Not Otherwise Specified by Hannah Moskowitz Page B

that.”
    â€œLike I did.”
    â€œUh-huh.”
    â€œI . . . I don’t know. I really only ever liked one person in my little group.” It’s not that simple, though. Like, no shit, Rachel and I were the closest, but it’s not like I didn’t ever do phone calls with Titania or go over to Isabel’s house just us. Natasha and I were into old sitcoms in a way the others totally weren’t, so we’d bond over that, and when Isabel’s parrot died, I was the one who was all over that shit, and while the others were going, I don’t get it it’s just a bird, I was designing floral arrangements. I was good at being a friend. I was just really good at it. But the thing is that they were too . If there had been some prior hint of it, some time now where I could look back and be like, Well they’d always been dropping clues they’d someday turn on me and treat me like shit , maybe this would be easier. But that’s not what happened. We fought like normal friends, and there was always a little tension between me and Natasha just because we were these girls who probably wouldn’t have been friends without the gay thing who were pushed together and learned to love each other maybe without learning to like each other, whatever, but we were close. We were best friends for all of high school.And now all of a sudden I’m dropped, and I don’t care how much bullshit you hear all the time about some girls are just bitches , because, you know, no, they are not just bitches , they were my best friends for three years and this doesn’t make sense , and yeah, a part of me still thinks Rachel is going to pick up the phone.
    â€œI don’t miss them because I miss gay friends, you know?” I say. “I don’t even miss them because I miss friends . I miss them because I miss . . .”
    â€œThem.”
    She’s good at filling in sentences. People sit around talking for her when really she could be filling in all our sentences.
    â€œYeah,” I say. “I miss them. Or I miss her.”
    And then I take a sip of my coffee and the bell on the door chimes and the song switches and I look up and who just walked in, who the hell could have just walked in , but Rachel.
    â€¢Â Â â€¢Â Â â€¢
    Rachel.
    Beach vacations with our moms, swimmer’s ear, snow cones.
    Broken hearts, chipped nail polish.
    Making out against mango stands when there were straight people around.
    Practicing sex positions.
    Always coming back to her.
    She was never my girlfriend. She was never my sister. Isay she was my best friend because there is no word for every . damn . thing .
    There’s no word for a girl you’ve seen almost every day for fourteen years who still makes your heart race every time she walks into a room.
    â€¢Â Â â€¢Â Â â€¢
    I don’t even know if I say anything to Bianca. I just know that I’m standing here at the counter while Rachel waits for her drink. I always feel like such a little kid next to her. She has eight inches on me and hair that hangs flat and perfect down to my eyes. I could hide behind her like it was nothing. But she never let me. You’re a star, Ett, she’d say. And this is not an eclipse. I didn’t tell her eclipses don’t have anything to do with stars. I never listened very hard to the words when she talked, not really. When you’re friends with someone that long, you don’t have to.
    â€œRachel?”
    It’s such a word . It’s so sharp . It never really felt like a name that fit her, and that always made me love it so much more.
    I didn’t know if she was pretending to ignore me, but when her head snaps up and she looks at me, I know immediately that she really didn’t know I was there.
    I know a few other things too.
    I know that I’ve been bouncing around waiting for her for months. I know we haven’t had a single