Dear Sam

Dear Sam,

Everything is ruined, and I blame the blue eyeshadow.

It started last week. I knew Tilly took my eyeshadow. I knew it! I swear, sometimes I can feel her scheming. Was I this evil when I was a kid? The answer is no. Sometimes I wonder if we’re even related, and then she’ll make that wrinkly face Dad does or laugh like Mom and I know we are. Maybe I’m the one that’s secretly adopted. It would explain a lot.

But that’s not relevant. The important thing is that I knew she’d taken the eyeshadow, but she wasn’t wearing it. Which was weird. Usually when she takes my stuff the first thing she does is flaunt it around. I thought maybe she was sneaking out to wear it at parties or something, which is also totally evil. So I responded the only way I could: I waited all night outside her door on Tuesday to see if she would leave, and she didn’t. I was so tired I’m pretty sure I failed my chem test, but sacrifices have to be made in the name of justice. You would understand.

So then I thought maybe she was sneaking out the window. But I checked the security camera Dad has out there, and it wasn’t that either. Speaking of which, he totally needs to reinstall it. It’s falling apart. You could if you were here. That sounds guilt trippy when I write it. I didn’t mean it like that. You know that.

By Friday, I was going insane. I was starting to think that maybe she wasn’t lying when she said she didn’t know where it was. Do you have any idea how desperate you have to be to trust Tilly? Too desperate, that’s all you need to know. I decided to give up and go take a shower in an attempt to feel something other than ridiculous.

I open the door, and what do I see but the one and only Tilly Kelly wearing the dress I gave her last year and my blue eyeshadow!!

“Give it back!” I yelled—Tilly would probably call it a screech, even though it wasn’t, but I’m the one telling the story, so I get to decide.

Tilly turned to look at me with that face—you know that face she makes, when she squints and then smiles really big, like she doesn’t know what you’re mad about. “Hey, Jenna!”

“That’s my eyeshadow!” I said, trying to grab it from the counter.

The little harlot pulled it out of my reach. “It would appear to be in my possession."

“Because you stole it!” I said.

“If by stole you mean temporarily borrowed, then yes, I stole it,” she scoffed, checking her hair in the mirror.

“Were you going to give it back?” I asked.

She had the nerve to look like she was considering. “No,” she said finally.

“Then you stole it! Give it back!”

“But I need it,” she whined, finally relenting.

“For what?”

She glanced at the door, and I swear if I hadn’t been blocking her way she would have made a run for it. But eventually she sighed and dragged herself away from her reflection to look at me.

“I have a date,” she admitted.

Now this is the part where I went from mildly annoyed—I can see the face you’re making reading that, Sam, I had a perfectly normal reaction—to angry. A date? Really? She stole my eyeshadow for a date? And she didn’t tell me? Not that Tilly and I are close close, you of all people know that, but I would have thought she’d tell me that.

“You have a date?” I repeated.

“Well don’t say it like that,” she complained, turning back to the mirror. “Not all of us are hermits.”

“That’s not—you still stole my eyeshadow,” I said, trying to regain some stability.

“Temporarily borrowed—”

“Stole!”

Tilly rolled her eyes like I said something ridiculous and then started finger combing her hair. The conversation was clearly about to be over. And then she was going to go on a date, which clearly Mom and Dad didn’t know about either. And maybe they would get together, and then he’d cheat on her with someone else on the cheerleading team, and then Tilly would hit him with her car and not even bother to call me to help hide the body so of course she’d go to jail for the rest of her life and all of our conversations would be through those weird prison phones, and well—it just didn’t seem like a good life, okay? Not even for my least favorite little sister.

“Who’s the date with?” I asked after a second.

“You don’t know him,” she said quickly.

“I might!”

“You don’t.”

“Does he go to school with us?”

“Yes.”

“Then why wouldn’t I know him?”

“Because you don’t know anybody, Jenna.”

Now she was just declaring war. First she went for my eyeshadow, now she was going for my social status? What had I ever done to deserve this?

“I know plenty of people,” I argued. “Just tell me who he is.”

“Allan Newberry, for crying out loud.”

Well, damn it. I had never heard of that man in my life. But I can’t be blamed for that. Do you remember when Tilly was little and she had all those fake kindergarten boyfriends? She’s kept it up, though with a lot less success. She falls in love every week, and according to Tilly the only reason the guys haven’t confessed their undying love for her is because they’re all stuck in miserable relationships with evil psychopaths. Or superspies. It’s hard to keep track of her delusions. So I don’t think it’s my fault at all that I was a little confused about her new boyfriend. If he was her boyfriend.

“You don’t know who he is,” Tilly said after I was silent for too long.

“You stole my eyeshadow,” I said.

“It’s not like you need it for anything,” she muttered.

“Maybe I do! I could have a date!”

That was a mistake. I can admit that. I knew it the second I said it. Tilly immediately grinned. “Really? And you never brought it up until now?”

“I mean, I . . .”

“You don’t have a date?”

“Not—I mean not in like—not in like the traditional sense,” I babbled.

I was desperate. I couldn’t back up now. You understand why I had to do what I did. I looked around the bathroom, desperate for something, anything—and then I saw it! The photobooth picture. You know the one that you drove me and Mellie to the mall to get?

We’re both smiling really wide, and she has her arms around my shoulders, and when I showed it to Tilly for the first time she asked me if I had something to tell her, which was totally stupid. I didn’t. I don’t. Though I don’t need to tell you that. Most people with any level of intelligence would look at the picture and come to the logical conclusion that Mellie and I are best friends. But I wasn’t talking to an intelligent person, I was talking to Tilly. And the way she was looking at me . . . almost pitying. I couldn’t handle it.

“It’s Mellie!” I blurted.

Tilly looked taken aback. “What?”

“My, uh, my date. It’s Mellie. We’re together. Daaaating. I wasn’t, uh, gonna tell you but you really forced my hand here so—” I trailed off, throwing my hands out in a desperate attempt at pizzazz.

I expected Tilly to be shocked, or at the very least give me back the eyeshadow, but she just laughed. Laughed!

“That’s it? Well I could’ve told you that. I mean she’s obviously in love with you,” she said.

Which, I mean I don’t have to tell you how untrue that is. It’s Mellie, for crying out loud. If she was going to be in love with anyone it certainly wouldn’t be me. Tilly probably just thought that because Mellie’s a . . . well. You know. It feels weird writing it. Not because I’m homophobic, or anything, I just know if I wrote it down it would look weird. Is it more homophobic not to write it? Whatever.

I mean when she came out everyone wondered if we were together. I had like five people in the hallway ask me if that meant I was a you-know-what too. Which is totally stupid. Like a—okay, screw it, a lesbian can’t have a best friend and not be in love with her! Mellie could do a million times better than me. I’m surprised she hasn’t, already, because it’s Mellie. But maybe she’s one of those people who doesn’t believe in dating in high school.

Which is good. Not like—I mean, not like it’s good for me, it’s just that Mellie and I are best friends. The way that you and Michael used to be. Is it bad that I said his name? Ignore that last part. We’re the kind of best friends everybody says they are but no one really is. And if she had a girlfriend, then it would totally ruin it. The girlfriend would want to be her best friend, and then she would want to hang out with us, and we’d never get time to ourselves anymore. That’s just basic logic.

Anyway, while I was thinking about it I realized that Tilly was still talking. I swear she’s probably won a record or something for most words in a minute.

“—and Veronica S said there was no way you were gay because all the lesbians she knows dress way better than you, and I told her to stop being homophobic,” she was saying.

“Gay?” I echoed.

Tilly paused her ranting to look at me. “Sorry, are you bisexual or something? I just thought since you never liked any guys, you know, and then Mellie comes around—”

Oh god. Oh god. What had I done? This is gonna sound stupid, Sam, but it really hadn’t occurred to me to put those two things together. To me they all lived on separate planes of existence. Dating Mellie and being gay weren’t even close to each other. But Mellie is a girl. I told Tilly I was dating a girl. And not just any girl. My best friend. Confirmed lesbian. What kind of person takes someone else’s sexuality like that? Lying about Mellie was one thing. Who cared? She would probably think it was hilarious.

But lying about being gay? That was a whole different story. And Tilly would tell people, of course she would, you know her, she can’t keep a secret if her life depends on it. Or my life, for that matter. A lesbian. What would I do after this?

“Jenna?” Tilly asked.

I needed to give her an answer soon. I considered taking it back, Sam, I really did, but the only thing more pathetic than not having a date is lying about having a date.

“I, uh, it’s complicated,” I settled for, hoping she didn’t see through how pathetic the lie was.

“You don’t need to put labels on it,” she said, smiling. I can’t even describe that smile for you. I don’t think Tilly’s ever smiled at me like that. It was almost . . . sisterly. “What time is she picking you up?”

“Huh?”

“Mellie,” she said. “What time is she getting you for your date?”

“Oh. Yeah. The date. It’s, uh, it’s not tonight,” I managed. “It’s next week. Friday. Six o’clock. We’re going to the movies.”

Jenna, why don’t you just shut up? I know that’s what you’re thinking, and trust me that’s what I was thinking too. But Tilly bought it.

“Fun,” she hummed. “You have to tell me all the details. Like how did you guys get together? And also when did you realize you were—”

“I need to go,” I interrupted before I dug myself into a deeper hole. “I told someone I’d call them at seven thirty, and would ya look at that time? Gotta go—”

“Someone?” she asked, wiggling her eyebrows.

“Not—not her, it’s just this girl from English we need to talk about the essay—whatever,” I muttered as I spun around to get out of the bathroom, trying to walk normally so I didn’t look like I was running.

I managed to get to my room and shut the door, where I allowed myself five minutes of panicking before starting to draft this letter to you. That’s what Sarah—my therapist—said I should do. She thinks I process my thoughts best through writing. I don’t know how much of that is true, but it’s helping now. I think. Or maybe it’s just leaving a paper trail of evidence. Who knows.

I’m in a mess, aren’t I? Mellie is gonna kill me. And goddamnit. I just realized I forgot to make her give me the blue eyeshadow back!

Much angrier than I would like to be,

Jenna