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Alice Hart is born on December 10th, 1959, on a remarkably ordinary day, to unremarkably absent and unprepared parents. When she’s born, her parents are eighteen and twenty-two respectively, living in a crumbling house with shabby parents, both too young and too desperately immature to have had a kid.
After the initial rush of hope and optimism gives way to drugs, alcohol, and a consuming numbness that Alice finds she can’t blame her parents for given that they live in Shadyside, she is left alone for most of her childhood. Maybe if she’s lucky they’ll leave some food out for her, maybe not. Her next door neighbour likes to slip her cupcakes when the other neighbourhood kids aren’t looking, and it’s only with that initial rush of sugar on her tongue that Alice tastes anything like happiness.
Her house is covered in beer cans, dust and other layers of dirt she does not know how to describe or categorize. The electricity flickers on and off, and the water isn’t always consistent.
Her mom dies by the time Alice is three, and her dad disappears even more.
Alice knows before most Shadyside children do: everything is cursed, and everything stays the same.
When school starts in September, Alice tucks herself in the corner of the room, glaring at anyone who snickers at her lopsided bob and stained clothing. She shouldn’t care. She shouldn’t care. She ignores the stinging in her eyes as she plays with the sleeve of her plaid shirt, a relic of her mom’s that suits more like a dress than anything else.
From the safety of her corner, Alice looks at her classmates. Friends. She’s never had one, nor will she ever, despite what the teachers try and tell them. Alice’s house is cold and lonely, and the only comfort she knows is that funny smell on her dad’s breath when he manages to come home.
All the other kids seem a bit happier than her. Their hair isn’t as short, except for the boys. Alice tries not to let her lips wobble when she catches another blonde-haired girl whispering at her with a friend, their long locks tied into neat pigtails.
Even in Shadyside some people are better off than others.
Attendance starts soon after, and Alice tunes out to stare at the window right up until the girl sitting behind her chirps her name.
“Cindy Berman?” the teacher reads.
“Here!”
Alice can’t help but glance over her shoulder. Something funny catches in her throat, like she’s about to get a cold. Cindy Berman has blue eyes like the sky, so real Alice is certain she’ll see clouds in them. Her reddish-brown hair is curled ever so slightly, and even though she’s wearing hand-me-downs like everyone else. She’s beautiful, like something Alice has seen in cartoons and the very few fairytale books she’s nicked from garage sales.
She grins at Alice when she catches her looking, and her stomach feels funny all over again, so Alice looks away, cheeks warm.
Class starts soon after, and Alice absent mindedly scribbles along but really spends most of her time doodling in the corner of her notebook, an old thing she found underneath the couch.
“Psst!”
Someone pokes the back of her neck. Alice whirls around to find Cindy Berman herself staring at her with those wide blue eyes looking sheepish.
“My sister stole my pencil case,” she whispers. “Can I borrow a pen, please?”
Alice bites down on her lip to keep from stuttering. Truth is, she only brought two pencils that she stuffed into the pocket of her shirt. Her “backpack” is just a grocery bag. Still, she reaches into her pocket and hands it over.
Cindy beams and reaches for it, their fingers brushing as she does. Alice almost shivers at the tingly feeling in her hand, like she stuck her fingers into a plug like her dad says she’s never supposed to.
“Thanks,” Cindy whispers. “I’ll give it back today, I promise—”
“Don’t worry about it,” Alice says, turning back around. She feels the other girl staring, but she doesn’t dare look back.
She doesn’t have the right to touch something so good. The very idea of it makes her feel sick. Her dad tells her so. You took your mom from me, he says often, sounding like he’s about to fall asleep. You took my life.
Alice inhales and exhales deeply. Her and Cindy Berman will never be friends, and that is just how the world is.
That lasts for approximately two hours, when lunchtime officially starts.
The school gives a small bag of free pretzels to kids – a recent Sunnyvaler donation – that Alice wolfs down in an instant, and she forces herself to ignore the rumbling in her stomach as she sits at the end of the playground and draws funny pictures with a stick in the sandbox.
Her serenity lasts for all of five minutes before Harold Hines targets her.
Harold Hines is a Shadysider, same as her, same as all of them, but because he wears decent glasses and comes home every night to a warm meal and shower he has a stick up his butt. Alice tries not to listen as he calls her names. Boy. Ugly.
“You’re a waste,” he tells her, pushing his large glasses up his nose.
Alice blinks back tears. It’s bad enough her dad says it – if other people are as well, it must be true. Not doing anything is enough. He laughs when he spots her trying not to cry, even points at her, and it’s then that someone taps him on the shoulder.
He whirls around, smile dying until he spots Cindy Berman standing there, her chin held high.
“What?” he smirks. “Come to laugh at the freak show?”
Alice’s cheeks burn. Most of the other kids are laughing too.
But Cindy doesn’t.
Cindy reaches right back and punches him right in the nose, sending Harold Hines sprawling to the floor in a heap.
“You’re the waste,” she informs him, shaking her hand.
Harold Hines sobs on the ground, the big baby, but none of the teachers come running, too busy taking a smoke break in the back. Cindy steps over him and reaches for her instead.
“Are you okay?” she asks, offering Alice a hand.
Alice, despite her better judgement, takes it, and lets Cindy lead her to the other side of the playground right by the monkey bars. They’ve definitely seen better days, but that doesn’t stop Cindy from sitting on the railing leading up to the bars.
“He’s an idiot,” Cindy says, rubbing at her knuckles.
Alice winces as Cindy rubs at the bruise forming.
“What else is new?” Alice mutters.
Cindy laughs and the sound—
If Alice could bottle it up for just her to listen to forever, she would.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Alice says, scowling a little. “I can take care of myself. I don’t need a babysitter.”
Cindy just looks at her. “I don’t want to be a babysitter either,” she says. “I already have one kid sister, I don’t need another.”
“Great—”
“But I would like a friend though,” Cindy blurts out, looking at her with those shiny blue eyes. “I haven’t ever really had a friend before.”
Alice blinks. Once. Twice. It doesn’t make any sense that someone like her could know loneliness the same way Alice does, and yet—
Cindy looks so earnest she doesn’t have the heart to say no.
“Fine,” Alice says, offering Cindy her hand. “Friends.”
There’s a beat before Cindy takes it, shaking it excitedly. Her hand is warm, her skin soft, and Alice feels her heart flutter.
“Friends,” Cindy agrees, grinning.
And that, as they say, is that.
Cindy Berman doesn’t enter her life so much as she falls into it. One minute Alice is alone, and the next Cindy is there like there was never a time she wasn’t. She spends every minute at school with Cindy, and a lot of time in the afternoon with her too. At the park, at Cindy’s house, with Cindy’s kid sister who has the reddest hair Alice has ever seen.
Cindy determinedly shares her lunch with her every day, cutting off the crusts on her peanut butter and jelly sandwiches because she knows Alice hates crusts. Alice rejects the charity at first, but Cindy – as Alice soon learns – is the most stubborn person she has ever met and refuses to take no for an answer, even refusing to eat her lunch when Alice initially declines having a bite of it.
Alice pays her back by pushing Tommy Slater when he tries to give Cindy cooties by the cool swings.
“Boys are gross,” Cindy says, linking their hands together as they run away.
Alice agrees. Boys have grubby hands and greasy chins and they’re nothing like Cindy with her soft, shiny locks and strawberry smelling shampoo.
Alice gets in trouble when the teachers find them, but the hug of gratitude Cindy gives her makes it more than worth it.
But it’s more than crustless peanut butter jelly sandwiches and shoving gross boys around. Before Alice realizes it – before she even knows what it means – Cindy becomes a part of her.
She sneaks Alice into her living room on more afternoons than not, knowing that her dad is never around to take care of her, that there’s no one at home, and she plays a record.
“They’re called The Beatles,” Cindy whispers.
Alice wrinkles her nose. “Gross.” Alice hates spiders and beetles and cockroaches.
Cindy swats her arm and plays it, urging Alice to lie down on the ground with her and stare up at the ceiling, the fan swirling lazily above them.
Oh, yesterday, the man croons. All my troubles seemed so far away, oh I believe, in yesterday—
She glances at Cindy from the corner of her eye.
Yesterday.
Alice can still remember a time where Cindy wasn’t in her life. When she had nothing to look forward to everyday. A constant, endless amount of days passing. Cindy has brought colour and laughter to her life, a warm hug and a soft smile and the feeling of comfort and Alice never wants it to end.
She doesn’t want to go back to yesterday. She wants to stay here with Cindy forever. Wants more tomorrows if anything.
“What?” Cindy murmurs.
Alice blinks rapidly. She hadn’t even realized that Cindy turned her head towards her. They’re so close Alice can feel Cindy breathing on her face, tickling her nose. Her tummy tightens.
“Nothing,” Alice lies, forcing herself to look away. “Just listening to the song.”
“So beautiful, right?”
Alice bites down on her lip. No, you are, she almost says.
She swallows the words down, even when Cindy reaches out and grabs her hand.
“You’re my best friend, you know that?” Cindy asks quietly. “Don’t tell Chrissy.”
Alice chuckles softly. “I thought she hated that nickname.”
“Better than Christine.”
“So much for family naming, huh?”
Cindy scowls and swats her on the chest.
“You’re hilarious.”
Alice grins and then sticks out her tongue. “You seem to think so.”
Cindy rolls her eyes again, but this time she’s smiling.
“Yeah,” Alice hears her murmur after a few minutes. “Yeah, I do.”
In January of 1966, a month after Alice turns six, she watches as police knock down her front door and cart her father away in a back of cruiser. He’s too sleepy to put up much of a fight, but Alice is forced to sit out on her front step with a thin blanket wrapped around her shoulders as the officers rip her world apart.
They don’t tell her why they take her father away. When she’s older, the words blackmail, extortion and assault will mean something, but for now she’s just a six year old girl trying not to cry as she trembles uncontrollably in her thin pajamas. That night was the first one in a long time her father had managed to get the heat turned on.
All Alice knows is that people grow quiet whenever she walks into a room, the same way they do whenever sweet Nurse Lane is at the grocery store or by a park. Alice hates it. Some of her teachers take her aside and try to tell her it’ll all be alright, that they’re there for her, and she hates that even more, the pity, the staring. She prefers the whispers in the hallways and the snide remarks about her short hair and baggy plaid shirts.
Most of her teachers just ignore it. Alice is only six, and she doesn’t know much, doesn’t do too well on her homework, but she knows that something isn’t right in Shadyside, that the world is fucked up. Her dad said something about parole when the police took her to go see him, but Alice doesn’t know what that means, she doesn’t know—
She avoids Cindy at school all day, hiding away in closets and cupboards and the bathroom when her friend tries to talk to her.
She’s successful right up until Cindy corners her as she’s walking home. Alice is sludging through the snow in her sneakers, her socks drenched, when a car on the road suddenly halts to a stop, tires screeching loudly.
Alice is about to take off running, warning of stranger danger echoing in her mind when she finally spots Cindy jogging over, almost falling to her butt as she slips on some ice trying to reach over.
“Alice!” Cindy exclaims, as if she could somehow have missed her best friend running towards her in the middle of the road. Cindy’s cheeks and nose are bright red as she pants in front of Alice, preventing her swift escape. Her friend waves at the car, and Alice knows if she glances over she’ll see Chrissy in the backseat and Mr. or Mrs. Berman in the front.
God, they’ll hate her now too. They won’t want her around Cindy or in their house, they won’t ever let her sleep over again—
“Why’d do you run away?” Cindy asks. “Earlier.”
Alice looks at her ground, her fist wrapped tight around the grocery bag that doubles as her school bag. She mumbles something under her breath.
“What?” Cindy questions.
“I thought you wouldn’t want to be friends anymore,” Alice admits. “Now that my dad is—away.”
“That’s silly,” Cindy informs her after a moment.
“Hey!”
Alice reaches out to pinch her, but Cindy darts out of the way. She has better shoes than Alice does, they don’t get so wet all the time in the snow.
“That is stupid,” Cindy insists. “Why wouldn’t I want to be friends with you anymore?”
“Because—” Alice whispers, voice breaking. “Because I’m a monster.”
Cindy stills. “Why would you think that?”
Alice keeps her gaze low as she replies, “because my dad is one. That’s what Sheriff Goode said.”
Cindy looks angry when Alice gathers the courage to look up.
“Sheriff Goode is stupid,” Cindy states. “You’re not a monster, Alice.”
“How do you know?”
Cindy reaches out and grabs her hand. Alice shivers at the warmth, clutches it tightly as she tries to get her fingers to feel something again.
“Because,” Cindy replies simply. “I know, and I’m always right.”
Alice laughs. It springs out of her, makes her shoulders shake with the force of it, and Cindy cracks a smile.
“There,” her friend says. “That’s better.”
Alice sputters as Cindy starts tugging her along to the car.
“Cindy, wait, I can’t—”
“You’re spending the night,” Cindy announces.
“But my foster—”
“My mom will call them,” Cindy interrupts.
Alice tugs at her arm enough that Cindy stops.
“Your parents won’t want me there,” she says, trying not to glance at the car.
“I don’t care if they don’t,” Cindy says. “You’re my friend, and nothing is going to change that.”
Alice just looks at her. “You can’t promise that.”
“Yes, I can,” Cindy says. “I am. Watch me.”
Alice doesn’t fight as Cindy leads her to the awaiting vehicle.
“Alice is spending the night tonight,” Cindy announces, only five and a half and so bossy anyway.
Mr. Berman shoots Alice a short look before he shrugs and restarts the car, taking them home. Alice doesn’t know if it’s because he likes her or if it’s because he doesn’t care. He’s not around all the time like Mrs. Berman is, but Chrissy hangs off his leg whenever he walks through the front door, and he always lets her sit in his lap as he plays his records, which are his favourite thing in the world.
Mrs. Berman hesitates a little when Alice walks through the front door, but Cindy’s fierce glare is enough deterrent. Mrs. Berman even serves Alice seconds mere seconds after she wolfs down her first plate. Cindy hijacks the living room, and they watch Sleeping Beauty, which is Alice’s favourite film even if she’d never admit it.
Chrissy joins them, her red hair especially bright against the television light, and she calls the prince gross when he kisses Aurora out of her slumber. Cindy reaches out and tickles her sister endlessly, and Alice feels her heart warm at the sound of their giggles.
Chrissy teaches her how to braid hair, and Cindy lets her practice, sighing happily as Alice combs her hair on her living room floor. They eat candy and have hot chocolate, and Alice is so happy she forgets the hurting from before.
Cindy has a big enough bed for them to share, so they huddle close together for warmth. Alice falls asleep first and wakes up to something touching her feet.
She yelps and—
“Shh,” Cindy hushes from under the covers.
Alice frowns. “What are you doing?”
“Putting socks on your feet, they’ve been cold all night.”
Cindy sneaks out of the covers and plops down on a pillow. “See? Better, right?”
Alice peaks under the covers. Cindy’s nightlight allows her to see the thick, woolen socks adorning her feet.
“Those are your mickey mouse socks!” Alice says. “You got these for Christmas, Cindy—”
“Shh,” her friend says, pulling her back down when she moves to take them off. “I don’t mind. I want you to have them.”
Alice promises herself to return them before Cindy wakes up.
“You touched my feet,” she comments after a moment.
“Yes, and they were stinky.”
Alice manages to pinch her this time around, delighting in how Cindy giggles into her hands so her parents and Chrissy don’t wake up. After a while, Alice flops onto her side again, tries to fall back asleep.
“You stopped Tommy Slater from giving me cooties,” Cindy says after a moment.
Slowly, Alice turns onto her other side so she’s facing her friend. “What?”
Cindy is already staring at her.
“You draw nice pictures on my homework. Pretty pictures. No one else in our class can draw like you.”
“Harold Hines would disagree.”
“Harold Hines is an idiot.”
“That’s true.”
Alice still isn’t sure what’s going on.
“When Chrissy fell off her bike you carried her back to the house,” Cindy continues. “Somehow, you carried her. You steal reese’s cups for me from the store. You always make me laugh. I never don’t want to be around you.”
Alice’s heart feels funny. “Why are you saying this?”
“You asked me earlier how I know you’re not a monster,” Cindy replies. “This is how I know.”
“You’re just saying that because you’re my friend,” Alice says, cheeks burning.
“No, I’m not,” Cindy says. “And I don’t care what anyone says—I’ll be a monster with you.”
Cindy huddles closer, intertwining their legs. Alice lets her use her arm as a pillow. She thinks she’s so lucky Cindy decided to be friends with her that day. There must be something beautiful inside of her, Alice thinks, for someone as kind as Cindy to insist on having her around.
This, she thinks, has to last forever. Alice has lost her dad, but she can’t lose Cindy. She can’t.
“Best friends,” Cindy murmurs sleepily, drifting off seconds later.
Alice looks at her.
“Forever,” she whispers back. “Forever.”
1968
They’re nine, and they’re at the lake.
It’s peak summertime, and Cindy drags Chrissy along. Alice likes Cindy’s kid sister, even though she seems to have her nose in a book all the time or is humming along to some song her dad plays for her all the time.
“She doesn’t have any friends,” Cindy had told her once. “She just reads and wanders around by herself all the time when I’m not there.”
“Because we’re so popular?”
Cindy had scowled. “We’re different,” she’d replied. “We have each other. Chrissy doesn’t have an Alice.”
An Alice.
It does something to her insides, really, to think that the term best friend isn’t sufficient enough to describe her. Alice isn’t just a person, she’s Cindy Alice, and that means more to her than anything else.
They drag along a cooler filled with snacks Cindy carefully selected for Alice to grab from the convenience store. They double team it; Cindy goes in first to browse or chat with the owner. With her big blue eyes, no one would dare suspect her of thievery. It gives Alice the opportunity to sneak around and get the stuff they want. Twizzlers, reese cups, freezies, coke. Alice has to be careful not to grab too much, but they’re never caught.
They make it to the lake, and even though it’s busy, they find a secluded spot by the trees away from other people. Chrissy runs off with a freezie and a book after Cindy forces her to put on sunscreen, and soon it’s just Cindy and Alice like always.
Alice laughs and tries to fight off Cindy when she insists she puts on sunblock. She settles on splashing Cindy relentlessly until she jumps in the water. They spend hours swimming in the water until their skin turns all wrinkly and pink under the sun, and by the time they come out Chrissy has returned to attack their snack collection.
Cindy flicks some water on her sister, who sticks her tongue out, before she settles her head on Alice’s lap.
“Braid,” Cindy commands groggily, shielding her eyes from the sun.
“What am I, a dog?”
“Please,” Cindy amends, pouting.
Alice complies, apologizing when she tugs too hard at the wet strands. They relax together in easy silence before Chrissy decides that’s when she wants to swim, and Cindy insists on her accompanying her sister to the water. Chrissy probably knows how to swim just as well as them, but Alice knows that won’t stop Cindy.
The Berman sisters paddle around together in the shore, Chrissy ducking down to grab at Cindy’s ankle like a fish. Alice laughs as Cindy yelps and dunks her sister back into the water, climbing onto her shoulders. Her hair looks redder in the sunlight, her skin delightfully tan. Alice is parked under the shade of a tree – she tends to burn instead of tan, no matter how much sunblock she puts on.
She’s smiling right up until she notices Tommy Slater watching Cindy too. He’s smiling too, stupid, perfect blonde hair pressed against his head, and he’s blushing faintly. Alice feels her heart sink down to her stomach.
Tommy Slater, by all accounts, is the golden boy of their year. He’s every teacher’s favourite, and he’s nice to all the new kids. He’s even told Harold Hines to shut up a few times, which always scores brownie points with Alice. Or at least it did, right up until she sees Slater staring at Cindy.
He’s there with his own friends – Gary, Joan and some other boy Joan can’t seem to stop hanging around, and that pit in her stomach grows and grows. Tommy Slater is so nice it’s hard to hate him, even if he did try and give Cindy cooties on the playground years ago. He’s stopped doing that, thankfully, but—
What if he tries to now?
Alice shudders at the thought. Before, Cindy hated it, but now—
What if she changes her mind?
Everyone in their year had seen Joan and Gary exchange a quick peck last fall. What if Cindy wants that with Tommy Slater?
When Alice glances at the water, though, Cindy is staring at Joan and the other boy, frowning to herself. She doesn’t move out even when Chrissy runs back to their towels to retrieve her book. Cindy hasn’t noticed Tommy staring at her and—
Alice sees him move in direction of the water from the corner of her eye, and she darts towards Cindy without thinking about it, shooting Tommy a fierce glare over her shoulder.
“Alice, what—”
She grabs a hold of Cindy’s hand and runs into the treeline. To her credit, Cindy runs alongside her without much protest. Chrissy don’t even look up from her book, just finishes the last can of coke.
When they’re far enough into the treeline, Alice stops, Cindy colliding with her back.
“What was that about?” Cindy asks.
“Slater was being a creep,” Alice blurts out.
Cindy shoots her a skeptical look. “Tommy? He’s harmless.”
“He was staring at you,” Alice says. “Like he’s a dog and you’re a bone.”
“Alice.”
“You can’t tell me you didn’t notice?” Please say you didn’t, she thinks, closing her hand in a fist behind her back. Please, please, please—
“I didn’t,” Cindy promises. “And besides, if he was looking, it was probably because I’m burnt.”
Alice wants to shake her. She’s nine years old, and she wants to shake Cindy until she stops feeling like she wants to scream. Her best friend, her Cindy, doesn’t seem to realize how beautiful she is. Doesn’t recognise that whenever people look at her they never want to look away.
Alice doesn’t know why Tommy staring at Cindy bothers her so much, all she knows is that it does.
“Why are you so upset?” Cindy demands, tapping her foot on the ground.
“I’m not.”
“You are. Why?”
“Jesus, can you stop being so stubborn?”
“You’re the one who dragged me out here—”
“Fine! I don’t want you to like Tommy Slater, okay?”
Cindy stares at her for a moment. Alice’s words echo off across the trees.
“What?” Cindy breathes, an incredulous laugh escaping her lips. “I don’t like Tommy Slater.”
The panic inside her chest ebbs a little. “You just called him harmless,” Alice grumbles.
Cindy rolls her eyes. “Yes, because he cried watching Bambi when they showed the tape at school.”
“So did you.”
“I still don’t like Tommy Slater,” Cindy insists. “He’s nice, but…”
Her voice trails off as she frowns. Alice frowns alongside her.
“But?” she prompts, unable to help herself.
Cindy doesn’t respond for a long time, looks off into the distance instead.
“Do you think either of us will be like Gary or Joan?” Cindy asks abruptly. “Remember when they kissed in the playground a few months ago?”
Alice nods.
“I don’t want to do that,” Cindy says.
“You don’t have to kiss anyone, Berman,” Alice says, heart pounding. “Not if you don’t want to.”
Cindy’s gaze flickers back to her. Her friend gulps loudly.
“I don’t want to be with some stupid boy,” Cindy says, kicking at a leaf with her foot. “I just want to have adventures with you.”
“Me too,” Alice says, trying to hide her relief. Tommy Slater isn’t going to woo Cindy away with his wounded puppy dog eyes. She presses a hand to her mouth to stop herself smiling. “We’ll get a giant house like those in Sunnyvale, and it’ll just be you and me. Screw everyone else.”
“And Chrissy gets to visit,” Cindy corrects.
Alice doesn’t bother hiding her smile.
“Of course little Berman gets to visit,” she says. “We’ll have a massive library just for her.”
Cindy smiles too, before it slowly vanishes. Alice feels her heart ache at the loss.
“Do you think that can happen?” Cindy asks. “Two girls living together forever? I don’t hear about it in any songs or movies.”
That was true. Everyone on the radio seemed concerned with prince and princesses and marriage. Alice wrinkles her nose.
“I don’t care about the songs or movies,” she declares. “We’ll make something new, you and me.”
For a moment she’s worried she’s said too much, revealed too much, shown how much her heart swells just by Cindy looking at her, and she opens her mouth to take it back, to lie and say she didn’t mean it, but—
Cindy grins and grabs a hold of her hand.
“That sounds good to me,” Cindy says. “We’ll be the three musketeers.”
“Chrissy is the third one.”
“Obviously.”
Cindy’s eyes widen. “Chrissy, we just left her!”
She takes off running, and Alice stands there for a moment, head spinning.
You and me.
She smiles so hard her lips crack, a secret for just her to know, and then she runs after Cindy.
Over the years, there is more.
There’s building a fort in Cindy’s bedroom, reciting scary stories that makes even Chrissy flinch. Whispers and rumours of Sarah Fier. Sometimes Cindy gets scared enough that she spends the entire night huddling beside Alice, asking for her to tell her a nice story instead.
They’re getting older, and the whispers of Sarah Fier and death are becoming louder.
Alice complies, and weaves tales about two girls, two best friends, who live underwater, who jump between clouds.
“That’s impossible,” Cindy protests.
Alice hides her smile in Cindy’s hair. They’re ten years old, and Alice is starting to learn what the word massacre means, starts to understand why people whisper and point whenever Mary Lane enters a room. The list of names every parent in their class seems to know. Harry Rooker. William Barker. Ruby Lane.
Those names don’t solidify in her mind until she’s twelve or so, but for now she’s untouched by them.
With Cindy by her side, she feels like she can do anything. Be anything.
“It’s a story, silly,” Alice says. “Shut up and listen.”
The story ends with the two of them living in a house on the top of a hill, but Cindy is fast asleep by then.
There’s more—
Alice making Cindy laugh so hard she snorts, a sound Alice aims to hear again at least once again no matter how much Cindy complains. It’s carving their initials on a tree at the back of school grounds. Cindy making her stay over as often as possible when Alice’s new foster parents are awful.
Cindy getting Alice a mars bar for her birthday because she knows it’s her favourite, using up all the spare coins she manages to find on the ground, rare as that occasion is in Shadyside.
It’s having a snow fight every Christmas.
It’s Cindy bringing chicken noodle soup to Alice’s house when she catches a cold for a week and can’t come to school. It tastes pretty awful, but Alice finishes all of it all the same.
It’s Alice doodling on Cindy’s shoes and her notebooks, funny little drawings that always make Cindy smile.
It’s staying when no one else has before.
June 1970
They’re at Joan’s eleventh birthday. School has just let out, and even though all Alice got for her eleventh birthday was a hug from Cindy and a cake her and Chrissy made that tasted like tar (though Alice will cherish it forever), she doesn’t really feel bitter at the lavish-in comparison gifts and cake Joan has, even though her parents are typical hippies.
Alice has the idea to go just for the free food, and Cindy agrees, leaving Chrissy to her own devices.
Despite Slater sending Cindy long loving looks from across the room, he still doesn’t try and talk to her, so Alice considers their mission a success right up until Joan has the good idea to play the spin the bottle, seven minutes in heaven edition. The boys and girls giggle and go red, except for Alice, whose heart plummets to her stomach.
They’re dragged into a circle before Alice can even think of an excuse to leave.
She doesn’t want to watch Cindy kiss someone else. She doesn’t. She can’t.
She spots Slater and the shy hope in his eye, and Alice ignores Cindy’s curious looks as she plops herself opposite her friend. Joan’s parents have disappeared off somewhere, so they’re not going to be any help.
Joan and Gary are shoved into a closet one round, and the sound of their giggling grates on Alice’s nerves. She feels like she’s going to be sick the longer she catches Slater staring at Cindy with those puppy dog eyes of his.
Two boys have the bottle land on them and—
“We’re not fags,” one of the boy’s sneers, but they’re forced into the closet anyway.
And then—
Gary spins the bottle, and Alice’s heart twists in knots as she watches it turn fast, then as it slows and—
It takes her a moment to realize that the bottle head is pointing at Cindy, and another to realize that the bottle head is stuck between her and Slater.
“Ouu, Cindy and Tommy!” Joan sing songs.
Alice resists the urge to wince. If she reaches out, she just might be able to nudge the bottle with her hand or knee and tilt it to the other side—
“No,” another boy from their class protests. “It’s between Cindy and Alice, look!”
He probably just wants to make out with Cindy himself, but for the moment Alice is grateful for the interruption nonetheless. She can’t imagine being forced to sit out here for seven torturous minutes as Cindy and Tommy kiss or—
Alice knows what sex is. She’s been in too many foster homes not to. Hell, she lives in Shadyside for crying out loud. Everyone knows. They start handing out condoms in the guidance counsellor’s office the instant they all hit ten.
It’s not unheard of in Shadyside for twelve- or thirteen-year olds to get pregnant.
“It is,” Cindy declares, snapping Alice out of her reverie.
When she looks down, the bottle is nudged an inch in her direction.
“Sorry, Tommy,” Cindy says.
“Oh, it’s okay,” he demurs. “Nothing to be sorry for.”
God, what a bore, Alice thinks, rolling her eyes.
“Well,” Joan sniffs, disappointed by the lack of drama. “Into the closet you go.”
Obediently, Cindy and Alice comply, shuffling into the small space. It’s only when the lock clicks behind them that Alice realizes how messed up this situation is. Or not messed up—
Just how fucked she is.
Here, she can smell the faint scent of Cindy’s perfume. They share the same bed all the time whenever Alice sleeps over at Cindy’s, but that’s different. There are pillows and candy wrappers and even Chrissy wedged between them every so often. That, to Alice, is home. Tangled limbs and familiar strawberry marked sheets.
But here, in the darkness—
Alice feels her heart pound.
Cindy turns—or Alice thinks she does. It’s hard to tell when she can’t see anything. She feels Cindy’s breath fan her lips, smells the vanilla on her tongue from Joan’s cake, crappy vegan thing that it is. Some hippie bullshit. Alice had let Cindy have her slice because Cindy actually liked the thing.
For a horrible, single second, Alice wonders if Cindy’s lips would taste like vanilla too.
She looks away, squirming uncomfortably as she suppresses the sudden need.
“You okay?” Cindy whispers, catching her stiffening.
“Yeah. Yeah, just fine.”
“Sorry for dragging you in here with me.”
“Not your fault the bottle landed between us.”
Cindy is quiet for a moment. If Alice is hearing right, she thinks her friend’s breath might hitch.
“I pushed the bottle in your direction,” Cindy admits.
“What? Why?” Alice snaps her head up so fast it creaks.
She can feel Cindy shrug.
“I don’t know,” Cindy confesses. “I just didn’t want to be here with anyone else, so.”
Alice bites down on her lip to silence her laugh.
“It’s not funny,” Cindy protests.
“It kinda is. Slater would be heartbroken if he heard.” Alice grins in the darkness.
“Hey-“
Cindy reaches out to try and pinch her, but all she really ends up doing in grabbing Alice’s hand. Her stomach feels funny again when Cindy doesn’t let go. Can she hear it? Alice wonders. My heart beating so fast?
Maybe she can feel it simply by holding her hand.
Alice is about to pull away when Cindy’s grip tightens pleasantly.
“Have you had your first kiss yet?” Cindy asks.
Alice guffaws. “Me? Berman, I’m the girl with the boy haircut, remember?”
“Shush,” Cindy says. “You’re beautiful.”
Only when I’m with you.
“Alice,” Cindy continues. “Alice, why don’t we—”
The closet door yanks open, the sudden light blinding them. Cindy yanks her hand out.
“Come on,” Joan grins. “Time for more cake.”
Cindy is the first to leave the closet, her gaze low.
Alice never does learn what Cindy was going to ask her.
Alice meets Arnie Stackman the January after she turns twelve. She’s moving into a new foster home just as he’s leaving the same room. His stuff is shoved into the same trash bags her things are always kept in. No kid ever really stays in one foster home for long in Shadyside. They either lose their license, money, or interest.
Alice’s foster parents have ranged from a pair of assholes looking for an extra paycheck to totalitarians – a word she learned from Chrissy, who reads so damn much – to couples way in over their heads. For the most part, their optimism is what hurts the most because Alice has never been asked to stay.
But that’s another issue.
Her new foster placement is a middle age to elderly couple who introduces themselves as Mr. and Mrs. Monroe. They seem decent enough, and at least they don’t have a massive crucifix on their wall either, like her last placement did. Just a little absent. Maybe they’re potheads.
Alice pushes open the door to her designated bedroom and finds another boy sitting by the windowsill, the window pulled open. A cigarette is hanging from his lips. Alice recognizes him from school. He’s a year older than her, but everyone in their year has been whispering about how he’d been forced to stay back a year because he failed all his classes.
Arnie Stackman.
He looks at her and grins.
Cautiously, Alice returns the gesture.
“Come on, kid,” he says, even though he’s only a year older than her. “Want to try?”
He teaches her how to inhale the smoke without coughing up a lung, laughing a little at the state of her.
“They keep their best sweets under the wonky floor board in the kitchen,” he says. “Don’t ask why, don’t know. Only take one at a time though, otherwise they’ll get suspicious. And only once every so often.”
“Thanks,” she tells him.
He really isn’t so scary and big up close as everyone says he is.
“Why are you being so nice to me?” Alice asks.
He shrugs. “I’m moving back in with my uncle, now that the fucker is finally out of jail again. Figured I may spread some good vibes out into the world and all that shit.”
As it turns out, Arnie’s uncle lives in a shitty one bedroom across the street, so Alice can look outside her window and see Arnie smoking on his roof. The first time he sees her, he smirks. The next time, he waves her over.
Alice hesitates for only a moment before wriggling out of her window and jogging over. He helps her scale the side of the wall, tugs her up beside him.
“You, Alice Hart,” he says, pointing at her. “Aren’t bad at all.”
“Gee, I’m honoured to have your approval.”
He laughs at that. They don’t talk much, but when they do they exchange stories about all their foster parents, who had the worst one. Things like that. She can tell Arnie about the worst without any fear of pity. He has wide hazel eyes and a crooked smile, and whenever he smokes Alice can’t help but think he looks cool.
Cindy doesn’t like him.
Alice tells her about their nightly roof sessions, and Cindy listens for a bit before she starts growing impatient.
“Why do we have to talk about Arnie all the time?” Cindy demands, scowling after she sees Arnie greet Alice in the hall. “He’s a stupid boy.”
“He’s my friend.”
“Well, I’m your best friend.”
“I never said you weren’t.”
“Right, except now you like a stupid boy—”
“I don’t like Arnie—”
“You don’t?”
“Uh, no?” Alice replies. “He’s my friend.”
Cindy appears momentarily appeased, but later that night her friend comes to Alice’s foster home to study, even though they’d never agreed on something like that. When Alice glances out the window to spot Arnie, he’s waving at her, two cigarettes in hand, visible even with the distance.
To her surprise, Cindy joins her. She glares at Arnie the whole time, even smokes a cigarette. Cindy refuses to cough, even when her eyes start burning.
“Damn, Berman,” Arnie whistles. “You have nerves.”
Cindy flips him off for good measure. They return back to Alice’s room before they’re spotted missing, and Cindy’s mom comes to pick her up a little while later for good measure. Alice hopes she doesn’t smell the smoke.
Later on that night, Alice spots Arnie on his roof still, and braves the cold to join him. It’s lightly snowing. She bundles her thin blanket around her and manages to climb her way up.
For a few minutes, they’re silent.
“Berman,” Arnie says. “She’s really something, isn’t she?”
Alice drops her cigarette. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing,” Arnie says, raising his hands defensively. “Nothing at all. It’s just—”
“Just what?”
“She’s not really like us, is she?”
“You sound like a Sunnyvaler.”
“I didn’t meant it like that,” Arnie drawls. “I just mean – Berman isn’t like you and me, you know? Like on the roster of Shadysiders, we’re not—we’re not, fuck, I’m not making sense—”
But he is.
That’s what bothers Alice the most after she tells him to shut the fuck up. He’s not wrong. Cindy is a Shadysider. Her family struggles like they all do. Their power cuts out. The city doesn’t clean the snow or put salt on the ground. They all struggle at their school, where the heating is subpar at best. But Cindy’s family is whole. Complete. Her happy memories outweigh the bad ones. Alice goes to Cindy’s house all the time, but Cindy is rarely allowed over at wherever Alice is staying.
It is different. It is.
“Cindy’s my friend,” Alice tells him after a long pause. “My best friend.”
He only makes a sound in acknowledgement, just hands her another cigarette.
“Wait until you try weed, Hart,” he says.
Alice tries to get rid of that sinking feeling in her chest, but it doesn’t work.
It doesn’t work at all.
July 1973
School ends on a regular note. It’s hot, horribly humid, and Alice is psyched to spend the next two months running around with Cindy. Everything is normal, or it was, except Cindy’s father takes off out the blue with the secretary at his work, a girl barely even out of high school.
Alice finds out the morning it happens. Cindy had told her she’d heard her parents fighting more over the past few months. Whenever Alice was over, which is often, Mr. Berman always appeared after they’d eaten dinner. He’d take Chrissy out of bed and give her chocolate despite Mrs. Berman saying Chrissy couldn’t earlier.
He plays Chrissy music on his vinyl all the time, promises to let her listen to his Bowie record when she gets older. It takes Alice a few days to realize he’s drunk or high most of the time, but she doesn’t know how to tell Cindy until it’s too late and he’s gone.
When Cindy tugs her into the house, music is playing from the upstairs.
“Chrissy stole his vinyl player,” Cindy tells her. “She’s been playing Bowie all morning.”
Alice can hear the lyrics echoing through the walls. You’re face to face, with the man who sold the world—
“Where’s your mom?”
“O’Connell’s,” Cindy replies. “She hasn’t been back for hours.”
Alice doesn’t know what to say. What can she say? Shadyside has come for Cindy too, ruined what little good she had. She can’t say that Cindy’s dad will be back either, because she doesn’t know that he will.
Cindy decides she wants to clean the house for whatever odd reason, as if getting rid of the mess will fix everything. Alice shuts her mouth and helps Cindy mop and sweep and dust. Even helps Cindy make dinner. The pasta is still hard, the tomato sauce too salty, but Alice eats all of it anyway.
That same fucking song keeps playing. The man who sold the world.
The man who left his family. The man who left his daughters. The man who left Chrissy, who thought the world of him.
Cindy drifts off to sleep on the couch, her head in Alice’s lap. It’s only then that Little Berman makes her way down the stairs.
“There’s leftover pasta, Chrissy,” Alice tells her, smoothing back Cindy’s hair.
She looks up to stare at Cindy’s kid sister. Chrissy’s eyes are red and puffy, her jaw working relentlessly.
“It’s Ziggy.”
“What?”
“Ziggy,” the younger girl replies. “It’s Ziggy.”
“Chrissy—”
“Ziggy.”
Chrissy runs right back up the stairs, the sound of her door slamming wakes up Cindy from her snooze.
“Oh fuck,” Cindy whispers, taking note of Alice’s expression. “I was hoping this is all a horrible dream.” Alice stays quiet. “It’s not a dream, is it?”
“No, Berman,” Alice murmurs. “It’s not a dream.”
Cindy nods resolutely. Not once, not ever, does Cindy cry.
The next few weeks past in a stagnant silence. Mrs. Berman spends most of her nights at the bar, downing drink after drink. Mrs. Berman signs her daughter up for summer camp and only lets them know two days before they’re supposed to go. Alice manages to convince her foster parents to let her go too after the neighbour’s kids pull out of going because their grandma dies.
Soon, they’re all on the bus to Nightwing.
Chrissy – Ziggy, Alice reminds herself, intentionally brushes past Cindy to sit at a spot a few rows back. Cindy spends the whole ride staring at her sister with that same wide eyed concern she gives Alice whenever her foster home is shitty.
Ziggy doesn’t look back. She wears that scowl she’s always been wearing lately, but she doesn’t look back. Next to her is Nick Goode, heir apparent himself. Ziggy doesn’t seem to realize that everyone else on the bus is staring at her with shock.
Alice doesn’t particularly like being at camp, She thinks she would more if this hadn’t happened at all. Cindy spends most of her time chasing after Ch—Ziggy, checking in on her sister, making sure she’s okay.
Ziggy dodges her everyday. Runs off into the forest. Gets into fights with Sunnyvalers.
Cindy manages to corner her at the Science and Nature cabin as Alice keeps watch.
“Please – just talk to me,” Cindy begs. “I’m here. I’m right here. Chris—”
“Don’t—”
“Christine—”
“It’s Ziggy,” Little Berman spits. “And I don’t give a shit. Everything is fucked, and you’re an idiot for trying to pretend like everything will get better. It won’t. We are all going to end up fucked and miserable like every single other Shadysider, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
Ziggy runs off, and Cindy—
For once, Alice spots tears in her eyes.
“Cindy—”
“No,” her friend says. “No. I’m going to—fuck, I just need to be alone, okay?”
Cindy walks off too. When Alice glances at the entrance to the Science and Nature cabin, the finds the door cracked open, with Sunnyvale heir apparent Nick Goode standing there.
“I didn’t know her name was Christine,” he blurts out.
Alice scowls. “Well, you learn something new every day, don’t you?”
She trails after Cindy before he bothers to respond. Nosy Sunnyvale prick, she thinks. It takes her a while to find Cindy. She’s huddling by the water, tears streaming down her face as she sluggishly tosses pebbles into it. They’re obscured by a couple of trees.
“Cindy,” Alice says, crouching beside her. “Cindy, I—”
“Promise me we’ll be different,” Cindy interrupts, turning to stare at her with wide eyes. “Promise me we’ll be different from other Shadysiders. That we’ll be happy. That we’ll always, always, have each other. Promise me.”
“I promise,” Alice whispers. “I promise. You’re never going to get rid of me, Berman.”
Cindy falls into her shoulder, clutches onto the end of her tank top.
“You won’t leave?”
“I won’t leave. I promise. I promise.”
Alice holds Cindy as she cries, and wishes she could protect her from everything, from all the fucked things in Shadyside.
But she can’t.
All she can do is hold her.
Alice keeps her promise.
Alice keeps her promise until Cindy decides she no longer wants it during their first week of freshman year.
She would say it’s a long time coming, except she’s too blindsided by it.
One minute they’re smoking weed together, laughing and running and trying to find jobs so they can actually buy shit together without stealing it. They try beer for the first time that summer too. Beer that Arnie gets her, and they get drunk in the park and promise to stick together all throughout high school.
It’s Cindy’s idea to steal Mr. Evans’ JVC player after their first day of school. They do it during lunch and Alice begs Arnie for another joint to celebrate their success.
Everything is fine until Alice is called to the principal’s office. Her foster parents are there – the same one’s from when she first met Arnie – and the JVC player is there too. She’d kept in the back of her closet because they never go into her room. They don’t share much interest in her really. They give her food, and in exchange she doesn’t give them too much shit.
It’s a good system.
They’re there, however, when Alice is suspended for two weeks.
They’re also there when the social worker comes to take her away.
“We won’t have a thief under our roof,” Mr. Monroe says. “We don’t need the Sheriff in our business.”
What hurts Alice the most – what bothers her the most, is that there’s only one person who knew where she kept the JVC player. Only one.
Cindy.
Alice waits every day for a phone call. A message. Something. She’s not allowed to leave the orphanage because of her suspension, and security has increased over the years so she can’t sneak out.
The only person who comes to see her is Arnie.
He looks at her with a knowing glint in his eye, but he doesn’t say anything. Just brings her a chocolate bar and some school work that she missed.
“I attended class for you, Hart,” he says. “Appreciate it.”
Alice does thank him, but—
“Cindy,” she says. “Is she okay? Is she suspended too?”
The look in his eyes could almost be described as pity. It’s close, but not quite. Alice and Arnie don’t pity each other. They both have too much in common for that. Both have dead mom’s and locked up dad’s they haven’t seen in years. Arnie has his uncle, but he’s not much better than a stranger.
“No,” he replies slowly. “No, she hasn’t been suspended either.”
She snitched.
It’s the only possible explanation. Alice knows that, but—
Her heart refuses to accept it until she walks into school after her suspension is up. Two weeks of silence and isolation felt like a lifetime. Alice has finally been placed with another foster parent, some middle aged lady with four other fosters who uses them as cheques. Alice is pretty certain that stain on the edge of her sleeve is baby vomit – if she’s lucky.
She walks into school, a pit in her stomach, and—
Cindy isn’t in homeroom. The teacher doesn’t announce her name, so she must have been switched. Or asked to be. Somehow, in all their classes, Cindy isn’t there.
Alice doesn’t see Cindy until lunch. She goes to the cafeteria – something she never had to do before – and looks around. It’s not until she does a double take that she recognises Cindy. Her Cindy. She’s sitting next to Tommy Slater and a bunch of other kids. The shitty black box dye they used to tip dye the ends of their hair has vanished, returning her locks to their auburn roots. Her makeup isn’t smudged, and her clothes – while they aren’t up to Sunnyvale standards, are still neat and proper.
And Alice looks and watches and—
All she can do is stand there, the world ringing in her ears. This must be a dream. Must be some awful, horrible dream. But it’s not.
It’s not.
Unlike Cindy all those years ago, there’s no one to assure her that this isn’t a nightmare.
This is her life.
She had Cindy and now somehow, somehow, she does not. She blinks. Once. Twice. Rapidly. But Cindy does turn her head to look at her. Does not glance at her and smile or grin like she always used to before.
She watches Cindy talk to Tommy, laugh at his jokes in a polite sort of way, her snort long forgotten, and Alice feels her insides shrivel up. She is fourteen years old, and this is what heartbreak tastes like, even if she doesn’t want to admit it.
She looks away when Cindy finally glances in her direction, eyes burning but determined not to show it.
She’s so stupid. So stupid for believing she could hold onto something so good. Alice feels like she can drown in her humiliation and grief and hurt. Feels like she can drown in it forever.
“Hey,” Arnie says, putting a hand on her shoulders. “Want a smoke?”
He snaps her back to reality just as a traitorous tear falls down her cheek.
“Yeah,” she says, wiping at it. “Yeah, I do.”
As they walk out the cafeteria, Alice feels someone’s gaze boring into her back, but she doesn’t check back and look.
The next few weeks pass by in a blur. Both too fast and too slow all at once. Alice is numb for most of it. She sees Cindy in the halls, but they barely look at each other. Alice doesn’t know what to say. She keeps on waiting for Cindy to say something, anything, but she doesn’t. Cindy goes one way, and Alice is left standing there, frozen in time.
She drinks and smokes so much she passes out. Arnie is the one who keeps her from passing out in her own vomit.
The more proper and foreign Cindy becomes, the more haggard Alice gets. The more she smudges her makeup and rips her jeans or shorts. This is who I am, she wants to say. This is who you lost.
There are times where Alice dreams of her. Where the days of sleepovers and stories and adventures don’t seem real. Part of a fantasy. She doesn’t understand how something like that can just end. Can just stop like it never existed at all. It’s like she’s cut off a limb, like the world has lost its colour, like food has lost its taste.
Alice doesn’t understand, can’t understand, and she’s too proud to go up to Cindy and ask. Cindy doesn’t seek her out, seems to intentionally avoid her. Never looks her way, not once. If Cindy doesn’t care, Alice won’t either.
She’s not going to beg someone to stay like a pathetic little bitch. If Cindy doesn’t want her, that’s fine. That’s fine. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter at all, no matter how much Arnie stares at her when he thinks she isn’t looking. It doesn’t matter. She’s fine.
The first time Cindy speaks to her, after, is when news leaks that her dad is denied his parole. His parole hearing is the first time Alice has seen him in years, but she’s not the only one who shows up. The Sheriff does too, and he makes a case as to why her dad should complete his full sentence, and of course the parole board listens, because when doesn’t anyone listen to a Goode.
Everyone whispers at school all day, and not even a joint makes her feel better. It just fuels the fiery pit inside her.
She cuts class to hang out in the bathroom instead, parks herself by the window she pushes open, a cigarette hanging on her lips.
Cindy is the one who pushes the door open.
“Oh,” is all her former friend says.
It’s December now, a few days before Alice’s fifteenth birthday. It’s the most she’s spoken to Cindy in months. The closest she’s been to her. It hurts. It hurts even more than the council announcing that her dad has to rot in prison for the next ten years.
Cindy came into her life, stormed into it, forced her to become friends, made her love—
“What the fuck do you want?” Alice mutters, taking another puff of her cigarette. “Come to gloat?”
“Gloat?” Cindy takes an uneasy step towards her, even as she refuses to meet Alice’s gaze. Pathetic. “Alice, I—”
“Oh, you pity me now, right?” Alice cackles cruelly. “I’m already on my way to becoming like my dad. After all, I’m already a thief. Already have a school record.”
Cindy flinches with every word.
“Alice, I’m—”
“You’re what?” Before she knows it, she’s standing in front of Cindy, so close their noses almost brush. “You’re what, snitch?”
Cindy takes a deep breath.
“I’m not a snitch,” Cindy states.
“Oh, no? I suppose you’re just delusional then.”
“I am not delusional.”
“No, you’re just a liar. Just a traitor.”
“I just wanted to see if you were okay,” Cindy whispers, eyes glistening.
“You don’t fucking have that right anymore, Berman,” Alice spits.
“You could—you could join me,” Cindy says. “You don’t have to end up like your dad—”
“Ah, yes, and I suppose cozying it up with Tommy Slater will help prevent me develop a criminal record—”
“He’s not bad—”
“You’re such a fake,” Alice says. “You’re so fake it’s pathetic. You, Cindy Berman, are a fake, superficial bitch who uses people and leaves them, just like your daddy.”
It’s a low blow, and Alice knows it, but in that moment she doesn’t care.
“And you’re a waste,” Cindy retorts, cheeks flushed. “I’m not a bad person for trying to get out of here. You’re just acting like a waste of—”
“Of what? Of space?” Alice’s mouth twists bitterly. “Well, congratulations, Berman, you and Harold Hines have something in common. You can pat yourself on the back now.”
For a second, Cindy looks like she’s about to cry.
“I just wanted to check in on you,” Cindy whispers again. “I just—”
“Fuck off,” Alice says. “Fuck off, Berman. Get out!”
And, after a moment, Cindy does.
Alice is alone.
Alice is always, always, alone.
Just like she was meant to be.
No Shadysider can hold onto something good.
Time, as it does, passes.
The more days slip away, the further Alice drifts from Cindy.
Her former friend joins every extra curricular under the sun. Even joins the cheerleading team. Cindy works hard to scrub any memory of her past friends and reputation clean. The high school teachers had never had to deal with them in middle school, so it’s easy for them to forget that one glorious week of high school where Alice’s world felt right for the final time.
Now, Cindy is only a stranger whose laugh she recognizes like her own reflection. Alice doesn’t know where to put it. All the memories. All the anger. It festers inside her because she can’t bring herself to give it to anyone else.
She drinks and she smokes and she gets into shit, because Alice doesn’t know what else to do.
The day Alice sees Cindy and Tommy kiss for the first time at school, she loses her virginity. Not at school, at a party. The boy is older, friends with Arnie’s dealer, and she’s high for most of it, sober only for the final moments where he slobbers over her and tries to give her a kiss.
Arnie finds her later, curled up on the bed, her clothes back on. She tries not to feel dirty, and she fails.
“Oh Hart,” he murmurs. “Alice.”
She doesn’t look at him as she sits up, sore in between her thighs. At least they had the mind to use a fucking condom.
“Sex, drugs and rock n roll, right?” she mutters.
She doesn’t feel anything. She doesn’t feel anything at all. She’s a waste. An ugly, horrible, waste.
She’s not worth staying for.
The first night Alice cuts herself is the same night she loses her virginity.
In some strange way, it seems fitting.
She starts wearing wrist bands after that to hide the scars.
She’s a waste, waste, waste-
The years pass.
Her and Arnie fall into bed together out of convenience more than anything, bonded by trauma and experience and convenience that somehow turns into the last anchor Alice has.
“I’m a gross, high little shit,” Arnie grins after the first time they have sex. “But you love me for it.”
In an odd, fond way, Alice does. The sex is good, better than the other guys Alice has fucked. She even comes. They kiss and make out at school, because why not, and Alice catches Cindy staring at them once or twice from where they’re lying behind the bleachers.
Cindy is busy with cheerleading practice or something, her auburn hair tied back into braids, the same that Alice used to braid for her, her skirt short as it hikes up her thighs—
Cindy kisses Tommy right in front of her, the golden boy and golden girl, and Alice kisses Arnie right back for good measure, lets him grope her ass in front of everyone.
Boys are stupid, they used to swear and now—
Here they are.
Here they fucking are.
1977
Alice finds work as a cashier at the knock-off record store right across Shadyside’s own McDonalds. Because it’s in the same plaza, she gets a special discount that she takes full of advantage of for herself and Arnie.
To Alice’s surprise, however, when she walks into the store, Cindy is the one who greets her. She’s dressed in a horrible white and red checkered shirt, a similar striped hat on her head. She looks like a strawberry. Alice doesn’t even know how Cindy has the time for a job. She’s head cheerleader already, president of the debate and yearbook club, and even won the race for student body president next year.
Alice had voted for her, because of course had.
If anyone was meant to leave Shadyside, it’s Cindy.
Doesn’t make it hurt any less to look at her though.
Cindy doesn’t realize it’s her until she looks up.
“What do you want, Alice?” Cindy questions, visibly exhausted.
“Oh I don’t know, how about service with a smile, snitch?”
“Alice, not now—”
“Not my fault you got a job in customer service,” Alice says, smirking. “Come on, Berman. Service me.”
Cindy grows visibly flustered. There was a time they used to share cigarettes and the same sheets. Even clothes.
Cindy is about to retort when someone walks through the entrance again, the bell ringing.
“Ziggy,” Cindy breathes, frowning. “You’re late.”
Alice turns to find little Berman behind her, scowling deeply.
“Yeah, and?” Ziggy retorts. “What are you going to do, subject me to another lecture?”
“You know why you can’t stay home alone—”
“What, because mom’s boyfriend is a creep?”
Alice has seen Ziggy in the halls of Shadyside High since the younger girl started high school. It’s hard to believe that she’s the same Chrissy who used to have her head stuck in a book all the time. She still does, from what Alice can tell, but it’s always accompanied by a scowl.
Alice may no longer have a Cindy, but she does have an Arnie.
It doesn’t look like Ziggy has anyone still.
“You know why,” Cindy grits out, and Alice feels her heart pang. “Just please – sit down and do your homework or something useful.”
“Useful.” Ziggy snorts. “What, am I hindering your grand plan to get out of this town? It’s not like you’re planning on remembering me after you go.”
Alice wants to move, but she’s frozen in the middle of this Berman family toil.
“Ziggy, that’s not fair—”
“You’re just like Dad—”
Cindy’s expression shudders.
“What’s going on here?”
A man with a bulging beer belly, dressed in the same shirt as Cindy, appears from the back room. He walks over to Cindy’s side. Alice can see the grease in his hair, sense the sliminess of his existence.
Ziggy doesn’t seem to notice, too busy scowling.
“This is your little sister, right, Cindy?” the man asks, grinning. His yellow teeth glint in the light. “She’s not going to cause trouble, is she?”
Ziggy scoffs.
“No,” Cindy says hurriedly. “I really appreciate you letting her stay here as I work.”
Ziggy yanks open a book, but Alice is paying enough attention to spot Cindy’s boss reaching behind the counter and place his hands on her lower back, giving it a squeeze. Alice’s blood boils.
“Good,’ the man grins, turning on his heel. “Good.”
Cindy sighs and pinches her brow.
“What do you want to eat, Ziggy?”
Her sister ignores her.
“Ziggy?”
Alice bites down on her lip. “For fuck’s sake, at least respond to her—”
“Why do you care if I ignore her?” Ziggy sneers, as Alice steadily ignores Cindy’s look of surprise. “She decided she was too good for you, remember?”
“Ziggy!” Cindy exclaims.
Alice, stung, takes a step back. Ziggy rolls her eyes, even though Alice can see a flicker of regret in them and disappears to a booth.
“Alice,” Cindy pleads. ‘Alice, I—”
“She’s not wrong, Berman,” Alice interrupts. “I want two things of fries and a cheeseburger.”
“Alice—”
“Shut up, Berman,” she says. “Just shut up.”
After she gets her food and starts walking back to the store, she wonders if little Berman realizes how much Cindy works to care of her, before she has to remind herself that it’s not her business anymore, that it never was.
She is Alice Hart, and that is Cindy Berman, and she doesn’t have the right to touch something so good, a star so bright.
What Alice forgets, of course, is that stars always burn out and die.
As it turns out, she isn’t alive to see that happen.
Alice loses her job at the record store two weeks later because the boss over at McDonalds finds his car vandalized.
They can’t prove it was her, but they can’t prove her innocence either.
Alice finds that she doesn’t really care.
1978
Prom comes around in May, and even though it’s so fucking stupid, Alice gets tickets. She isn’t planning on getting them until she does. Cindy and the rest of student council and the cheerleading team are selling tickets in the cafeteria, and Alice catches Cindy watching her with Arnie, a frown clear on her face.
“Alice, don’t,” Arnie says, following her gaze, but she ignores him.
The rest of the cheerleader’s titter when Alice approaches the stand.
“What do you want?” Cindy asks.
Alice smirks. “Why, to buy prom tickets of course.”
The blonde cheerleader beside Cindy snickers. “Do you even have money?”
“Do you?” Alice sneers. “This is Shadyside, princess. Fuck off with your Sunnyvale bullshit.”
She glances up at the poster. “Besides, why would I ever not want to attend an evening among the clouds, hmm? Sounds positively magical.”
Cindy bristles. “Prom means something to people, Alice.”
She snorts. “Yeah, no shit.”
She fishes out a dollar she probably can’t spare to afford from her back pocket and slams it on the table.
“Two tickets.”
Cindy doesn’t move. The rest of the cheerleaders attention volleys between them.
“Two tickets, Berman.”
“Can you even go to prom?” Cindy grounds out.
“Oh, what? You’re going to give me more detentions so I can’t go?” Alice places her hands on the desk and leans forward. “You’re going to snitch on me again? Maybe even get me expelled this time if you’re lucky.”
Cindy winces. “I didn’t snitch.”
“Whatever you tell yourself to sleep at night, Berman. Two tickets.”
Finally, Cindy complies, sliding the two tickets over and handing Alice back her change.
“You don’t care about prom,” Cindy says, right as Alice turns on her heel. “Don’t ruin it for people who do.”
“You’re not doing a very good job selling your campaign for prom queen.”
“Like you’d vote for me anyway.”
“Can’t argue with that,” Alice says, walking away.
It’s a lie, of course. When the voting slips come in homeroom, Alice hesitates for only a split second before ticking Cindy’s name. Because despite everything, Cindy is still the most beautiful thing she has ever seen, even if she hates it.
She doesn’t vote Tommy Slater for prom king though. She isn’t that soft.
Alice creates a new box instead – Leatherface, she writes.
Let Cindy have a beast for a King.
And if it’s petty, well—
Alice doesn’t really give a shit.
Or at least that’s what she tells herself, deep down.
Alice does end up attending the prom. Arnie steals a black skater dress for her to wear, and Alice rounds her eyes with dark eyeshadow, forgoes heels in exchange for converse.
It’s a fucking small affair, she can’t help but think, watching Cindy and Tommy interact with the crowd. Cindy is dressed in a splendid red dress of course, probably handmade, her blue eyes glittering under the disco light.
Cindy only looks at her when Arnie spills punch all over himself, and she quickly looks away thereafter. Pain twinges in Alice’s chest. Pain that shouldn’t be there, that should be over by now, but it’s not.
It’s still fucking there.
Cindy and Tommy win prom king and queen, because of course they do, and despite how shitty the Shadyside venue is and how miserable their futures are, they look like the golden couple, like something pulled out of a fairytale. Cindy Berman and Thomas Slater are seemingly immune from the darkness that plagues Shadyside, untouched by its blemishes.
Cindy is golden, and Alice is nothing more than a speck of dust. Of course Cindy would love Tommy Slater. Of course she would. Soon, Cindy will leave this town, and she won’t come back, and their years dreaming about a house on the hill for just them to know will be forgotten.
Scratch that—it won’t be forgotten by Alice.
As she watches Cindy and Tommy sway to Hopelessly Devoted to You, she’s crushed by the realisation that she will spend the rest of her life missing Cindy Berman like a limb. She’ll think of her every time she sees a glint of sunlight hit the lake, every time she listens to the beatles.
Because despite everything, those are the happiest years of her life.
Alice chokes on her hurt, on the swell of tears that consume her, and she elbows her way out of the school gym, ignoring Arnie’s concerned look, and trembling all over.
It takes her a few minutes to light a cigarette due to her inability to stop shaking. She stands at the edge of the parking lot, inhaling the sharp smoke, trying to breathe, trying not to feel like she’s drowning.
Fuck, she’s so pathetic. She’s so pathetic. She twists her wrist bands, pinches the skin beneath, but it doesn’t stop the river of tears. She finishes one cigarette, then another, and—
She turns at the sound of footsteps.
“Hey,” Arnie greets, joint at his lips.
Alice falters under his sympathetic stare, drops her cigarette to the ground.
“Fuck,” she swears, swiping at her eyes, smudging her makeup even more. She lowers her gaze, tries to hide the track of tears, shame brewing in her belly. But Arnie—
He sets aside his joint and pulls her into a hug. Alice doesn’t expect it, tries to jerk away—
“Just let me hug you, fuck,” Arnie swears. “You need it, and I’m high enough already I won’t bitch about it.”
“Isn’t this you bitching now?” she mutters into his chest.
She feels him scowl into her hair, but he pats her back anyway, lets her hold him as she cries.
“Oh, Hart,” he says. “Fuck, you need a joint more than I do.”
“Or some chocolate.”
“You seem to be forgetting the fact that I’m poor,” Arnie reminds her.
Alice huffs a laugh into his chest, but all it does is bring a fresh wave of tears to her face.
“It’s okay to cry,” Arnie says, patting her on the back. “Cry all you want.”
Alice has never had to explain anything about herself to Arnie. They’ve always looked out for each other—always. Arnie is a gross, high little shit, but if Alice hadn’t had him these past four years she would have given up a long time ago.
She does love him.
“You’re my best friend,” she says, once she’s managed to calm down a little. “You know that, right?”
Arnie cracks a grin.
“You know it,” he says. “Especially when you suck my dick – platonically, that is.”
Alice laughs, even as tears keep on streaming down her face.
“Come on,” Arnie tells her. “Let’s grab our shit and leave. Mr. Veer stole my lighter on the way in.”
Alice nods, wipes at her eyes, and lets him lead her inside. She’s trying to fix her makeup in the corner of the gym when she hears Cindy and Tommy nearby, talking to each other.
“I’m not—I’m not ready, Tommy,” Cindy is saying. “I’m sorry—”
“You don’t have to apologize, Cindy,” Tommy replies. “If you’re not ready, you’re not ready.”
Bile catches in Alice’s throat. Of course Cindy and Tommy were still virgins. Prom night – the picture perfect cliché. No doubt Cindy is ready, she just doesn’t want to get knocked up, to stay here, even with her knight in shining armour—
“Why are you eavesdropping?”
Alice blinks rapidly. Cindy is in front of her suddenly, flustered beyond belief.
“Can’t you mind your own business, Alice—”
Cindy stops, eyes widening as she looks closer into her face. Alice glances away. She’s like a fly trapped under a glass. She tries to form a snarky remark, but the words won’t come, like there’s a clog in her brain.
“What happened?” Cindy breathes, reaching for her arm. Alice is too sluggish to jerk away in time. Cindy’s nails dig into her skin. “What happened, Alice? What’s wrong?”
“Fuck off, Berman—”
“Okay, grabbed my lighter,” Arnie greets, reappearing with their coats. “Ready to go?”
He takes in the scene, and his eyes dart to Alice.
“Berman,” Arnie says. “Slater.”
Cindy glares at him, and it’s almost like her Cindy has reappeared.
“Did he do something to you?” Cindy demands, letting go of her arm to step in front of her, shielding Alice from view. “What the fuck did you do to her—”
“Cindy—”
Cindy ignores her boyfriend’s attempt to get her to calm down.
“What did you do?” Cindy hisses again. “What did you do?”
“Me?” Arnie scoffs. “Fuck off, Berman, and take a good look in the mirror—”
“Arnie.”
He stops, brushes past Cindy to wrap an arm around her shoulder.
“Alice—”
“Just, fuck off, Berman,” Alice says. “Fuck off.”
Tommy comes to his girlfriend’s side.
“Come on, Cindy,” he says. “Let’s just leave it alone.”
After a few tense moments, Cindy lets Tommy lead her back to the dance floor. Alice can’t even comprehend what song is playing. Arnie leads her away, to his shabby, dilapidated car, before Arnie tells her he forgot something else. As he jogs over, Alice hears the fire alarm go off.
“Get inside,” he says. “Go, go, go, go!”
Alice hurries into the car and soon they’re speeding out of the parking lot just as the kids inside the gym head out into the field, soaked in all their prom dresses. Cindy and Tommy aren’t immune either. They look like wet rats.
Alice can’t help but laugh.
“Thanks,” she tells Arnie. He reaches out and pats her shoulder.
“No problem, Hart,” he says, lighting his joint with one hand. And then, after a moment, “You’re my best friend too.”
When they get back to school the following Monday, Cindy doesn’t even look in her direction. She’s sitting with Tommy as happy as can be, and Alice can’t help but think—
Did she change her mind? Did she? Did she?
Within a few years, Alice knows she’ll hear through the grapevine that they got married. Have two kids. A white picket fence. They will leave this place and Alice—
Well, if she’s lucky, her death will be quick.
When Alice hears that there are open counsellor positions at Nightwing for that upcoming summer, she waits only a day before signing her and Arnie up. She passes the CPR training with flying colours, nudging Arnie until he puts in enough effort to be considered. Maybe it’s desperation on the Shadyside council’s part, or maybe it’s the fact that Alice puts in the most effort she ever has for anything over her high school career.
Her, Arnie, Tommy Slater and Cindy along with a handful of other Shadysiders and Sunnyvalers are selected, and the look on Cindy’s face when she finds out Alice will be joining her for the summer both satisfies and hurts her more than she cares to admit.
Arnie shoots her a knowing look when he catches her staring at a huffy Cindy, watching as she flicks her hair over her shoulder and picks up one of her pom-poms, and Alice ignores him. Her stomach churns as Cindy and Tommy walk down the hallway hand in hand in harmonious bliss, Tommy in his letterman jacket and Cindy in her cheerleading uniform.
She skips classes, spends most of her time getting high beyond belief behind the bleachers. The only class she puts any effort into is art. That’s the only other hobby she has besides getting high. To her surprise, her painting gets her an A plus, and they even put her work on display. Alice is mortified when she finds out, even considers asking Arnie to burn it down, but something stops her.
House on the Hill, it’s called. The house is tucked on the side of a cliff, all wooden with an ivy-thatched roof, yellow flowers at the doorstep. It overlooks the sea, with a bracket of trees on the other side. It’s a small piece of colour that lightens up the hallway. Most people walk past it without another thought, but Alice—
She catches Cindy staring at it after school one day. The halls are empty, and Alice has just finished detention. Cindy must have been at cheerleading practice or a guidance counsellor appointment, talking about her future.Or maybe she’s even waiting for Tommy to finish football practice, even though school ends in two short weeks.
Cindy is twisting with the straps of her backpack as she stares at the painting, and she doesn’t even hear Alice approach until she whistles right by her ear.
“Jesus Christ!” Cindy exclaims, pressing a hand to her chest. Her face slackens when she realizes it’s Alice, the shock giving way to a stiffness. “What do you want, Alice?”
“Me?” she questions mockingly. “Nothing. I’m not the one standing here like a ghost.”
Cindy shifts uneasily. “I was just looking.”
And Alice feels her jaw tighten.
“And?” she prompts, suddenly furious. “What about my painting?”
Cindy glances at her, then at the painting, and back again. She feels small, like she’s an ant for Cindy Berman to step on and crush whenever she so pleases. But fuck that. Cindy Berman has used her enough.
Still, her heart is screaming – do you remember? Do you remember? Do you? Do you? I don’t think I can forget--
I wanted you so badly—
“Nothing,” Cindy mutters. “It’s just—if you tried, you could be more, you could be better, we could—”
“There is no we,” Alice hisses. “There never fucking was, do you understand me? I wasn’t under the impression that you gave a shit, Berman.”
Cindy flinches at the onslaught, but she doesn’t protest.
Alice shakes her head in disgust.
“You’re pathetic,” she spits, feeling a twisted sense of pleasure when Cindy’s eyes – still so fucking blue – fill with tears.
Alice hears footsteps coming from down the hall, and turns to find Tommy Slater himself approaching, his hair wet from sweat or a shower.
“Hey Cindy,” he greets. “Ready to go?”
Alice scoffs to herself.
“Yeah,” Cindy says, tears suddenly gone. “Yeah, I’m ready. Ziggy took the bus home, so.”
Cindy brushes past her, shoulder colliding with hers, and she even gives Tommy a quick kiss as a hello. Alice’s stomach churns. They walk down the hall and out the school before she summons the strength to move again.
Graduation comes and goes. Alice has no plans, no future, really, besides her upcoming gig at camp. Other than that—
Well, her and Arnie get high in the bathroom, so there will always be more cigarettes, more booze, more bills, more pain. It will be endless, but it will be their’s, and at least she has Arnie.
At least she has Arnie.
Cindy isn’t Valedictorian, but she is second in their class, and so Alice can stare at her the entire ceremony without anyone really noticing. Her eyes are still the same – still the same colour as the sky.
How did we end up like this? Alice thinks. How did we end up like this?
Arnie claps and hoots when she walks across the stage, and when Alice grins at him, she thinks that Cindy might be clapping too.
The time for camp arrives. The counsellors spend a few days in shifts preparing everything – the bunks, the kitchen, activities, schedules. Alice is mostly bossed around by Kurt, but she doesn’t see Cindy or Slater in any of those shifts.
Nick Goode hangs around in the background, looking solemn, but he interjects once every so often, and since that’s the only time Kurt shuts the fuck up, she doesn’t mind too much, even mildly welcomes it.
It’s only on July 12th that she sees Cindy for the first time since graduation. She’s arguing with Chrissy, Ziggy, Alice reminds herself, because of course she is. All the campers are wearing their ridiculous camp t-shirts, and Alice has to resist the urge to light a joint within two minutes of stepping onto the bus. There are so many kids to take care of her head hurts already, but Cindy’s hair glints in the sunlight from the corner of her eye, and something in Alice’s chest tightens painfully.
July 12th. How long does she have left?
A month? Maybe two?
And then Cindy Berman will be gone from her life forever. Not even a ghost in the hallways, a stranger whose laugh she can recognize in a heartbeat. Within days, now, Alice will have to get used to a life without Cindy in it.
And she will have to live with that forever.
It’s one of life’s most fucked up ironies – or mercies, really – that Alice never gets to live in a world without Cindy Berman in it.
(at least she dies with Cindy’s hand in her hair, soothing it. At least she dies with her name on Cindy’s lips—
Alice, Alice, stay with me—Alice!
At least she doesn’t die alone, at least—
At least she dies knowing she is loved)