Diamonds and Girls

Author's Note: Many thanks to carolin_ for volunteering to edit, for the quick feedback, and also for the encouragement.

Should anyone get to the end and contemplate commenting, you should know that comments make my life.

*

"Fi! Hold the door!"

A screech cuts through the rush hour bustle, and I wince in recognition. Clutching my bag closer, I sink into my seat and stare at the Metro doors, willing them to close.

"Fi!"

I duck my head. I know she knows I can hear her, but I don't care. I've never made a secret of hating her.

The familiar, ugly clanking of the door chime sounds, and hope brushes against my heart like a feather. But no, in the last instant, Noa pushes her way through, tumbling into a pair of overweight tourists. She rights herself gracefully and bestows a winning smile on the couple, breathless apologies bubbling up and over stained lips.

The tourists are overwhelmed. Though they melt easily enough beneath the full glare of her charm, they are flustered and bemused, unsure what they've done to merit the too enthusiastic overtures of this stunning young woman.

That's Noa's problem. Her charm has no 'subtle' setting. She's constantly overdoing it.

Okay, so maybe that's not really so bad a problem to have.

Actually, Noa is perfect. She's smart, she's responsible, she's friendly. She has that unapologetic patrician beauty, full lips, a classic nose, huge charcoal eyes beneath a regal brow. Her features are so disgustingly stunning that she can afford only nearly flawless skin. My judgmental eyes pick out a few small bumps on her chin, well hidden by her makeup. On normal people, acne is disfiguring. On Noa, it's beneath notice.

Today, her dark curls are swept out of her face by a couple pearl-studded pins, then let free to bounce past her shoulder blades in defined, silky ringlets. Aren't curls supposed to frizz in humidity? A navy suit hugs her curves. She looks like she can't remember whether she's a senator or a queen.

Having brow-beaten the poor tourists into apologizing to her, Noa turns to me in triumph. I tense. At least the seat beside me is taken.

"Why didn't you hold the door?" she demands.

I had been going to ignore her, but the question is so ludicrous that I can't help but raise my head in disbelief. "It's the fucking Metro. You can't hold Metro doors."

You really can't. They just shut on you, not like elevator doors. The operator isn't supposed to pull away unless all the doors are shut, but there's no kind of mechanism to prevent them from closing heavily into whatever is in their way. Eventually, the operator will reopen them to let victims reclaim their bags and limbs, but only after a lot of embarrassed shouting and frantic pulling and potential pain. You have to be really stupid to try and hold the Metro doors. Sometimes kids on field trips or risk-seeking investment managers running late to client meetings are, to the aggravation and awkward amusement of all other passengers.

Noa knows this. She's lived in the city for nearly a decade. She's tricked me into talking to her, tricked me into breaking a six month long strict embargo. After New Year's, I'd intended the no-diplomatic-relations policy to be permanent.

It stings, that she's manipulated me so easily, but it doesn't particularly surprise.

"But I haven't seen you in forever, Fi!" Her eyes are wide and innocent as she gushes on in a consummate imitation of sincerity. "And we live in the same building. Have you been avoiding me?"

"Fuck you." A few passengers from the surrounding crush glance at us, but neither one of us is fazed. We've had worse rows in front of more significant audiences than a carload of anonymous Metro riders.

"You didn't make it to Bonaire this year," she prompts.

I glower bitterly at her patent leather pumps. I'd skipped our families' annual diving trip so that I wouldn't have to see her.

Noa smirks at me. "I missed you."

"I hate you."

She laughs, delighted. Her laugh is exquisite, like flame-filled bubbles bursting. "Hate you more." She gives me an appraising look, arching one delicately shaped brow. "What's with the emo twink look?"

I glare at her furiously, trying to think of something hurtful enough to say back, even as blood heats my cheeks. Plenty of adults wear steampunk jewelry, right? And her eye-liner and mascara are as heavy as my own.

But she knows my insecurities too well. I'm sensitive about my slight frame, my too small breasts, my narrow hips; I'm forever trying to escape the epithet 'boyish'. To that end, I'd recently cut my hair into a shape I considered quite feminine. The flimsy red strands frame my face in layers, with the longest wisps reaching my collar bone.

Everyone had complimented me on it. One offhand remark from Noa, and I'm desperately afraid I really do look like some effeminate teenage gay porn star.

I can't think of anything sufficiently hateful, so I fall back on my one tried and true tactic. It's the only strategy that really works against Noa, but I don't like to use it because it's too easy. I want to be maliciously clever, to confound her with my cruel, witty brilliance. Instead, I'm forced to do what works. I give her my widest pale green gaze and let my lower lip tremble.

Instant remorse flickers in those glorious eyes. Too easy. "Fiona." She swallows. "I'm just kidding. Your hair is really cute."

"Fuck you," I say sullenly.

My half-hearted hostility is enough to put her back on comfortable ground. I can see the relief on her face that I'm not going to cry. I'm not even sure she realizes that I'm aware of this weapon in my arsenal.

Now that I think about it, all my major victories against Noa have involved my own hysterical tears. It's sort of pathetic, really.

"Fuck you," I repeat, defiantly.

She grins archly, mocking me. "If you're feeling versatile."

My face has to be the same color as my hair. The weight of a few shocked looks presses down on me. The tourist couple just looks puzzled. But firmly on Noa's side.

The train shudders into the next station and I flee, five stops too early.

*

I can't remember a time when I didn't hate Noa Silber.

Our mothers were—are—best friends. They grew up down the street from each other, went to college together, were each other's maids of honor, and convinced their husbands to buy houses next door to one another. They are even both named Rebecca. It was their dearest wish that Noa and I be the next generation of best friends.

It says a lot about both their personalities that they've yet to give up on this wish. Throughout our long history of mutual hatred, our mothers just smiled with fond exasperation at our 'sisterhood'. One of us could probably kill the other, and they'd cry together at the funeral and visit the survivor together in jail, and commiserate over the tragic fate of sisters who loved each other so much, they were driven to murder and imprisonment.

Noa is twenty months older than me. Perhaps we really did get along as babies, but if our lifelong enmity has taught me anything, it's that you can't trust photo albums designed by moms. In any case, Noa was a constant, unchanging force from my earliest memories onward.

Infuriating Noa, bossy and arrogant and superior, better loved and better at everything. Full of pranks and goads, always overprotective at the worst times, which is to say, exactly when it would get me into trouble. The entire world was Noa's sandbox, and I was just one more toy in it.

As the smaller, weaker one, I had to fight a little dirty. When we were little, Noa couldn't go a full day without being yelled at for making me cry. That likely explains why my tears remain such an effective shield to this day. Of course, I paid the heavier price, by becoming known as weepy and vulnerable. My entire fucking personality got twisted. I'm still too easily hurt and too easily defensive, and I still blame Noa.

*

When I get home two days later, Noa is waiting for me in the lobby. She's flirting with the night concierge, looking tousled and sexy in a wife beater and flannel pajama bottoms.

I roll my eyes. "How long have you been waiting for me?" It's 4 a.m.

Noa shrugs. "An hour or so. I knew you wouldn't get off before then."

"Yeah, well, it's been a long night. I'm going to bed." I give the concierge a curt nod and head for the elevators, straining under the weight of my oversized duffel bag. I'm so close to my bed, I can practically feel cool sheets pillowing against my aching limbs.

Noa trails after me. "I'm throwing you a birthday party."

I spare her a disbelieving glance as I jab at the Up button. "What?"

She follows me into the elevator. "You heard me. It's next Saturday, at the M." Her perfect lips tug up in amusement and she leans one hip against a mirrored wall. Her dark eyes sparkle with challenge.

"I'm already having a party. You're just not invited."

"Bullshit."

"Fine, then, I don't want a party. But if I did, I wouldn't want you there."

Her eyes narrow dangerously. "You can't not have a 24th birthday party."

The elevator stops on my floor and I dodge around her, not an easy task considering the size of my duffel bag. She follows me out.

"Oh, no?" I ask tiredly. "What is that, social suicide for yuppie socialites?"

She stations herself between me and my door and favors me with a lofty smile. "Something like that. It's not about them, though, Fi. It's about you. Birthday parties are an annual well of invaluable, magical self-centeredness. We need them to reaffirm our sense of self-worth, of human dignity. They're an inherent, inalienable right."

"Did Laura tell you that?" Laura's our shrink.

"Nope, I told Laura that." Of course. Trust Noa to preach the moral purity of self-centeredness. There's a slight pause, but Noa makes no move to vacate my doorway. "She thinks I should leave off bothering you."

I raise my brows. "Wonderful. She give you any drugs to help with that?"

Noa scowls. "She doesn't get us."

"Sounds like she does."

Anger flashes across Noa's gorgeous features, surprising me. Then her elegant mask reasserts itself and she leans forward with a dazzling, predatory smile. "Do I really make you so uncomfortable, pixie?" she asks softly. Her breath, hot on my cheek, smells of chai. One hand slithers under the back of my tee to lightly massage the skin stretched between my hip and the bottom of my spine. Embers catch in the pit of my stomach.

I stand my ground, barely. "Get out of my way," I manage to grate. "This bag is really heavy." Which totally explains my sudden trembling and shortness of breath.

Victorious, she sidles away from my door. She's cocky, now, having made her point. I've never known anyone to turn sex on and off so effortlessly. "You know," she mocks me, "your eyes turn dark green when they're glazed over with lust. It's hot."

My hand is shaking as I fumble with the lock. Damn her.

I get the door open and am about to stumble inside when she catches me with a hand on my shoulder. I flinch halfway out of my own skin, yelping and spinning and dropping my stupid bag. God fucking damn her.

Noa steps back, raising her hands in a show of innocence. I'm a panting, sweaty bundle of crazy, sick with arousal and shame, but she just stares at me coolly. "Next Saturday, at the M. Send me a list of emails to invite by Monday."

"Or?" I demand hoarsely.

Her midnight gray eyes gleam. "Or I'll tell your mother you're a stripper."

She saunters away before I can slam the door in her face, flannel pajamas clinging to the twin shapely globes of her ass. I watch until she disappears around the corner before summoning the strength to lug my bag all the way inside and shut the door. I sink to the floor of my studio in the dark and bury my face in my knees.

I hate her, and I want her. It's not a spectrum. The two feelings only ever get stronger or weaker in tandem.

*

I can't put a time stamp on exactly when Noa realized her hold over me, but at some point between elementary and middle school, her attitude changed. She went from competitive bully to smug tormentor. Not that she became any less competitive or tyrannical, but she began to truly revel not in winning or getting her way, but in outwitting me. She was an evil genius, and I was her audience.

I know exactly when I finally clued in to the situation. It was soccer camp the summer before seventh grade, my twelfth birthday, and the first time Noa hospitalized me. Unless you count the time I ended up in the deep end of the Silber's pool before I was even old enough to walk, but all evidence there was purely circumstantial. Or the time I crashed my bicycle trying to ride down the library steps, but that was on a freely accepted dare, and so I deserve at least half the blame.

But my twelfth birthday was entirely Noa's fault.

The camp was run by a handful of sexy English soccer stars. We worshipped them. Tan, muscled, and masculine, they split their time between directing drills in their licentious accents and fighting off the attentions of a horde of hormone-crazed teenagers.

Already easily the most popular girl at camp, Noa hit upon a brilliant plan for ingratiating herself with our English counselors, as well. She planned my birthday party. For an entire week before June 30th, she plotted and conspired and convinced Ian and Alistair and Connor and Rhys that she was the sweetest angel on the planet, to care so much about another girl's happiness.

That was a good week. I was a skinny stick of a child who looked more like I was approaching my tenth birthday than my twelfth. The smallest uniform available was hopelessly baggy on me, and the constant sun had turned my red hair bright orange and my white skin bright red. I was fast and clever enough with the ball, but the other girls tended to run right over me on the field. Needless to say, Noa's attention elevated me from scrawny benchwarmer to lucky birthday girl. All the counselors and most of the campers knew my name, and everyone was looking forward to my party.

I was desperately grateful to Noa. Sure, she had written a fake love note to Alistair from me on the first day of camp, and I had retaliated by writing all the counselors fake love notes on her behalf, and she had told the entire camp that I went by the nickname 'imp', and I had thrown her shin guards into the lake, but it seemed like all was forgiven.

To be honest, I don't even recognize myself in that sweetly naive child. But I do remember the fleeting sensation of joy and gratitude and admiration; I was special to Noa.

I sat with her during lunch and brought her oranges, I passed her the ball as often as possible during scrimmages (much to the annoyance of my teammates whenever she happened to be on the opposing side), I talked her up to the counselors, and I quickly developed an enormous girl crush.

Then the 30th arrived. I recall being preoccupied during our morning jog with why Noa hadn't joined us yet. When I collapsed onto the springy grass after the run, I was surprised by a sudden, deafening chorus of Happy Birthday To You. I gaped as Noa descended on me, flanked by our English Gods of Soccer, carrying a cake.

A strawberry cake.

I looked at Noa in confusion. She knew I was allergic to strawberries. Itchy hives, severe swelling of the face and throat, risk of anaphylaxis. I couldn't eat anything that might have touched a strawberry.

Noa beamed down at me. Thirteen years old, and she owned the fucking world. Her curls were tugged into a loose knot at the back of her head, but several dark locks had pulled free to dance in the hot breeze. Her face shone with a mixture of sunscreen and sweat, and she brimmed with excited energy as she sang. Hints of frosting stained the corners of her grin.

"Happy birthday, imp!"

I smiled haltingly as the camp erupted in cheers. Noa claimed a kiss on the cheek from each of the counselors who had helped her buy the cake. I hid my uncertainty and thanked her kindly. Perhaps she had forgotten my allergy?

My suspicions solidified when she didn't insist I have any cake, though. Without Noa to remind them of my presence, no-one even noticed that I didn't take any.

For the rest of the morning, Noa ignored me completely. By lunch, I was close to tears. I kept asking myself what I had done wrong, if I had maybe set some prank into motion weeks ago that might only now have come to Noa's attention. Nothing occurred to me.

I grabbed my sandwich and approached Noa hesitantly. She sat with a group of girls her age, under the shade of a large maple. Noa ignored me, but some of the other girls smiled and wished me a happy birthday, so I sank down near the edge of their circle and downed my sandwich, heart thumping, eyes drawn again and again to Noa to see if she would change her mind and acknowledge me after all.

"Do you think Alistair would kiss me on the lips?"

Noa's question surprised us all. Her friends giggled or looked appalled. I probably belonged with the latter set, but I felt no jealousy, only awe that she would consider something so brave.

I ducked my gaze over to Alistair. He was juggling with a bunch of the other counselors, handling the ball with a skill we could only envy, jumping and diving with tireless ease. We all agreed Alistair was the most handsome of the counselors.

"Are you going to ask him?"

"Maybe he has a girlfriend."

"Not in the States, he doesn't."

"I wouldn't ask. Just do it!"

"Are you gonna go for tongue?"

Noa laughed off the assault of questions. "I was just wondering," she said airily. "Might do it, might not." Her bright eyes slid to me. "What do you think, Fi?"

I blinked at being suddenly included, and groped for something to say. "I think he would," I mumbled finally. "I think he'd kiss you, if you wanted."

Noa looked pleased, and speculative. A whistle blew, and we all jumped to our feet. As the other girls ran off to throw away their sandwich wrappers, Noa grabbed me.

"Wait a minute, imp." She locked her fingers in mine and tugged me further into the trees. I muttered in protest, but she ignored me and dragged us behind a thick trunk overgrown with vines, out of view of the fields.

"I want to practice."

I stared at her, not comprehending.

She tossed her head in annoyance and added, "I've never kissed anyone on the lips before."

I began to panic, wondering if she was truly saying what I thought she was. "It's not that hard," I blurted.

It was the wrong thing to say. Her eyes glittered, dark and dangerous. "Who have you been kissing?"

I gulped. "Just some boys. From school. No-one special."

Noa glared at me. "Well, then, if it's not that hard, then show me."

"I can't!"

"Why not? You want to." She rolled her eyes and sighed. I could see the wheels turning in her head, could see the realization hit that she'd apparently have to be nice to me to get me to kiss her. At no point did I see anything resembling doubt that I'd eventually agree.

Her sudden winsome smile still made my heart take off like a mad horse. She looked at me pleadingly. "Just a quick kiss, Fi? So that I don't look stupid in front of Alistair?"

I stared at her lips. They were pink and soft looking. "I—I don't think..."

She drew in closer. "Pretty please?"

"Don't—"

"For your birthday?"

"But—"

"For me?"

I shut my eyes and let her press her lips against mine. They felt as soft as they looked. For a long moment, they rested against mine, while my heart sped on and my head grew light from holding my breath. None of the boys had kissed me this long.

I gasped when Noa's tongue slid against my lower lip, and suddenly our mouths were both open and locked together. I probed eagerly, desperately, discovering tongue and teeth and gums and cheeks – and strawberries.