If you leave
Don't leave now

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"Don't leave me." Those were the last words she ever said to me. She was my best friend, and I betrayed her on a daily basis for years. I was her only friend, and I abandoned her.

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Promise me just one more night
Then we'll go our separate ways

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When she knew I was serious about not being able to see her again, she begged me to spend just one more day with her. Just one more day of our girl bonding, of lying on her couch, watching movies on the big screen television, pigging out on ice cream and popcorn, giggling over our secrets and the boys who loved us. But I felt Max's eyes on me from across the Crashdown, felt his disapproval as though it were a physical object, and I turned and walked away without answering her.

The others think that Tess fell in love with Kyle after Nasedo left our sophomore year of high school. They don't know that it took much more than just that for Tess to give in, to reject her "destiny" and to let herself be in love with a human. It took utter and complete abandonment by those she always knew she was meant to be with. When I stopped being her friend, when I started pretending I didn't even know her, that's when she truly fell in love with Kyle. At first she loved him because he was the only one who hadn't left her. But, eventually, she loved him just because of who he was.

You wonder how I know all of this, if we weren't friends anymore when she fell in love with him? Well, even though I pretended not to know her, I still cared about her. I just couldn't make myself retreat back into my ice princess façade. So I visited her in her dreams, to try to convince myself that she was doing all right without us. I couldn't make myself stop caring about her. I wish I could, it would make it so much easier now. Because I knew she wasn't doing all right without us. I knew that one of these days she was going to take herself from us. And I didn't do anything to try and stop her. Her death is my fault, as much so as if I killed her myself, and I will never forgive myself for that.

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I touch you once, I touch you twice
I won't let go at any price

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I stood there, in front of her coffin, for what seemed like hours. Twining her hair through my fingers, stroking her face…. In reality, it was mere seconds. And I wasn't even alone with her. Kyle stood next to me, glaring at us all with barely suppressed rage. I didn't get a chance to tell her how sorry I was for everything, that I hadn't been strong enough to fight against everyone else's opinions and keep being her friend. Imagine that. Isabel Evans, who once thought she was so strong, who thought that everyone would go along with anything she said. And I'm so scared of being alone that I don't dare risk the rejection of the only true family I have. I was too scared of becoming Tess. She managed to fight off her demons for a while. But then, she'd never really gotten used to not being alone. I'm too entrenched in my life…. if they rejected me for some reason, I don't think I would be able to last a day. I couldn't bear to go back to the loneliness. I couldn't survive the same fate I'd abandoned Tess to.

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I need you now like I need you then
You always said we'd still be friends
Someday

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Her death surprised me, even though in the back of my head I was always expecting it. She always said that someday the rest of us would accept her, that someday she would fit into our little family. Personally, I wasn't so sure. But I tried to convince myself that she wouldn't just give up on life. Not when she had Kyle. I tried to convince myself that he was enough to save her, that she didn't need anyone else.

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I touch you once, I touch you twice
I won't let go at any price

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None of the others knew how close Tess and I were. I mean, they knew that we started out being friends. They knew that I was closer to her than any of them were. But they didn't know that she became my best friend. They didn't know that in her I finally found someone who really understood what it was like to be me. They only saw Tess as the gatecrasher, the one who came late to the party and ruined everyone's plans.

They didn't know I snuck out of the house at least three times a week to go stay at her house with her, because she hated being alone. They didn't know that we talked about everything, as we sat and played with each other's hair. They didn't know that she's still the only one who's ever known what it's like to be me, to know the loneliness, the only one who could make me forget those feelings.

But one morning Max found me sneaking back into the house after a night at Tess's. And then there was an "intervention" with the five of them at the Crashdown. And the expressions on their faces when they looked at me…. They looked at me and I knew they felt I had betrayed them by accepting Tess. So I lied to them. I lied to them and told them it was the first time I'd ever done this. I lied and told them that Tess had coerced me into going, that I hadn't wanted to. And even as I saw the steely glint coming into Alex's eyes, I hated myself. I despised myself, because I had made all of them think Tess had been manipulating me, made them hate her even more than they already did.

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I need you now like I need you then

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I always needed that friendship with her, even after I abandoned her. I pretended I didn't see her, at the Crashdown, at the mall, sitting in Kyle's car at a red light. It got so I had almost convinced myself that she wasn't really there at all. But I needed her. And I couldn't lie to myself at night. So I visited her in her dreams, to try to assure myself that she was doing all right. Of course she wasn't, but in the morning I made myself forget the horrors that she dreamed. I convinced myself that she was fine.

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You always said we'd meet again

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But, deep inside, I knew she wasn't. I could feel her eyes on me, feel the tears brimming over and trickling down her face as though it were my own. I could feel Kyle's barely suppressed rage, as he swore to himself that he would protect her from us. I felt the blame he placed on all of us. It never was as painful as the guilt I inflicted on myself.

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I touch you once I touch you twice
I won't let go at any price

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Funny, isn't it, that now when I can't see her anymore, I can't stop thinking about her. I had myself programmed not to dwell on thoughts of Tess. Now, that has all disappeared. I have fits of depression, times when I blame myself for her death. I don't go out of the house for days at a time, except to sneak out to the cemetery and leave flowers at her grave. I weave daisy chains and drape them over her headstone, a haunting reminder of the flowers she took to wearing in her hair. Alex tries to comfort me, but he doesn't even know what's wrong. He believed the lies I told when I abandoned her, believed that Tess and I weren't ever really friends. So he doesn't understand why I get so upset about her death. He thinks I should be happy about it, like Liz is. He thinks I should feel relieved that Tess is gone, because she represented "destiny" and everything that tried to keep us apart. He doesn't understand that to me, Tess was only Tess. Not "destiny," not some bitch who was trying to wreck all of the relationships Max, Michael and I had formed with humans. Just herself.

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I need you now like I need you then
You always said we'd still be friends

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I needed the idea of Tess, even if I couldn't have the reality of a friendship with her. Hell, I could have stayed her friend. I just wasn't strong enough to have everyone else hate me. She didn't hold that against me. I knew, all I had to do was ask, and things could go back to normal. Well, back to normal except that eventually the others would find out that I was hanging out with Tess again. And I would betray her again, because I still wouldn't be strong enough to risk being rejected by them.

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I touch you once, I touch you twice
I need you now like I need you then

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I spend more time with her now, I think, than I did even when we were still friends. I sit at her grave for hours at a time, weaving garlands out of wildflowers, telling her everything that goes on in my life.

Well, not everything. I try to avoid telling her about Max, and about Liz. I don't tell her that I think Liz had a hard time not dancing for joy at the funeral, that Max just hasn't quite been the same since she died. And I especially avoid talking about Kyle. I don't tell her that he's not quite normal these days. I don't say that he has trouble keeping track of past, present, and future. I don't say that I worry he'll follow her into death soon.

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You always said, we'd meet again
Someday

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Liz is always saying that there is one defining moment of a lifetime which changes everything. I never really paid much attention to her, but now I think she just might be right. Because Tess's death was definitely a pivotal moment of my life. Things have never been the same since then....