Green leash

This is a fairly recent story.
I've been friends with Alex since our freshman year, all the way to the end, which is more than can be said for a lot of people. She dropped out after the first semester, and I was sad because when you get used to someone being there, always being there everyday life's just not the same and it's really not the same because after the parties and the drinking, it's just not same thing. After she left, our lives were completely different. She joined the AirForce, then didn't finish basic, then went to work in Hannaford, fell in love with John, moved to Washington state when he joined the Army and moved back to Maine all in the course of three years or so. I went to Spain to study abroad and then to California for the summer and it had been 8 months since I'd seen Alex. For my one day off during Resident Assistant training at school, Alex invited me to stay at her parent's house near Mount Desert, because they were gone and why not spend the day at a big house?
We drove down and sat outside for a few minutes, just thinking about life and why couldn't we just be like we were years ago? "Why don't we take the dog for a walk?" I asked, because I wanted something, some type of normalacy and I wanted to believe we could get it back, whatever "it" was. Alex turned and looked at me. "Okay, but we need to find her leash first." I didn't think so, I didn't think we needed a leash for this old dog who wouldn't run anywhere anyhow. "No, come on, help me look for the leash," said Alex. So, I go over to the closet and walk past the bookshelf and see a book by Rebecca Walker, Alice's daughter, about growing up Black, White and Jewish. I start looking at it, wondering if I'll ever finally write my book about growing up black and adopted. It won't be as good as hers for sure. I browse through the bookshelf and find some poetry books. "Yeah, those are my mom's books, she used to be an English teacher." I recognize some poets I know. There's Emily Dickenson, who was a loner, Dylan Thomas, whose name I share, and Sylvia Plath who loved to be sad. "You know she was married to Ted Warren, right and he was famous but then she sticks her head in the oven and kills herself and know everyone knows her. Is that right, is it fair?" Alex looks at me. "Yeah, but they don't know her because she stuck her head in the oven. That's not why they know her. " I look at her and I think how unoriginal, how stupid it is to kill oneself by putting their head in the fucking oven. It kills me. "I'm thinking I want to commit suicide, to kill myself. Everyone thinks its selfish, but there's too many people anyways," said Alex. I didn't want to hear it, so I suggested that we keep looking for the leash. I come across a book on American erotica, and I open the book and begin reading it. "He placed his hand on her chest and slowly began rubbing her breasts. He moved his hand down and searched for that spot...." It was something like that. "Can you believe how dirty this is? How can someone write this type of thing in a book and actually sell it and make money? I'm interested and surprised and it makes me want a man and whiskey all at the same time. Lucky for me, I get half of that, the bottle of whiskey that Alex's friend Tom bought for us, lying on the table. Alex pulls out her shot glass and pours me some, complete with a lemonade chaser. It's Jim Bean, classy, tasty and enough to give a buzz. But it's not enough, because something seems off and I can't stand it. "So what's new with you?" I casually ask, because I'm someone who likes to kow the details. She looked at me and kind of shrugged. "Well, you know I was pregnant, right?" I knew back in May she thought she might be, and then she was bleeding and I thought that was the end of that. "Yeah, I was five months, like I was supposed to be due November 17th." "So what happened?" I asked, even though I knew and didn't want to hear it. "I got an abortion." I couldn't look at her, because I didn't trust myself to portray a nice smile. "Why'd you do that dude?" I knew one of these days Alex was going to get pregnant. For years she'd been haivng unprotected sex and I knew it would catch up to her. But I imagined I would be like an aunt for her kids, babysitting and whatnot. It wasn't supposed to be like this. "I wasn't ready for a baby, so what else was I supposed to do? So, they stuck a needle in my stomach and the baby comes out, but I was on drugs so I didn't really feel anything, but then I saw the baby and it was-" "What was it? A boy or a girl?" "A boy." I started crying then, because she was my best friend and I couldn't let my friend go through that. "You did it because you thought you were alone, but I dont ever want you to think that you're alone, because I was here for you. I'm still here for you." Alex didn't really look at me, but I knew she heard me because she said "I know that, but it's not even about that. My John is in Iraq and I didn't want to take care of a baby." I'm pro-choice, even though they all think I shouldn't be because I was adopted and I'm supposed to encourage women to have their babies. But I don't like babies and I don't care about other women, I just care about my friend and I didn't want my friend to go through stuff like that. "I want to find that goddamn leash." I said, because I couldn't say anything else and I had finally stopped crying. We both looked in the closet and still couldn't find it. "I'm not having sex because I'm afraid of getting pregnant." I blurted this out to Alex. "Well, then geez, just use condoms. Like I didn't use condoms, because I didn't think I could get pregnant." "I'm going to get knocked up just like my birthmother and I'm going to be screwed." Everyone thought I was weird for being a virgin and not having sex for so long, but Alex never judged me and never said a thing. "It's up to you, you know, I'm jealous, I wish I was a virgin again." I laughed. "That's because you're a ho." "You're a skank." "You're a slut". "You're a bitch." We continued on. It doesn't get old. I checked the kitchen for the leash and it wasn't there. "You know, I'm going to call my mom and ask." So Alex called her mom, who said the leash was in the back room, and it was right there, just were she said. She we grabbed it, put the shot glass down and that was it. If we had done that earlier, like anyone else, it would have been easy. But maybe life isn't so fun if it's really easy.