Carmen

i've named her carmen, because she still exists on planet earth and i don't want her finding me. but, carmen, the heroin addict was my best friend.
i lent her my pink cashmere sweater once and she told me she lost it. i found it two weeks later with the sleeves cut off and shrunk three sizes. she said it looked better that way. carmen had photographs of models pinned to every corner of her wall. we were obsessed with beauty. carmen didn't care what people thought of her, she gave blow jobs for coke, got us into clubs, lived in apartments that married men paid for and whatever else you can imagine when you trade sex for something tangible. by the time carmen got to AA, she was still beautiful, but her blonde hair was now dyed black, she looked at least 35 (i was 17) and asked me for a dollar. we had fun, carmen and me. we were in a modeling class together, stole makeup from the head of the school and the lady screamed at everyone, but we never ratted each other out. carmen had been molested by her father's best friend and her mother never believed her. she was always saying everyone wanted to fuck her. i never knew if she was making it up. half of the things carmen said sounded like lies, but they were entertaining and she was my friend, so i didn't care. lie if you want to. just make it a good story. when we made cheerleading, her step dad said she couldn't be on the team because she had a B in spanish. i know how dumb it sounds, but being a cheerleader in our school was kind of a big deal. carmen disappeared one day, while i was at lunch with my other friends. she moved to los angeles. i visited her once, she puked in the sink and apologized like it was nothing. it was a one room apartment above a store on melrose. there was makeup everywhere and a bed.  she was always big on makeup. i met her boyfriend, he was the best looking guy i'd ever seen. covered in tattoos, skinny in the right way and couldn't make eye contact.  i haven't seen carmen in many years, but just yesterday i was thinking about the time we slept on the beach with my other friends, high on speed or some other pink pill that i forget the name of. it was after odyssey or 321 or phases. i miss carmen, even though i don't know if i'd recognize her if i saw her now. she was beautiful before i even knew what that was. and maybe i was too, but i couldn't tell.