She enters the restaurant, dark eyes scanning the dim room. Her hair is pulled back as always, the rich maroon sweater setting off her pale skin. I pull a smile to my face and wave.

She sees me and smiles back, her usual smile, and she moves toward the table. “Dana!” she exclaims, and seats herself properly. “I see you found it.”

“Yup. The bus dropped me off right outside.”

“I knew you could do it. I’m so glad you came.”

“Me too.” I smile again and flip through my menu. Her face is a mask, hard and cold, despite the painted pleasant expression. I know her. I am familiar with this barrier. The only reason I know that it is there is because I have seen her when it crumbles. We’ve known each other a long time, she and I.

“How was the trip?”

“It was nice. I like taking the bus better than driving. Gemma doesn’t like it when I steal her car anyway.” I grin. “I can read, you know? Or sleep.”

“Sleep, more likely.” She smirks and I chuckle obediently and the small talk is scratching at my chest. It stings.

“Do you know what you want?” I inquire.

“Yes, I’m set.”

“Okay.” I search for the waitress and our eyes meet. She comes over.

“Have you decided?” There is nothing that differentiates her cool, polite tone from Emily’s.

We order, and though it is only five o’clock, we both get drinks. It is her twenty-first birthday after all.

Between bites, our talk is stilted. She’s still in college, and her grades have always been important to her, so I ask. She’s a sophomore and so far, in three semesters, she has only gotten one B. We talk of roommates. I tell her how Lauren is doing – they knew each other in high school, but Lauren never went to university – and she complains about the drunks in her living area. It’s all a façade, and I am a wall, a wall talking to a wall talking to a wall.

It wasn’t always this way. When we met, she was desperately lonely as a freshman in a big high school, and I was living the life as a worldly junior. There was a gulf of age and popularity that separated us then, but I stepped over it easily. In high school, under my wing, she bloomed. We became best friends.

She is talking of her closest friend at school, and I feel a twinge of jealousy. But I shouldn’t. I should be happy. I change the subject.

“So where are we going tonight?”

“Platinum, in Providence. I don’t know anything about it, because, you know, I’ve never been there before. Amy picked it out. It's where she went for her twentyh-first birthday.”

Amy is her friend at school.

“I see. I hope they have cheap drinks!”

She laughs and pushes her plate away from her. “I take it you’re not going to be our designated driver?”

I can tell from the moment I step in the door that I’m going to have a terrible time.

The floor throbs with the bass of the bad dance music that screams through the speakers. Partially clad girls circle the crowds with drinks and handfuls of cash. Cigarette smoke gouges at my eyes. People fling themselves at others, rubbing their bodies up and down against anyone, bathed in the anonymity of the darkness, punctuated only by the Crayola flashing of strobe lights. I feel queasy.

Everyone else looks excited. Amy and Emily head immediately towards the drink bar, leaving me with Jessi, Meg, and Katie, our designated driver. We stake out a table in the corner near a door. The smoke is stinging my throat.

They come back giggling with cups, and it strikes me how much of an outsider I am. I do not know these people, and while it does not seem as if they dislike me, I know that I am an interloper.

A scantily dressed waitress pops by the table. “Want any drinks?”

I order an amaretto sour and hand over my money. No, I would not have chosen a place like this. A quiet bar, maybe, where people could talk and joke and laugh, to live life through interaction with others, not to pretend to be someone else.

“Oh my God! We have to go dance!” Amy is giggling and yelling over the music, but I still have to strain to hear her. “Come on, Emily! Jessi, are you coming?”

Somehow the three of them make their way through the throngs of people. I wonder if it looks like I am cowering in the corner. But I must make small talk with these unknown people.

“So you’re sophomores too?” I try and make my voice heard, and am not sure if it works.

Meg, a tiny blond girl, smiles listlessly. Emily told me something about her being depressed and anorexic, so I am not surprised when she does not reply.

Katie decides to reply instead. “No, I’m a junior!” All of us are going to have terribly scratchy throats tomorrow from the yelling.

“What are you studying?” I inquire. Always the same questions, the same front, the same air.

“Economics. What about you, are you a student?” Katie is the polar opposite of Meg. She is a large, dark, heavy-set girl who looks like she could drink us under the table if she weren’t driving.

“No, I need to save up before I can go back to school again.”

“Aw, that’s too bad. I hope it’s soon.”

“Yeah, me too. Thanks.”

What surrounds us is a noisy sort of silence, the uncomfortable kind, where no one knows exactly what to say or do. The pulse of the music is thick in our ears. Is this why music in clubs is so loud? To keep people from talking and finding out that they really shouldn’t be there?

I stand, clearing my throat inaudibly. “I’m going to head to the bathroom,” I explain at the top of my voice.

“What?” Katie yells back, obviously unable to read my lips.

“Bathroom!” I don’t mean to sound irritable because I certainly don’t want to insult any of Emily’s friends, but I’m feeling less than up to par.

The way to the bathroom is littered with drunk people and couples who have known each other maybe an hour making out. I grimace and step carefully.

The bathroom itself was meant to look artsy, but it’s mostly disgusting right now. There is a strong stench of vomit. The girls who are here besides me don’t seem to want to use the toilets, and instead are fighting for mirror space. I wonder how dark eyeliner can get before it becomes Goth. Or is that the point?

I step into the stall, close it, and sit down. I shut my eyes for a moment. The music is quieter here, but barely. I wonder where Emily is and hope she is having a good time.

“You are so drunk,” I murmur into her coat. I am mostly supporting her.

“Fuck you!” she yells gleefully, nearly tipping out of my grip.

“Emily, stop that–” I struggle with her to gain control again, but she is flailing. Drunk, she is like some sort of tipsy six year old on sugar.

“Dana, you’re my best friend, you know that?” Her words are slurring together, like she has cotton balls stuffed into her cheeks. Her friends, except for Katie, are almost equally bad. “No, really, Dana, you’re awesome. You’re my best friend!” Suddenly, she decides to break out into song. “And I…!” She drags out the vowel for all it is worth. “…will always love you…!”

God, we had parked so far away! Would I survive to get her there?

The air is bitter against my lips. A few flakes of snow are trickling down through the dim glow from the streetlights. I’m terribly cold, with whatever alcohol left in my system draining me.

“Dana, no, really, you’re my best friend!” She’s clutching to me, to my jacket. It’s strangely pitiful seeing her like this. It’s almost as uncomfortable as when she has the wall up, the one she always has up when I see her now.

Katie is teasing her. There is laughter. I am lost, drowning in the Providence winter where I am not welcomed or wanted, where I can’t find my way home, and where I have been surrounded on all sides by walls that simultaneously shield and suffocate me. I am lost, and I can’t find my best friend.

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