartment with me, but I’m guessing that’s off the table now that you’re with Flynn.” She said his name like a dirty word.

“And you have betrayed me, Ellie! Because you didn’t tell me anything! You didn’t tell me what was going on! I thought we were friends. Best friends. And you kept something huge from me! That’s fucked up and wrong!”

Dania was getting worked up. Her neck and chest was splotched red and she was breathing rapidly.

But I was pissed too.

“First of all, I was sent to juvie because of what I did. Because of what we did!” I waved my finger between us.

“It had nothing to do with Flynn. I made my choices.”

“But you said” Dania started arguing.

I instantly interrupted her.

“I know what I said. I know what I’ve always said. But it’s wrong. I was wrong. Don’t you get that? I fucked up. I paid the price. And I have to live with what I did to him the rest of my life! Did you know his dog was inside? We killed his fucking dog, Dania!”

Dania snorted. “So? It’s just a fucking dog. It’s not like people died or anything. And I’ve heard he’s fixed the place up and it looks better than it ever did. So I don’t see what you’re freaking the fuck out about? It looks like he got a better end of the stick than you did, that’s for sure. So pardon me if I don’t get why you’d want to hang out with him. You hated him! Don’t pretend you didn’t,” she challenged.

Her lack of remorse, her total insensitivity wasn’t surprising. I had expected it. We were two sides of the same coin really. When I looked at Dania, when I heard her speak, it was like seeing and looking at the Ellie McCallum I had always been.

I shook my head and turned back to my dresser, pulling out the two other pairs of jeans I owned and folded them neatly.

“I’m with Flynn. I love him, Dania. So either you accept that or you don’t. But I’m not going to stop being with him because you don’t like him. Because you’re stuck in some pathetic time warp where you feel you still need to bully him to make yourself feel better. Grow up, Dania. I’m trying to,” I threw at her.

Dania clenched her hands into fists.

“You self-righteous, condescending bitch!” she growled. “Since when did you become better than everyone else? Since when did you become so high and mighty that you think you can look down on the rest of us? I don’t know who the hell you think you are”

“I’m the person who’s trying to get her ass out of Wellsburg and have a fucking life!” I yelled.

Dania recoiled like I had slapped her.

“So, we aren’t good enough for you anymore. I get it. So I’m not sure we have anything else to say to each other. You’ve made yourself pretty fucking clear,” Dania said, her voice frigid. She got to her feet and looked around my room, her voice curling in disgust.

“And you’re just a piece of shit like the rest of us. No matter how much you try to clean up,” she derided.

“I’m going to college, Dania. You could go to. Take some classes. You’re smart. You could make something of yourself,” I protested, trying one last time to salvage a friendship that had gotten me through some of the worst times of my life.

Dania laughed bitterly. “Unlike you, I’m just fine with how things are. I don’t need to go out there pretending to be something I’m not. I’ll leave that to you,” she scoffed.

“You’re fine with drinking yourself unconscious every night? You’re okay with taking drugs and potentially fucking up that baby you’re carrying worse than your parents fucked you up? You’re going to be a mother, Dania. Start acting like it!” I shouted.

Dania’s face turned a scary molten color. She advanced toward me, her chest heaving up and down. She looked murderous.

“Don’t you fucking dare tell me how to be a mother! What the hell do you know about it? I’m sick and tired of your sanctimonious bullshit!” she screamed. She reached out and swiped everything off the top of my dresser.

“You stupid, judgmental bitch!” she shrieked as she ran over to my bed and turned over my suitcase. Everything upended on the floor.

“Stop it, Dania!” I yelled, trying to grab ahold of her.

“Oh, I’ll stop it all right. This friendship is done! I never want to see you again! Don’t call! Don’t stop by! Don’t even fucking think about me! I can do this on my own! I’ve never needed you, Ells,” she screamed.

“You were just the sad, pathetic kid I took pity on. I stopped Mr. Flanders from messing with you because I didn’t want to see you sniveling and crying. It was fucking annoying. Do you honestly think I ever even liked you? Fuck no! We all have always laughed about you behind your back. Shane used to call you the fish fuck! We all cracked up over that one. He’d tell us how you’d just lay there while he screwed you. That you were about as hot as dead fish. And then you’d cry because he didn’t call you. You sad, pathetic bitch! And then there was that guy Aaron our junior year that you panted after. Yeah he screwed you. But what you didn’t know was that I fucked him right afterwards. And do you know what he told me? That you sucked. That I was so much better than you were. That you wouldn’t know how to fuck a dildo! Every guy you’ve ever wanted, wanted me more! Just remember that. And your friends were only hanging out with you because I told them to. No one likes you, Ellie. They never have.”

I didn’t know what to say. She was unleashing ten years of venom that I had never guessed that she felt. Sure, I knew she was selfish and self-centered. But I had truly believed on some level, she had cared about me.

But what I was hearing spewing out of her mouth was bitter, hateful jealousy. She needed people to like her, to want her, more than they liked or wanted me. That in her head, for all of these years, we had been engaged in some sort of competition that I hadn’t been aware of.

I thought I had kept myself cut off from feeling anything deeply for her or our friendship. That it had been a relationship born out of necessity rather than choice. Somehow I had convinced myself that I had never become overly attached to Dania.

That was such a lie.

Because her hate filled tirade cut me to the quick. It hurt. A lot.

“So it makes sense that you’d end up with a guy like the ‘tard. No one else wants you! So go fuck the freak. You take up too much of my air anyway!” Dania flipped her hair over her shoulder and stomped out of my room.

I stood there, unable to respond. Unable to yell back at her.

Then my front door was slamming shut behind her. And just like that, our friendship was over.

I turned back to my dresser and saw the mess she had made of my things. I dropped to my knees and picked up one of my sculptures. The tiny Big Ben was broken in half. I rummaged through the wreckage. Every single one was irreparably broken.

I supposed it was only fitting Dania would destroy them.