All's Well

by Mona Awad

She looks withered but desperate, pleading. She wants something from me. She is asking me to believe her about her pain. I don’t, of course.

I still have a sample pack of the drug somewhere in my underwear drawer amid the thongs and lacy tights I don’t wear anymore because I am dead on the inside.

Grace just stares at me. “You seem better,” she says. “I’m not, really. I mean I’m still in a lot pain,” I try to say it softly, to reflect the pain that I’m in. And it’s not a lie, I am. “Like in my back. Right now.” I touch it to show her. “And my hip. And my ribs.” I hunch forward. I do affect a sorrow indeed, but I have it too. To show her the pain that’s— “You seem better,” she repeats. “Well, I’m not,” I say, insisting. Why am I insisting like this?

“All right,” I say. “Tell me.” Grace just stares at me. And suddenly I know what she wants to tell me. That it was fine for me to be a little better. Nice, in fact. Less of a strain on her, on us. For a moment there, she even saw the possibility of rekindling things. But now? Now Grace looks at me beaming as I stand before her on my high, high heels and she’s at a loss. I’m no longer a faded Snow White lying on her living room floor, complaining with her about the English department, drunkenly reminiscing about my days in the sun. Who are you? her face says. Who are you and what have you done with my wretched friend?

Back when we were closer, I’d watch her swipe through Tinder occasionally. Always with a look on her face like she’d just taken a sip of very off beer. Be fucking glad you’re not out there, she used to say to me. Because how could I be out there when I could barely walk? And I’d laugh like I was glad. But of course I wasn’t glad, how could I be?

I open my eyes, where there are tears now. There I am in the cracked mirror, sitting in the shattered bar. No blooms of flame around my head or rope of smoke at my throat. Just my sea-straggly hair shimmering with small flowers. Just my hands around my miraculously unspilled Scotch. And my tear-streaked face impossibly smiling. Not the brightly beaming face of the young woman from the old Playbill photo, not anymore. No more eyes like stars, no more blinding eclipse. This face shines another light. This face says I have lived, I’m alive. This face says I’ve known joy and pain, known them both. I’ll know them both again.