Written by Eugenia Yang

Broken Dolls

To Brooks Fassett, my best friend, who taught me so much about love and friendship.

I used to be late to everything. I was the kind of girl who would shamelessly reply, be there in fifteen, while I was still in bed in sweatpants with no makeup. I didn’t mean to be like that, but I just couldn’t help it. After what happened with Bethany, I became overly conscious about time. Being on time was not enough, I’d have to be early. And whenever I was, unfortunately, running late, my anxious hands pressing into my jeans to soak up the sweat would remind me of what happened just a few months ago.

Bethany was my college roommate. We lived together for almost three years, one in dorms and one and half in our own apartment in the East Village. Just us two girls, one a few inches taller than the other, against the beautifully overwhelming New York City. I remember the way she walked in on move-in day all alone with only one suitcase and a black duffle bag. She had her sky blue Beats around her neck and her hair was in one single French braid. Bethany smiled at me when she caught me staring and introduced herself. I admired her from that moment because I never knew how to do my hair properly. A simple ponytail and a messy bun were my best attempts. She was always better at showing her good features and covering up her bad ones than I was.

“You girls be good, okay?” My dad said to us before he left to catch his train back to Boston. Besides high school retreats and my graduation trip, it was the first time I was truly away from my family. That night, I hid under the hand knit, chunky blanket my grandma had made me as a goodbye gift and cried. My right arm was covered in moon shaped marks because I was biting into my own flesh. Bethany’s bed was only a few feet away from mine and I didn’t want her to notice. It seemed like a childish reaction because she had come all the way here by herself.

I was under the impression that she was braver than I was, more fearless.

That was year 2016, when we had just entered college at a time when dead leaves had begun to cover the city, almost three years before Bethany’s death.

***

I’d learned a few things from Bethany. Some were good and others were bad, depending on how you look at them. She taught me how to smoke right next to the dumpsters on East 11th street, in the middle of Second and Third Avenue. It was freezing outside but we were only in our tank tops and sweatpants. We had matching furry slides which we bought as a joke and only wore if we were up for some spontaneous, late-night adventures. Mine were faded blue and hers were pastel pink. She lit up the joint and took a hit before passing it to me. I was doubtful at first, because we were so close to our dorm and I didn’t want to get caught. She promised me earlier that if security caught us, she would hold them off so that I could get away. Not that I would ever have left her like that, but the thought of having her protect me was reassuring.

“Hold it in and inhale again like your life depends on it.” 

I did as I was told. It was three months after move-in day and I had already made a habit of following Bethany’s instructions. I trusted her because she was like the older sister I never had, who always knew what was going on. She had her life mapped out before she even came to college. Four years of studying Applied Psychology and Child Development, followed by a gap year of volunteering at Peru or Cambodia, and then come back for her master’s degree. She told me her plan the day after move-in day, when we were getting breakfast at the dining hall in our building. She asked about mine and I told her I belonged to the classic norm of coming to college to “find my true self.” Bethany laughed and shook her head. I think everyone knows exactly what they want, it’s just a matter of wanting to own up to it or not, was what she said.

“Is that it?” I asked, excited, after watching the smoke charge forward in a straight line. 

She gave me a satisfying smile. I felt proud of myself. “Be patient. You’ll see.”

*** 

“I’m curious. What was your first impression of me?” Bethany asked. We were each sitting at our desks, back to back, getting ready for a frat party that was happening in Brooklyn. From my mirror, I could see that she was curling her hair. Strands of smoke danced around where her hair touched the heated curling iron. I imagined what it would feel like to touch the metal with my bare hands. “Like just by looking at what I post online.”

“The truth or the lie?”

“Lie to me.” 

“You seemed like a really nice girl,” I answered. She laughed at my response. It wasn’t entirely untrue. I stalked Bethany’s Instagram and Facebook page after I got the email notifying me who my roommate was, and her posts were mostly filled with photos taken at parties and concerts. There were a few solo pictures too. She never looked straight into the camera. Her eyes stared into a faraway nothingness and I felt like it would be hard to become close to her. In those pictures, she wore a variety of leather jackets and skinny jeans showing off her slimness, but not a lot of smile or makeup.

“Honestly I didn't think we would be friends,” Bethany said.

“Why’s that?”

“Not in a bad way. I don’t know, you just seemed pretty happy with your life.”

I didn’t entirely understand why that would prevent us from being friends. I wanted to ask what she meant but a loud banging on our door interrupted us. It was our floor mates who had come over to pregame. She stood up to answer the door and my opportunity was lost.

Looking back, our friendship was filled with lost moments like this. Moments when if I’d persisted and found my answers, maybe I could’ve made a difference.

 *** 

I had only met Bethany’s parents once. It was at their house on Long Island when they invited me over for Easter our sophomore year. We were originally going to have our own mini-celebration since I wasn’t going home (my parents were still in Asia enjoying their 25th anniversary). But I agreed to go to Bethany’s because I knew how much she was looking forward to the holiday. She loved the spirit, the festivity, and her dad’s homemade blueberry pie that was superb when warmed and eaten with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. She never explicitly said it, but I knew she liked going home during breaks. My best guess was it made her feel like at least she belonged somewhere.

“That’s Elaine.” Bethany pointed at the black Toyota Sienna pulling up to the sidewalk. We were waiting at Babylon station for her mom to pick us up. It had always been weird to me that she never referred to her parents as Mom and Dad but as Elaine and Robert.

“You must be Lois. Welcome.” She pulled me in for a hug that I wasn’t ready for. My hand was stuck in a weird position between my stomach and hers, almost touching her breasts. Bethany looked at me, her eyes beaming with embarrassment. I smiled at her to tell her it was okay.

“Come on, we’re gonna be late,” Bethany reminded her mom and slid into the backseat. Her mom looked a little hurt that her daughter didn’t sit in the front with her but quickly hurried me in too. I thanked her mom again for inviting me. 

Later that night, I was cleaning the table when her mom pulled me aside. Bethany was busy with the dishes and her dad was packing up the leftovers. “I hope Bethany doesn’t bring you much trouble. She is such a tough kid.”

“Oh no, she’s the best.” I was surprised by her comment. If anything, Bethany was the exact opposite of a “tough kid.” “I’m really glad to have met her.”

“You’re too sweet. If only she could be more like you.” She took the dirty towel out of my hand and led me out of the dining room. Her grip was a little too tight. I tried hard not to wince as her crystal nails dotted with fake diamonds and pink glitter dug into my palms, unintentionally, I wanted to assume. We got to the hallway and she handed me a paper bag from one of the closets. It was filled with makeup tools – brushes, tweezers, fake eyelashes, and more. 

“Something nice for you two to play with.” She was smiling, but her eyes were not. I tried to reject the gift in a polite way because I didn’t wear makeup often but she wouldn’t take no for an answer. “You girls have got to make yourselves prettier.”

I didn’t tell Bethany about the gifts until we were back at our apartment. I had stuffed the bag deep in my backpack and completely forgotten about it. Bethany looked up when I told her, as if I had just betrayed her and sold her worst secret to the enemy. “Why did you take it?”

Surprised by her sudden aggressiveness, I stumbled on my own words. “I didn’t know…couldn’t say no. Plus, I figured, you know, we could use—”

“No, we couldn’t. Fuck, I don’t want to owe her anything.”

“But she’s your mom.”

“That’s exactly why.” Bethany snatched the bag out of my hands and went to her room without saying anything. I stood there, in our living room, not entirely sure what I had done wrong. I had never seen her like this before. That was the closest thing to an argument we had. I walked towards her room and decided that we need to talk things out. But it was as if she read my mind through the door and locked it right when I was about to knock.

Embarrassed, I went back to my room, which was next to hers with a thin wall that was supposed to block noises but didn’t. I kept my door ajar in case she came out so I could talk to her. I was nodding off when I heard them. Her sobs and the sound of objects crashing. I sat up against my bedframe and listened to her cries. I never gathered the courage to knock on her door again because I already knew I didn’t have the answers to her problems.  

In my dreams, I didn’t go to Long Island at all. It was still Easter and I was in our apartment, alone. There was no furniture or decorations, no sign of any form of residency. The living room walls were bare with no polaroid photos and the hardwood floor was brand new with no scratches. The emptiness woke me up. My hair was soaked in sweat and tears and the strands clung to my chin. I was mad. A little at her, for lashing out and not telling me what exactly I did wrong. But more at myself for not being able to understand something that no one had ever explained to me, that family didn’t always mean happiness and wasn’t necessarily built upon love. 

 *** 

The last time we hung out before she died, we went up to our rooftop to read and do schoolwork because it was finally nice out. Winter was officially over and the city was more alive than ever. We ended up lying on the wooden lounge chairs and began to look for stars in the clear sky above the city.

“Sometimes I feel like my own existence is a paradox,” Bethany said. She was on her second gin and tonic already and her eyes were getting hazy from the alcohol.

“You should make that into a Forever 21 t-shirt.”

She laughed. I liked to make her laugh because it was getting harder and harder to get a smile out of her. Her laugh was the kind that made me laugh too. I debated if I should ask about what happened on Easter. The morning after that fight, she had pretended like nothing happened and went back to being the carefree, cool Bethany I had known. Now, a year later on the roof, she was looking up at the sky, an ombre of dark gray and blue. A few strands of hair fell from her face and exposed her angular features. Her cheeks were a little flushed from drinking. The pinkish glow was prettier than any blush I’d ever seen and I wished I looked like that on a daily basis. I looked up too, trying to locate more stars.

I decided that was not the night to bring up anything painful, so I chose to stay in the moment of temporary happiness. I figured my questions could wait; I was never good at gambling.

“No one ever gets me, Lois. I don’t like being misread.”

“I get you, though. Don’t I?”

She laughed again. Her voice echoed across our rooftop and somehow covered the noises and sirens below. We had the whole deck to ourselves. I read her response as silent approval and poured myself another glass. I didn’t consider for a second that it could also be denial.

“What would I do without you, my friend?” Bethany looked me in the eyes, the emerald in them more vibrant than ever. She held up her glass and I reached over to clink mine with hers.

“I don’t know,” I said. “It would probably suck a lot.”

***

One night a few weeks later, I looked at the text I had sent Bethany telling her I would be home a little later than planned. She didn’t reply but she did react to my message with a heart. She did this when she was too lazy to type a response. But something about the pink heart emoji bothered me so I picked up my pace.

By the time I reached our building, I was sweating profusely. I could feel the embarrassing dampness under my arms and on my back as I jammed my keys in and unlocked our door.

“I’m sorry I’m sorry!” I hung my keys on the key holder underneath the sign, don’t YOU forget about me, written in black sharpie and in cursive. We put it up after locking ourselves out so many times that we considered leaving our door unlocked. “I lost track of time.”

The sun was setting, casting a blood orange on our living room, and making the whole space look like an old movie from the 80s. If Bethany was trying to ignore me to make a point, she had succeeded. Her eyes were locked on the TV screen but it didn’t seem like she was really watching. She was simply sitting there, allowing the wavering lights to cast different colors on her face. Her dark brown hair was dappled in white, green, blue. It kept changing. She didn’t even blink. 

I took my usual seat on her right and nudged her shoulder to catch her attention. “Hey.”

She turned her head around slowly. I imagined she might be startled by my presence, but it was as if she knew I’d been there all along. Her eyes had lost their light like someone had turned them off from the inside. I assumed she had smoked too much.

        “I need to go lie down.” Bethany stood up and immediately dropped her plate full of leftover chicken Alfredo and her glass of sparkling water on the floor. I tried to catch the cup but it slipped out of my hand and shattered on the hardwood floor. The floor our landlord had warned us not to leave a scratch on. She barely winced at the tiny pieces of broken glass stabbing into her left foot. The crimson liquid matched the hardwood floor as it spread farther.

I set Bethany back down on the couch and saw the three orange pill bottles on the coffee table, hiding behind the armrest. It felt like someone had thrust his hand inside of me and shifted my intestines around when I realized all three bottles were empty.

***

“I don’t think I’m actually going to like, die or anything,” Bethany mumbled while I patched up her wound. Her eyes started to flutter and she kept looking up and up and up, as if trying to peek into the back of her brain. I could only catch glimpses of the haunting white of her eyes.

“You’re not going to..” I couldn’t really finish the sentence because saying the word felt like I was going to jinx it. So I swallowed the word, nice and hard. It left a trail of bitterness that rested in the back of my throat, throbbing.  

Bethany’s eyes opened wide and she lost all the color in her face. She started to puke all over her hoodie, her leggings, and our couch. I grabbed the trash can but I was too late. Our matching throw pillows, pink and blue, were now covered with yellowish liquid. Her favorite color pink was nowhere to be seen.

She looked down at her clothes and held up her hands, palms facing up. Her long, bony fingers were also covered in the gooey substance. I didn’t see any bits of food so she must've took them before dinner. She was trying to grasp something in the air but I didn’t know what. She looked at me, with the same dreamy expression, but this time with a hint of sorrow.

***

“Make sure you keep her awake until they come, Lu.” My dad’s voice sounded distant or maybe it was because I wasn’t paying attention. I kept my eyes on Bethany. It was not like she could go anywhere on her own but it felt like she was about to disappear into thin air at any moment. “I’ll call you after surgery, okay?”

Bethany had only met my dad three times and she loved him. They got along like they were actual father and daughter. Whenever my parents sent me care packages with all of my favorite Asian snacks, she always unpacked them like everything was meant for her and not me. I didn’t mind sharing my parents with her though. It was the least I could do.

“It’s nice to have parents that care,” she said to me once while stuffing red bean mooncakes into her mouth, letting crumbs fall everywhere. Those were her favorite.

My dad was good at saving lives; I was sure he could save Bethany’s too.

“Hang in there, B. Help is coming,” I said. But I meant it more for myself than for her. I picked up my phone from her nightstand and tried her parents’ numbers again.

We sat there in silence, next to each other, and stared at our wall of posters and Polaroid pictures. I saw the first photo my parents took of us on move-in day. Me awkwardly posing next to Bethany, who had her arm hanging loosely around my shoulders. Our bodies were barely touching, leaving a gap that made me cringe. Next to that was a photo of us during Halloween last year, labeled “Lu & Betsy” because we were dressed as giant babies. We thought it was hilarious. We were looking at each other, both laughing. It was a candid photo and I don’t mean those fake ones you see on Instagram where the person behind the camera had announced “Candid!” before pressing the button. Ours was captured in a moment of genuine happiness. Or so I thought. I realized I was looking at a wall of clues and yet, unable to decipher a single moment that could’ve led us to where we were.

“I’m tired, Lois.” Bethany put her head on my shoulder. At first, she seemed to be holding back from leaning completely into me but eventually, I felt her entire body weight crashing onto mine. I sat up straighter to support her, but my body began to shiver too. I wasn’t sure how long I could hold her.

“Bethany, please.” I begged of all the gods I knew. I could hear her shallow breathing and feel how cold her body was. Drool mixed with the remainder of her puke slowly slid down her cheek and got caught up in her hair. I wiped it away with my thumb. “You have to stay awake.”

***

Bethany never made it into the hospital. When the ambulance arrived, they wouldn’t let me sit in the back with her so I took the passenger seat. According to the paramedics, her heartbeat stopped right when we arrived. They didn’t tell me right away because they were rushing her in, still trying to save her. But when I saw her on the stretcher after I got out of the vehicle, I already knew. There was something about the angle her head was titled and the way her arms rested next to her body that told me this was her end. Even under the oxygen mask, I could see a faint smile on her face. So I watched her go in, knowing that she’d never wake up again.  

I went back to our apartment three weeks later to pack up my belongings after my parents decided that it was best if I took a leave of absence for the semester. My dad didn’t want me to come back at all but I insisted that I needed it. Why, I wasn’t sure yet. 

There I was in the living room, while my dad was in my room putting everything into boxes. It seemed like Bethany’s parents were only halfway through tidying everything up, because a lot of her belongings were still there, claiming their space in the apartment and waiting for their owner to come back.

The last time I’d seen Bethany’s parents was at the funeral. They asked if I could give a eulogy but I refused because the thought of standing up there in front of Bethany’s family and friends made me nauseous. What was I supposed to say? In their eyes, I was the roommate who wasn’t home on time and the so-called best friend who failed to do the one job she was given, to be by Bethany’s side in her most important moment of need. The least I could do was save them the torture. I left before the service even started and without saying goodbye.

I scanned our living room and realized the pink throw pillow was missing. The last thing Bethany held on to before she died. The thought of losing it scared me and I started panicking. I went through all of Bethany’s boxes, not caring if it was rude; I just needed to find it. I dug through the bags of trash and finally saw the cushion, sitting at the bottom underneath boxes of expired snacks and cereal. Bethany’s parents must have thrown it out. I grabbed it and held on to it, even though it was still covered in dried puke. It no longer smelled like her favorite perfume, a mixture of rose and jasmine, and I was disappointed. My legs gave out and I fell, landing on my butt, sobbing. I could see the couch from where I was and imagined Bethany sitting there, alone and taking pill after pill. What was going on in her mind, at that very moment of weakness?

My dad came rushing out of my room when he heard the crash and saw me sitting on the floor surrounded by all the trash and boxes. I looked at him and asked. “Do you think I could’ve fixed everything?”

“Oh, honey.” Kneeling next to me, he took me in his arms and patted my head like he always did when I was a kid. For three weeks, I’d tried to hold myself together but being back in our apartment was too much for me. We’d all like to imagine that we could fight other people’s fights. The truth is, I think she had already made up her mind before we even met. I buried my face into the pink pillow and cried into it, letting the fabric take away three years’ worth of tears. I didn’t care about the puke stains or the faint sour smell. We sat there, me in my dad’s embrace and Bethany’s pillow in mine, for I didn’t know how long, until I had enough strength to get up again.

The first thing I did was to find the laundry detergent in the cabinet and ran the sink. I removed the pillow cover and drizzled the fabric with soap before soaking it in water. I started scrubbing until it was clean and made sure the pink fabric had no more stains on it. It is now sitting on the sofa in my new apartment in uptown New York. My favorite decoration and forever a token of a past friendship that, to me, was more like sisterhood.