Change

Jody brought the gun to high port.

Colleen could feel the coldness of the gun even though it was not touching her skin. It was reflected in the eyes of its holder. Without thinking, she quickly raised the gun in her own hand. It flashed in the afternoon light. A coloured afterimage of the gun's arch burned in her eye as it came into position.

Jody smiled. "Guess you haven't changed as much as you'd wanna think."

Colleen finally really understood why a gun was pointed at her head.

And why she had automatically done the same.

Change. If you asked everyone what they thought of it you might come back wondering if it really exists. Ask a teenager and they might talk about how much the people they knew as children have changed. Ask an adult and they might say how everyday is exactly the same, same shit, different day. A leopard never changes it's spots is another thing they say, that no one really changes. Colleen knew that this was just wishful thinking. People were scared of things that change because then they became unknown. But people did change. Such as Jody. Colleen knew Jody had changed over the years, but didn't understand how it had all come to this.

Colleen had come home as she did most days, to an empty townhouse, climbing the stairs to her room. Only today wasn't most days because a thin girl in black with a hood pulled up over her head was sitting in the middle of her white bed spread with a bag. Like a lump of shit in the middle of a field of snow Colleen thought so fast that she didn't even notice it.

Jody didn't believe in people changing, circumstances may shift and people adapted with it but that didn't really change who they were. High school was maybe a change of buildings from middle school, and people thought they needed to change their personas like a pair of socks, but underneath it was the same old feet. Colleen had been one of the people to follow this false change blindly.

When Colleen entered wearing her GAP and Calvin Klein, Jody had asked, "When did you mess up your room?"

Sadness had rained down on Jody when she saw the look of confused horror stamped on Colleen's face.

"What?" Jody asked, hurt evident in her voice. " I always used to come up here."

Still stunned, Colleen spat out, "that was when we were like ten."

Outside of Colleen's window was an antenna that went from the ground to the roof past her window. Some nights when things got really bad at her house next door Jody would climb up this and spend the night in Colleen's room until dawn and then sneak back. This went on until half way through grade nine when Colleen said it was too dangerous.

Instead of reminding her of that, Jody just said "so?" as she climbed off the bed with her bag clutched to her. She strolled around looking at all the backstreet and 'Nsych pictures. Colleen watched her a second until the shock wore off enough to ask, " so? So what are you doing here??"

Jody didn't show this time how much the tone hurt her and just started going through the CDs piled on the Sony CD player. Disdain verged on disgust crept up Jody's throat as she saw that the music reflected the posters on the walls. When Colleen screamed "Jodine" from behind her, trying to get her attention. It was like splinters of glass pierced Jody's soul.

Never had Colleen called her that name. The one she knew her dad called her when..that..

Jody whirled around with pleading in her eyes. "Never call me that. You know I hate that."

Colleen's temper snapped. She knew what the name meant but didn't care right now. Jody had broken into her room while she was out and was now making demands?

"Or what?" Colleen asked. She was so mad that when Jody pulled the gun out of her bag it didn't really register. When Jody pulled the second one out it still didn't. When Jody tossed the gun at her and she automatically caught it, feeling the cold steel, only then did it seem real. Jody had raised her gun, pointing it at Colleen's head. Colleen quickly echoed the motion without thought and now she had to think from there.

"Wh... What are you doing?" Colleen said, voice shaking. Numbness had taken over her body; she could only see how badly the gun was shaking in her hand.

"I'm ending the bullshit right now!" Jody's eyes blazed with the last two words. "And the only way to get you to listen is to stick a gun in your face."

"What are you talking about?" Colleen asked although she already knew.

"You know what I mean," Jody said, brushing it aside with a wave of her gun that made Colleen jump.

"I'm talking about you and me, Colly. I'm talking about that way that you think you've changed and try to change when all you are is just you!" Jody's voice had been getting louder as she spoke until she shouted the last word. All the energy then seemed to drain out of her as if she had just exorcised a demon.

Calm flowed through Colleen's body. It was really just the same old Jody bullshit. She always had to get all dramatic about things. And Jody was right, it was all bullshit. This was just all a way to get back at her for leaving her behind, wanting the past to come back, even calling her that stupid kids name Colly. It all made sense now.

Colleen relaxed and lowered her gun. She would have dropped it except she was afraid it might go off.

"Jodine, this is the same old thing. You want everything to stay static. Well news flash! Things change. People change!" she added, punching it. "And there is nothing you can do about it."

"Oh no?" Jody asked as she clicked the safety off her gun still pointed at Colleen.

Before she even knew it, the safety on Colleen's gun was clicked off.

Colleen stared dumbly at the gun for a second and thought back to one summer as she was leaving for a week to see her aunt. Jody and her were saying goodbye and Jody had given her a friendly swat through the car window as she was leaving. All week she had been eager to get back and get even, Jody and her had always been like that, competitive, never letting the other get ahead. Or was just Colleen?

Jody heard the echoed click and smiled. Just like when they were kids. She lowered her gun.

"Look at you. You are so programmed in your thinking. 'I'm different, I'm different'. You're the same 11 year old who waited a week to hit me because I touched your shoulder when you left!"

Jody took a breath and insisted "people don't change, and I'm going to make you see that."

Terror was slowly creeping into Colleen's mind. She was no longer sure that Jody wouldn't shoot her, she was going to be shot in her own room. Her own blood painting the walls. Maybe she should just raise her gun and shoot Jody first. That's when the most important question came to Colleen's mind.

"Why did you give me a gun if you want to kill me?"

"Because I don't want to kill you." She explained raising her gun again and casually pointing it at Colleen.

"I want you to kill me."

This time Colleen didn't raise her own gun in answer. She started at Jody in disbelief. When she was finally able to ask why Jody exploded.

"Because I'm fucking tired, okay? I'm tired of life, I'm tired of school, you, home, I'm tired of everything! I just want some peace. I want to die but I cant do it! I've tried," at this Jody ripped her shirt sleeve back to show the raged scars along her writs, going from a straight line from the heel of the hand and down her forearm. "But I cant!"

Colleen numbly thought that she could deal with this. It wasn't like this was the first time she had to deal with suicide. She remembered this guy she had met maybe twice had cut his wrists in his bathtub. It got Colleen thinking about how normal he looked around school and how things could be going on beneath the surface and all that. But then cheerleading tryouts had started and she hadn't had much time to think about it.

Now she had a gun to her face and being asked to kill.

Somehow she didn't think it was quite the same.

In her most rational voice she said, "Jody, I'm not going to kill you."

"Oh I think you are," she said with all assurance as if writ in stone. "But before you do I want you to see that change does not exist."

It slowly trickled into Colleen's mind that this was going to be Jody's last thing. She wanted to do this one last thing because it meant so much to her. Kinda like some really fucked up suicide note.

That's when the idea came to her.

"Why don't we make this a bet then?" she asked.

Totally taken by surprise, Jody could only say, "huh?"

Colleen plunged on. "Remember when we were kids and we would bet on everything? So I bet you that if you convince me there is no change then I'll do it. If you cant, you go home and put the guns away."

For the first time since the guns had appeared Jody felt unsure. She had felt nervous before Colleen came in but that disappeared. Colleen was taking this in a whole new direction that she wasn't prepared for. But this thought of doing something they had done as kids was too much of a draw.

A smile crossed Jody's lips. "Alright, you never did squelch on a bet. But if you lose you gotta put your gun to my head, pull the trigger and blow my brains out."

Colleen hid her nausea well. Why shouldn't she? Its not like she could lose this. "Deal. Now put your gun on the bed."

Alarms went off in Jody's head. "Why?"

"Because I don't want to be accidentally shot while doing this." Colleen stated and put her gun in the middle of the bed.

Slowly, very slowly, Jody did the same.

Colleen kneeled by her side of the bed.

Again, slowly, Jody did the same.