Only If You're Lucky

by Stacy Willingham

But friends for life is a myth, a fable. A feel-good fairy tale we tell ourselves to avoid having to think too hard about facing the world alone. I had believed it once. I had held it tight against my chest like some kind of feral animal I’d claimed as my own before it scratched my neck and wriggled itself free, leaving me battered and bloodied and alone.

I used to get so lost in these imaginary worlds, slipping into another skin every time I parted their covers. The musty scent of the pages curling beneath my nostrils like an elixir that ripped me from one reality and implanted me into the next.

I remember wondering if that kind of power imbalance was normal in a friendship—if every pair consisted of one half who seemed to love the other just a little bit more

But here’s the thing Sloane doesn’t know: I want to be changed. That’s all I’ve ever wanted, really: for someone to scoop me up and tell me what I’m supposed to be.

Maybe it’s the way she makes people admit things so readily, those eerie eyes that feel borderline hypnotic powerful enough to make your lips part without your permission; to force your arms to stretch out and hand her anything she wants.

And that’s the problem, I suppose, when so many lives become so intricately entwined: one snag, one single loose thread, and it all threatens to come undone.