“Kyra Collins is dark and disingenuous”

Freya Jones stared at her computer screen for a few moments before adding a smiley to the end of her status update, to take the edge off it.  She was just having a laugh, using clever words and all that.  Her green eyes glinted in the screen’s reflected glow.

She glanced at the corner of Kyra’s Profile page, which boasted the fact that she had ’52 friends’.   Not a patch on the other losers she’d encountered on Facebook, including the other nerdy ones she’d been to school with.  It seemed you weren’t anybody unless you had at least a hundred friends to your name, although whether or not you’d actually seen any of them in the flesh seemed superfluous to requirements.  If you had a good-looking profile photo and didn’t count bestiality and Star Trek conventions among your ‘Activities and Interests’, you could be anybody’s friend here.  Comforting, yet ultimately meaningless at the same time.

The thought in mind,  Freya was surprised and irritated by the need she felt to justify to no-one in particular Kyra’s comparatively unsocial amount of friends, the current number being all Freya could be bothered to trawl through the site to collect during the past few hours in which she had been a member.   It was an effective ruse, sending her intended “friends” the same identical message – “Hi!  I’m Kyra Collins, couldn’t help noticing we’ve got the same initials…wanna be my friend? :-)”   She’d been instantly accepted by all of them, no questions asked.

In spite of herself, Freya had enjoyed indulging Kyra by setting up a full, glitzy Profile page for her, complete with a stunning picture of her out on the town with some similarly attractive friends, all sporting wide smiles and clutching bright, fizzing cocktails as though they hadn’t a care in the world (picture courtesy of Cosmopolitan).  “Kyra Collins, Age 21, Mature student and part-time model, Engaged”.  Even given Facebook’s depressingly low friendship acceptance criteria, who wouldn’t want her as their friend?  In Kyra’s frothy world, life was just an endless cloud of fuzzy pink candy floss.

Freya’s eyes darted down to the digital clock in the corner of her computer screen, blinking with surprise as she acknowledged the time in the real world.   Nearly 3am.  Not bad for a student, but she hadn’t even had any alcohol to show for it – not to mention an early lecture that she hadn’t done any preparation for whatsoever.  A slight pang of disappointment in her usual lack of effort neutralised itself in a haze of sudden tiredness as Freya prepared for bed, consoling herself that what she’d been doing all night was ultimately better for her future than Chemical Science. 

“You don’t normally drink coffee,” Kate observed with a teasing smile.  “Am I right in thinking you’ve changed the habit of a lifetime and actually done some studying last night?”

Freya looked across the table at her best friend.  Kate Carmichael was, as always, a shiningly perfect beacon of exactly what a nineteen year old girl should look like, if you were a Hollywood director looking to make yet another fluffy “chick flick” about university life.  The predictable teenage flaws hadn’t made their mark on Kate, who was permanently clear-skinned and tall with a lithe, graceful figure.  She was also in possession of a luxuriant mane of long chestnut hair that was as yet untouched by peroxide or semi-permanent tint, unlike Freya’s own unruly mop of bleached blonde frizz. 

It didn’t seem fair somehow, Freya thought on a more regular basis than was perhaps healthy, that people who were unconditionally loved should have the added benefit of being naturally beautiful.  Not having beauty made one so much harder to love. 

“Study, me?”  Freya feigned innocence.  “Come on now, you know I don’t need to study like you mere mortals.  I’ve got everything up here already.”  She tapped her head with her finger and flashed a tired grin.

“God, I’m jealous,” said Kate.  “I have to study for ages and still nothing sticks.  You’re so lucky,” she enthused as Freya stirred three packets of sugar into her mug of black sludgy coffee.  She felt about as lucky as a Lottery winner whose dog had eaten their ticket.

“So what were you doing all night to be so tired, then?”  Kate continued, a grin playing around her full, glossy lips.  “It wouldn’t be a certain Mr. Wright keeping you awake, now would it?”

Freya bristled at the mention of his name.  She wasn’t quite sure how to react to mentions of Sean yet, particularly from Kate.  It was all so new and uncertain, and she felt an instinctive desire to protect it.  Whatever it was.  She stared into her coffee, as if expecting to find the perfect answer there.

“No...I was just on the computer for a while, that’s all.  You of all people know how distracting the internet can be.”

Kate groaned.  “You know, I wish I’d never heard of Facebook, it’s taking up so much of my time.  I was up until midnight on Friday talking to my friends.  Friday as well – I must be mad!”  She shook her head, hair swishing softly around her shoulders as Freya raised an eyebrow at her.

“I know…I know…you’re the clever and sensible one who won’t go anywhere near anything like that.  But you know me; I’m just a mere mortal who can’t resist.”  She fluttered her eyelashes to exaggerate the comment.

“I could get offended here, you know.  I’ll start thinking you prefer the company of your virtual friends to mine!”

Kate continued as though Freya hadn’t spoken.  “I do enjoy it though, chatting online.  People are so lovely.  Like, someone asked me to be their friend yesterday just because we had the same initials.  Isn’t that nice?  I mean, normally you wouldn’t know if someone had the same initials as you unless you asked them first, and who’d do that?  You’d just look like a complete idiot.”  Kate looked over at Freya, who was trying to suppress a smile, and punched her playfully.  “Alright, so I’m making it sound a bit mad.  But just because you’re above all that kind of stuff doesn’t mean it isn’t fun sometimes!”

She cleared her throat mock-importantly.  “Anyway, young lady – we were discussing a certain member of the male community, weren’t we.  How’s it going?”  She leaned across the table, eager to hear the latest.

Freya looked directly into Kate’s eyes for just a moment, hoping her friend would sense what she was thinking.  Best friends were supposed to have that kind of connection, weren’t they? 

“Really well, actually,” There was a hint of surprised defiance in Freya’s voice.  “I know it’s early days, but we’re getting on great so far.  I’ll just have to wait and see how it goes, I suppose…” She stopped, her cheeks flushing pink with self-consciousness.  Kate was looking at her in amused wonder.

“You’re such an enigma, Freya Jones.  In the years I’ve known you, I’ve told you all about every relationship I’ve had,  because you’re my best friend and the only one I can really talk to.  Now when you get a boyfriend for the first time, all you give me are a couple of tired old clichés you’d most probably hear around a boardroom table.”  She shook her head again, adopting a dramatically serious tone.  “Sometimes I really don’t feel like I know you very well at all.”

Freya bit back the urge to correct Kate over her supposed use of MI5-style secrecy, when in reality anyone who was willing to listen had received the exactly the same information as Freya had.  Kate was a naturally open and chatty person; it was those qualities that had drawn Freya to her since they’d met in a school drama production at the tender, awkward age of fifteen – Kate naturally as lead actress, Freya working on props behind the scenes.  Here was this girl who was so incredibly lively and pretty, who attracted everyone around her; so different from Freya that she could have been beamed down from another galaxy.  Freya always found it hard to believe that Kate could ever truly have wanted to be her friend. 

She shrugged her shoulders apologetically and took a swig of her coffee.   The strong sweetness hit her tastebuds and gave her a momentary kick.

“Don’t worry.  You will,” she said sincerely.

Freya let out an exhausted sigh as she closed the door to her attic room.  It had been a long day, including a test which she’d aced as usual.   As convenient as she found her academic ease, she was frequently angry with herself for not making more of an effort with her studies. She wished she had a genuine interest in Chemical Science instead of studying it just because it had always seemed to come naturally to her, and of course because Dad had wanted her to.  Freya always did what her Dad wanted her to do.

She flopped down onto her bed in the darkness, half-tempted to go to sleep and forget the whole thing. Perhaps it would all just go away if she did nothing, and the downy quilt felt so soft and welcoming.  But she wouldn’t be able to rest – not properly – until she knew.  She sat up and switched on the dainty porcelain lamp next to her bed, bathing the tiny room in a haze of diaphanous light and casting eerily distorted shadows over its pristine, rose-patterned walls.  She was the only student she knew of who didn’t care for posters.

She’d sent Sean a text cancelling their date tonight, under the pretext that she was shattered. After all it wasn’t exactly a lie, and Sean would understand. 

Sean.  He’d asked her out three weeks ago and she’d accepted immediately because…well, it was the first time anyone had asked her out full stop and it hadn’t really occurred to her to say no.  Despite what she’d said to Kate that morning, so far they hadn’t seemed to have too much in common.  He was already starting to act as though he didn’t have much interest in her and Freya felt as though his proximity to her drained his vivacity away, for which she felt constant guilt.

She switched on the computer.  Waiting for her was an e-mail from Dad, a neat one-liner asking how she was.  Formality dripped from the screen; he could just as easily have been writing to a disliked work colleague as his only daughter.   Since he’d discovered the bounty of e-mail, she’d hardly spoken to Dad at all these days.  Too much information from her side would overwhelm him; she typed back a bland, nondescript reply before logging onto Kyra’s Facebook account.

Kate was online too.  She’d just changed her status, which now read “Kate is spending too much time on Facebook LOL”.

Freya felt herself moving into the anodyne comfort of Kyra’s fluffy world as she typed out an instant “chat message”.

“Hi matey!  Thanx 4 accepting my friend request, so what u up 2?”

She drummed her fingers on the wooden desk, awaiting Kate’s response.  If this went to plan, she’d find out all she needed to know this evening.  Then she would know exactly what she had to do. 

Kate’s reply pinged back almost instantly, “Lovely 2 hear from u!  I’m fine thanx, will b going out later for a few drinks, really lkng 4ward to it!”

Freya couldn’t help a wry smile as she read this; it was typical of Kate not to ask how she was. 

“U enjoy it!  Can b a drag sometimes with all that studying!” 

“2 right!  LOL!”

“I’m just spendin time with my luvly fiancé tonite – gettin married soon and I can’t wait!”

They chatted for two solid hours, Kyra enthralling Kate with tales of her modelling jobs and her upcoming wedding to her “luvly fiancé Ryan”.  Ryan was a model too, naturally, and he’d proposed to Kyra during a romantic weekend away in Rome (Paris was too clichéd).  Kyra herself came from a large, loving family with two younger sisters and an older brother, together with a Mum who also doubled up as a best friend and a Dad who owned a successful construction company, but who always had ample time for his idyllic family.  She was doing media studies at a different university and when she graduated she intended to work in television; there was no doubt she’d walk straight into a top job, with her looks and obvious talent.  It all came so naturally.  Freya could almost tangibly feel Kyra’s brightness, her happiness and lack of responsibility.  She was Kate’s equal, with the whole world willingly resting at her feet.

“So who u drinkin with 2nite then?  Hot date?”

“U could say that.   Layin low for a bit as he’s already got a girlf, but we’re crazy bout each other and will tell all soon”

“Sounds well romantic!  Wots his name?”

Kate’s reply came back instantly.

“(blush) It’s Sean”

There it was; cold hard proof that the text messages she’d accidentally seen on his phone two nights ago had not been a mistake.  Freya felt Kyra’s presence drifting slowly away from her, as if she’d been made of sand.

She’d known.  She’d always known.  But knowledge couldn’t stop her hands from trembling ever so slightly as she moved away from the computer, instinctively towards the white painted cabinet beside her bed. 

She could see the rest of her life playing out clearly before her in her mind, full of loneliness and warped comparison, and she knew it would always be the same.   There would always be a Kate or a Kyra in the background, or more appropriately in the foreground.  Someone beautiful, someone bright and beguiling who could talk to anyone and whom everybody wanted to be around.  Somebody who was genuinely loved and who knew how to love people back.  Freya would never, ever be able to compete with any of that, and in any case she wasn’t up to the task.  She couldn’t blame anybody but herself; after all who on Earth would want to spend any time with her when they could be with someone like Kate instead? 

Mechanically Freya opened the bedside cabinet.  They were hidden at the back, all those pills she’d been saving up for what had felt like centuries as she’d gradually hid them away, week after week, knowing the day would come; the day they would finally be put to use.  The bottle of vodka she’d hidden under her bed had come courtesy of her landlady’s drinks cabinet.  She’ll be the one to find me… the briefly rueful thought struck Freya… although that lush will most likely be more upset at the vodka disappearing.

She laid the pills out into neat, methodical lines on the top of the cabinet.  There must have been about eighty altogether, maybe a hundred.  She wasn’t counting, as long as there were enough. 

Everything prepared and in place, Freya felt a strange sense of calm.  Soon she would be forever released from the constant worry, the constant loneliness; she was going to a place where they wouldn’t be able touch her ever again.    She could hardly wait to taste that first sweet sip of the vanilla vodka.  Vanilla.   How appropriate.  Bland, boring; any other flavour preferable.

Freya updated Kyra’s Facebook status one last time.

“Kyra Collins is signing off.”

Then she switched off the computer.