Chapter 8

We laughed as we remembered that night. The night after powell, when all three of us slept in the same bed. In my sleep, I got mad at her for moving too much. We all started laughing. Watching videos of ourselves, dancing, singing, being ridiculous.

That summer was the best, she said. Attached at the hip.

She was telling me this in her apartment, as the three of us sat there with her husband. A year and a half later. Almost two, really. When I got home in late march, I was not okay. Not even close. I was broken and torn and confused. I was starting from scratch again. Not knowing even where to start.

Start from now.

I remember how small she looked on her bicycle, in her white dress, her long her spilling down her back like some thick waterfall. Her bike was red. Her skin was tan.

Every day there were beads of sweat on the back of her neck, underneath her heavy hair. We would sit, stand, lie for hours on the Astroturf, listening to the warm melodies of summer.

I kissed a girl and I liked it

The taste of her cherry chapstick….

I spent way too long checking my tongue in the mirror

And bending over backwards just to try to see it clearer…..

She made me feel like I belonged. That I would always belong. And at that time, I did. We went dancing together, all of us from Armenia. We’d dance in the car to haikakan erastutsiun. We’d speak in armenglish. We’d all go every week to the TRC. There was a real bond.

Lake powell was the climax of the summer. A group of us piled in different cars and headed down on a Sunday, listening to big and rich, the Macarena, you name it. Eatchel in the front seat, me next to him. Pew, Seeley, and Bridges in the back.

It’s not like that anymore. I’m an outsider again. Not with her, but with them. To them, I’m just that girl that came and got sick and left. To them I’m someone that didn’t cut it. They all still question why I came home. Am I that easy to read? They reminisce about areas I never served in, people I never met, traditions I never saw. Things I never did. And I just get to be that one girl that was there for a little while and couldn’t handle it.

Armenia hated you, he said.

Why does it mean so much that I loved it then? I remember hating Maggie for mocking the Armenians. When she got to finish her time there. I wondered what made them different from me. Why I couldn’t be just like the rest of them, go, serve, come home. Why I always had to be different.

Thing is, Jodi treated me just like everyone else. I was a person to her, not a party favor or a plague or a toy. I was just a person. She was one of the first to treat me as such. She never demanded that I entertain her, or that I do anything really. I just had to be. Maybe that’s why I felt so comfortable.

It started out awkward. We sat across the table from her, and made small talk. Small talk with someone whose soul was eternally connected to our own. After a few hours, it was like old times. Anna with her diverse life experiences. Jodi with her simplicity. Me taking it all to the next savage level.

The princess dynasty, they called us. And still do. Beautiful, charismatic, crazy. That’s what we all turned out to be, no matter how well we hid it. Jodi was a no-fun zone. Anna concealed it well. Everyone knew me for exactly what I was.

I never was the master of disguise.