Free The Me You See by Shay Ray Stevens

pinching at her cheeks and eyes.
Tears clung to the edge of her eyelids, but I knew it wasn’t because she was
crying.
     “Theater is like a drug, darling,” I said, breathing out a
long sigh that looked like a string of smoke in the cold air. “It’s addicting.
Makes a person do all sorts of things they wouldn’t normally do.”
    She finally looked at me. Our eyes connected, hers boring
into mine with a mix with ferocity and hope.
    “Wait,” she asked. “Are we talking about me…or you?”
    “We’re both her slave,” I said, ignoring the question.
“Once you’re a part of the theater, the lines between real life and life on
stage start to blur.”
    “And that’s okay?” she spit. “It’s just suddenly okay that
everything is a blurry confused mess?”
    “It doesn’t matter if it’s okay,” I said. “It’s just the
way it is.”
    **
    And so our odd life of being together—but pretending we
weren’t—went on. The blurry confused mess that was us made perfect,
beautiful sense.
    I know it did. Because she told me it did.
    In the end, our secret died with Stefia. I know she never
told another living soul because she told me she wouldn’t. And I believed every
word she ever said.
    She was always good at making people believe.

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
-Taylor Jean-
     
     
     
    I actually missed the first call about the shooting. When
it rang through, I was laying on a table in Spencer Grove, waiting to donate
blood for the first time. Afterwards, the irony made me gag, because it was
Stefia who had always told me I was wimp for not having donated the minute I
turned eighteen.
    The nurse swabbed iodine all over the vein and then checked
her watch.
    “This has to sit on your arm for thirty seconds,” she
explained, “and then you’re ready to rock.”
    She unwrapped the needle and placed it next to where she
was going to punch it under my skin and into my vein.
    “If you think you’re gonna be one of those people who don’t
like to watch,” she said, “now would be the time to look away.”
    “Nah. I’m okay,” I said. “I actually like to watch.”
    **
    Stefia and I were the same age but since I was part of that
underground, radical unschooling, hippy Christian world, we weren’t in the same
grade. I first knew Stefia from church. We became good friends at thirteen when
we were old enough to join the choir. The older ladies called us the Giggle
Girls because we were always chatting and laughing while the other sections
practiced their parts. We’d talk about beads and bands and books we’d read and
boys we thought were cute.
    And we talked about coffee. My family owned the coffee shop
in Granite Ledge and I got Stefia a job there as soon as she turned fifteen.  I
thought I would have to work pretty hard to convince my parents that Stefia
would be a worthy addition to our list of employees, seeing as how she wasn’t
part of the underground we normally associated with. As it turned out, they
thought it was a great idea. Actually, they were completely enamored with
Stefia—like most adults seemed to be—and jumped at the opportunity to employ
her. See, everyone thought Stefia was mature. And responsible. And had a
pleasing personality.
    To be honest, she was just about everything you could want
in someone else.
    Stefia had this voice that was syrupy and maple, a voice
that stuck you to what she was saying or singing. It was like the cinnamon
sugar I put on my warm buttered toast every morning. She was the perfect
complement to everyone around her, a chameleon who could talk to anyone. And
yet, as much as she seemed to be able to meld herself to any situation, she
wasn’t fake. Her interest in people was completely genuine.
    And maybe that’s why I clung so tightly to her as a friend.
If I was with Stefia, maybe a little of what everyone wanted would rub off on
me.
    I could only hope.
    I think that’s why I liked to watch her. Probably why we
all did. I mean, she was gorgeous. A