Smoking in a Blue House

"My room goes into another dimension at night."

I looked around Sara's room. Aside from the Pocahontas-inspired wallpaper and eerie clown vignettes, it seemed like an average eleven-year-old's bedroom. But I was wrong.
It was Sara's.

"Just let me out, okay? I really have to get home."

She stood at the door, refusing to let me leave. One eyebrow raised, a condescending smirk, her small fat hands securing the brass doorknob. I hated her, but she was my only friend at the time.
She let out a haughty laugh. "I'm looking at five ways you can get out right now." I scanned the room, half knowing everything she said was an exaggeration or a lie. She liked to make up stories about how she was adopted and was really the princess or Russia or Austria, whichever country she could first recall. Sometimes she had magic powers, or seven boyfriends. She always had a story to tell, even if it was fiction. And when you're an insecure sixth-grade pariah, you'll listen to any story told to you, and you'll pretend to believe it. You'll be a doormat for anyone and everyone.

The first time I met Sara was when she moved next door to me. She walked to my house and introduced herself.
"Hey, I'm Sara. Wanna come over?"
"Sure."

We walked over to her house, and the color nearly blinded me. It was blue. And I mean blue. Electric smurf blue.
"Csmurfouse" I said. She ignored me and took a key out of her pocket. I asked if anyone was home. She shook her head and I followed her through the kitchen, up a steep set of stairs and into a tiny room. The walls were painted black and had fuschia christmas lights strewn across them. A Budweiser beach towel hung below a black-light poster.

"This is Angela's room" said Sara.

Angela was Sara's older sister. She was fifteen at the time, and, according to Sara, had already had sex with several faceless, enigmatic boys. She pointed to a list of names on the mirror. "That's them," she said "One of 'em's gonna knock her up someday. Or maybe a different one. You never know with Angela." Sara seemed very casual with the fact that her sister got around. She was good at creating facades.
I glanced at the list and began uneasily braiding my hair. Sara reached into Angela's drawer and pulled out a pack of Kools. She took out two cigarettes and handed one to me. I had never smoked before and asked her if she did. "Oh yeah, do it all the time." She picked up a lighter off the bed and fumbled with it for a few seconds 'til it lit. She lit mine and then her own. I placed it between my lips and breathed in, unsure if I was doing it right. I didn't feel anything. Sara never once inhaled. She only held hers. But she held it with such authority that it didn't matter. I tried to hold it just like her, between my middle and index fingers, thumb out, pinky and ring fingers curled up. It was my first strange appeal to vanity. Sad thing was, we only had ourselves to impress.
We held our cigarettes until they burned down to a stub. Sara put hers out with her thumb and dropped it into an empty glass. I left mine on the ash-tray on Angela's dresser.

Sometimes I couldn't tell which of Sara's stories were real and which ones were fake. One of the times she locked me in her room, she pointed to a rocking horse. "I've had that since as long as I can remember," she said "Sometimes I sit on it and cut myself".
I looked for an exit.
"I've got homework to do."
Her chubby face scrunched up and she started to sob.
"What's wrong?" I asked, rushing to her side.
She hid her face in her arms. "You... you don't want to be my friend, do you?" I'm not sure if there was any possible truthful response to that question. "Yes I do. I just don't like it when you lock me in your room."
She broke into laughter and revealed her dry eyes. "You're so stupid."
"Let me out."
"Yeah right."

She moved to Vermont the next year.
I saw her a couple years ago at the mall while she was visiting the Cape.
"Hey," she said "Guess what? Angela's pregnant. I'm going to be an Aunt."
She still had the same hair. It just kinda hung above her shoulders in a straw-colored wave. She looked sadder than I had remembered though. Either she wasn't as good at pretending, or I had gotten better at discerning.