Chapter Five
Chapter Five
Kit
“I’m not going away this summer anymore,” Sabrina announced to Kit one morning as they were changing for gym.
There was no “hey” or any familiar greeting between them when Sabrina walked into the girls’ changing room. The familiar, repulsive smell of old sweat and damp towels hung in the air, mixed with the bleach that had been mopped across the floors.
Sabrina blurted out her news to Kit with what would have appeared to anyone else as apathy. But Kit knew her friend better than that.
Sabrina adjusted her hair in the changing-room mirror. Her cheeks were flushed and her mouth a flat, rigid line.
Five other girls in their senior year had just left in a cloud of body spray, throwing paper towels stained with cheap makeup into the trash can.
“What are you talking about? The trip?” asked Kit.
“Yeah, it’s off.”
Kit glanced at Sabrina sideways in the mirror.
She couldn’t name what she was feeling—guilt, pity?
She suddenly found it difficult to swallow—an awkward lump forming in her throat—the kind she felt when she tried to lie to her parents.
Kit had wanted to travel and the arrangements were made within a week.
Sabrina had saved for the better part of a year and now the entire trip was off.
“What happened?” Her voice came out in a whisper, surprising her.
“What do they call it when there’s an event that nobody can control? Like, nobody’s to blame? They put it in contracts and stuff. A force majeure.”
“What do you mean?”
“An act of god, a natural disaster, circumstances beyond our control.” Sabrina sighed heavily.
A feeling of defensiveness crept up on Kit, on hearing impatience in Sabrina’s voice at Kit’s lack of understanding—a feeling she knew she had to push down because her friend was hurting.
It didn’t occur to her that there were plenty of things that Sabrina had no understanding of.
How to order an Uber. Because she always took the bus.
How to sign the chit at the country club, since no one there pays in cash.
It didn’t occur to Kit in that moment that this life-changing trip Sabrina had planned would be a first of so many things, including boarding an airplane for the first time in her life.
“A major pipe burst in our bathroom. Our landlord is away over the summer. He’s not responding to us. We needed to get it fixed, and I had to pay out with the money I saved. So now I can’t book the flight. There goes my trip.”
Kit took in a sharp breath. She didn’t know what to say.
The air between them stood still and Kit felt anger toward Sabrina and herself for the silence.
It was entirely true that Kit had the money to travel and Sabrina did not.
It made up the very fabric of what separated them, a thick seam that always kept them apart.
Kit remained here, and Sabrina over there.
Still, she wished that Sabrina had not had her dreams dashed before she herself had boarded the plane and had to feel the bitter self-loathing.
It was like a grief she’d never known, for everything she had and everything that Sabrina did not.
“It’s okay, Kit,” Sabrina finally said and walked out.