Author's Note: Many thanks to carolin_ for volunteering to edit, for the quick feedback, and also for the encouragement.
Should anyone get to the end and contemplate commenting, you should know that comments make my life.
*
"Fi! Hold the door!"
A screech cuts through the rush hour bustle, and I wince in recognition. Clutching my bag closer, I sink into my seat and stare at the Metro doors, willing them to close.
"Fi!"
I duck my head. I know she knows I can hear her, but I don't care. I've never made a secret of hating her.
The familiar, ugly clanking of the door chime sounds, and hope brushes against my heart like a feather. But no, in the last instant, Noa pushes her way through, tumbling into a pair of overweight tourists. She rights herself gracefully and bestows a winning smile on the couple, breathless apologies bubbling up and over stained lips.
The tourists are overwhelmed. Though they melt easily enough beneath the full glare of her charm, they are flustered and bemused, unsure what they've done to merit the too enthusiastic overtures of this stunning young woman.
That's Noa's problem. Her charm has no 'subtle' setting. She's constantly overdoing it.
Okay, so maybe that's not really so bad a problem to have.
Actually, Noa is perfect. She's smart, she's responsible, she's friendly. She has that unapologetic patrician beauty, full lips, a classic nose, huge charcoal eyes beneath a regal brow. Her features are so disgustingly stunning that she can afford only nearly flawless skin. My judgmental eyes pick out a few small bumps on her chin, well hidden by her makeup. On normal people, acne is disfiguring. On Noa, it's beneath notice.
Today, her dark curls are swept out of her face by a couple pearl-studded pins, then let free to bounce past her shoulder blades in defined, silky ringlets. Aren't curls supposed to frizz in humidity? A navy suit hugs her curves. She looks like she can't remember whether she's a senator or a queen.
Having brow-beaten the poor tourists into apologizing to
her
, Noa turns to me in triumph. I tense. At least the seat beside me is taken.
"Why didn't you hold the door?" she demands.
I had been going to ignore her, but the question is so ludicrous that I can't help but raise my head in disbelief. "It's the fucking Metro. You can't hold Metro doors."
You really can't. They just shut on you, not like elevator doors. The operator isn't supposed to pull away unless all the doors are shut, but there's no kind of mechanism to prevent them from closing heavily into whatever is in their way. Eventually, the operator will reopen them to let victims reclaim their bags and limbs, but only after a lot of embarrassed shouting and frantic pulling and potential pain. You have to be really stupid to try and hold the Metro doors. Sometimes kids on field trips or risk-seeking investment managers running late to client meetings are, to the aggravation and awkward amusement of all other passengers.
Noa knows this. She's lived in the city for nearly a decade. She's tricked me into talking to her, tricked me into breaking a six month long strict embargo. After New Year's, I'd intended the no-diplomatic-relations policy to be permanent.
It stings, that she's manipulated me so easily, but it doesn't particularly surprise.
"But I haven't seen you in
forever
, Fi!" Her eyes are wide and innocent as she gushes on in a consummate imitation of sincerity. "And we live in the same building. Have you been avoiding me?"
"Fuck you." A few passengers from the surrounding crush glance at us, but neither one of us is fazed. We've had worse rows in front of more significant audiences than a carload of anonymous Metro riders.
"You didn't make it to Bonaire this year," she prompts.
I glower bitterly at her patent leather pumps. I'd skipped our families' annual diving trip so that I wouldn't have to see her.
Noa smirks at me. "I missed you."
"I hate you."
She laughs, delighted. Her laugh is exquisite, like flame-filled bubbles bursting. "Hate you more." She gives me an appraising look, arching one delicately shaped brow. "What's with the emo twink look?"
I glare at her furiously, trying to think of something hurtful enough to say back, even as blood heats my cheeks. Plenty of adults wear steampunk jewelry, right? And her eye-liner and mascara are as heavy as my own.
But she knows my insecurities too well. I'm sensitive about my slight frame, my too small breasts, my narrow hips; I'm forever trying to escape the epithet 'boyish'. To that end, I'd recently cut my hair into a shape I considered quite feminine. The flimsy red strands frame my face in layers, with the longest wisps reaching my collar bone.
Everyone had complimented me on it. One offhand remark from Noa, and I'm desperately afraid I really do look like some effeminate teenage gay porn star.
I can't think of anything sufficiently hateful, so I fall back on my one tried and true tactic. It's the only strategy that really works against Noa, but I don't like to use it because it's too easy. I want to be maliciously clever, to confound her with my cruel, witty brilliance. Instead, I'm forced to do what works. I give her my widest pale green gaze and let my lower lip tremble.
Instant remorse flickers in those glorious eyes. Too easy. "Fiona." She swallows. "I'm just kidding. Your hair is really cute."
"Fuck you," I say sullenly.
My half-hearted hostility is enough to put her back on comfortable ground. I can see the relief on her face that I'm not going to cry. I'm not even sure she realizes that I'm aware of this weapon in my arsenal.
Now that I think about it, all my major victories against Noa have involved my own hysterical tears. It's sort of pathetic, really.
"Fuck you," I repeat, defiantly.
She grins archly, mocking me. "If you're feeling versatile."
My face has to be the same color as my hair. The weight of a few shocked looks presses down on me. The tourist couple just looks puzzled. But firmly on Noa's side.
The train shudders into the next station and I flee, five stops too early.
*
I can't remember a time when I didn't hate Noa Silber.
Our mothers were—are—best friends. They grew up down the street from each other, went to college together, were each other's maids of honor, and convinced their husbands to buy houses next door to one another. They are even both named Rebecca. It was their dearest wish that Noa and I be the next generation of best friends.
It says a lot about both their personalities that they've yet to give up on this wish. Throughout our long history of mutual hatred, our mothers just smiled with fond exasperation at our 'sisterhood'. One of us could probably kill the other, and they'd cry together at the funeral and visit the survivor together in jail, and commiserate over the tragic fate of sisters who loved each other so much, they were driven to murder and imprisonment.
Noa is twenty months older than me. Perhaps we really did get along as babies, but if our lifelong enmity has taught me anything, it's that you can't trust photo albums designed by moms. In any case, Noa was a constant, unchanging force from my earliest memories onward.
Infuriating Noa, bossy and arrogant and superior, better loved and better at everything. Full of pranks and goads, always overprotective at the worst times, which is to say, exactly when it would get me into trouble. The entire world was Noa's sandbox, and I was just one more toy in it.
