by Michelle Ray
“B, it’s okay.”
“It’s not okay, Ben.” She covered her face again and I wondered what was freaking her out so much — that her mother had been mere feet away or that she lost control? God, for a few seconds, it had been incredible.
I realized that talking was a lost cause, so I got up, grabbed my shirt, and hung the towel back in the bathroom. I looked at myself in the mirror and shook my head before splashing water on my face. I couldn’t go back out there for a minute or two, so I leaned against the counter and thought of my grandmother’s dentures and the list of physics vocabulary I’d memorized for last week’s test. Anything but B and her body pressing down on me.
When my pulse had slowed and my thoughts were cleaner, I walked out and found her in the same spot. “B, you should go running. It always makes you feel better. You want me to come? With you, I mean.”
“You just showered.”
“I can shower again.” With her would be nice. Getting sweaty a different way would be even better. Yeah, I needed to get out and move. “Hang on a second.” I changed in the bathroom and headed for the door.”
“Wait!” she whispered. “She could still be in the hall.”
I crept to the door and opened it a crack. “All clear. B,” I said, grasping her arm as she tried to pass. “Relax. Come here.” I kissed her lightly on her left temple. She stiffened, and I thought she would push me away, but then she turned her face and kissed me softly, so softly, on the lips that I wished we could go back inside and forget about funerals and videos and friends and parents.
John Crotalus Tahiti rocks. Wish you were here. But only if you’re hot and female.
Beatriz
The funeral was in the afternoon, and the thought of it made me sick. I didn’t want to go. I did not want to go! I didn’t want any part of it. Hope was too young and this shouldn’t have happened and I didn’t want to be a big girl who did her duty. But I was too old for tantrums and too responsible to back out.
After our run, Ben had gone to shower again (oh, to think of him wet and shirtless and just across the hall!) and I stopped in my room and let Antonio tell me my mom was looking for me.
“Mija,” she said when I got to her room, as if there hadn’t been tension between us, “I need you to help me pick an outfit for Hope.” My stomach dropped. On the bed were two dresses I’d never seen. “I bought them yesterday and I don’t know which to use.”
“Is it going to be open casket?” I asked with dread.
“Yes. So this needs to be perfect.”
Perfect? For a funeral? Who were we trying to impress?
There was a pink one and a black one. I hated them both. “Black, I guess.”
“It’s not too depressing?”
“Mamá, it’s a funeral.”
“But still.” She bit her lip. I put a hand on her elbow and she pulled me into a hug. “You keep safe, okay? If something happened to you, I don’t know what I’d do.”
I squeezed her a little harder.
Ben
I was getting good at helping B, and she seemed to trust me, to need me, which was cool. But I worried that it would all go away once she found out that I knew about that video.
No, she’d understand.
Maybe.
• • •
Too soon, we were at the funeral home with the scent of sickeningly sweet flowers filling the air, and the casket, shiny and black, its lid open, beckoning me to look, though I didn’t plan to. The satin pink lining kept catching my attention, daring me to step forward. To see Hope lying there. I wouldn’t. I couldn’t. I didn’t want to see her dead.
Lots of people showed up. Kids I guessed Hope knew from her old life. Their parents, looking grim and reaching out to touch them every so often, like that bond could protect them from a fate like Hope’s. Marines, whose dress uniforms made everyone’s heads turn, and who trickled up to Hope’s mom to offer brief words and to look in the casket, then shake their heads. The crowd swelled until there was little space to move.
And then Clay walked in. I literally did a double take, sure he wouldn’t be stupid enough to show up, but there he was standing uncomfortably in the doorway of the nearly full chapel. Once I realized it was him, I had to think quick. I would get to him fast, not letting Coach or B or anyone else see him.
I backed away from B, who was hugging her Aunt Cassie, and hustled over.
“What are you doing here?” I asked him.
“I had to come,” he said looking younger than usual. Lost.
“Get out of here,” I insisted, feeling defensive of B and worried for him all at once.
“Not until I tell Hope’s dad I’m sorry.”
“Seriously, man, that’s a bad idea.” Clay didn’t back off, so I reached out and curled my fingers around Clay’s shirt.
“Is there a problem, gentlemen?” A funeral home worker was raising his eyebrows.
I let go and said, “No sir. This guy was just leaving.”
“No, I’m not. I have to see Coach.”
“Are you crazy?”
Clay’s eyes went wide as he looked over my shoulder. My arms didn’t react in time to stop Leonardo from hurtling himself at Clay and punching him full force in the face. Clay fell to the ground and Leonardo straddled him, all of his weight came down with each blow that followed. At first, Clay tried to protect himself, but then something changed and he gave up, like he was accepting each punch as his punishment. I grabbed at Coach’s shirt, trying to pull him off but only managed to break Leonardo’s rhythm before he was able to land another blow, one that was followed by a gush of blood from Clay’s nose.
B’s screaming caught my ear above the rest of the commotion. I saw her pushing through the crowd and I tried to stop Coach again, but Leonardo hit Clay hard enough that the skin over his cheekbone split. I dove into Leonardo’s shoulder, knocking us both onto the cheap carpeting. We scrabbled up.
“Coach,” I shouted, “cut it out!”
Leonardo clocked me, and it felt like something exploded inside my head. I stumbled back, unable to see.
Beatriz
Ben fell into me, but before I could see how bad he’d been hurt, he was moving to get to my uncle who was kicking Clay wildly. Soldiers and civilians tried to pull Leonardo away, but the adrenaline and pure hate seemed more powerful than anything else.
Finally two uniformed officers took hold of Leonardo and yanked him to the ground, their knees in his back. I was horrified and relieved. Leonardo struggled and shouted. Someone was calling for an ambulance and someone else for the police.
Ben hovered over Clay holding his own face. “Are you okay?”
Clay groaned, his face covered with blood. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from — his nose, his cheek, his mouth? I looked at this kid who used to be my friend and who two minutes ago I hated with my whole being. Now I felt weak-legged with sorrow and wanted to make it all go away.
People were jostling and shouting, but when I touched Ben’s shoulder, it was as if the rest of the world had gone dark and we were in a small bubble of light. I stroked his bruised face and he put his head on my shoulder.
Ben
I don’t know why, but the shock and the pain hit me all at once and I needed to block it out and smell her neck and be calmed by her hands. I really thought Coach was gonna kill Clay and I wouldn’t be able to stop him. Seeing my friend — my stupid, naïve, reckless, overly emotional friend — being hammered on like that . . . by an adult . . . it made me doubt the order of things.
Out of seemingly nowhere, a paramedic placed an icepack in my hand. I looked up to thank her and saw a gurney snap up to waist height and begin to roll with Clay on it.
“I’m coming with him,” I announced without thinking.
B grabbed my hand, and I thought she would tell me to stay, but she was moving with me.
Beatriz
I followed Ben, leaving the funeral. Part of me knew it was stupid. Part of me didn’t care. I wanted
to get away from everything. My uncle. The crying. The reality of it all. And I had to see Clay. To know that he was okay even though I was furious with him. More than anything, though, when my uncle hit Ben something in me snapped. Ben being okay was suddenly more important than anything else.
Ben
At the hospital, even though I told everyone I was fine, they wanted me to see a doctor. The waxy paper crinkled under me on the examination table as I shifted to check my face in the mirror across the room. My cheek was swollen and purple. Christ, Coach was strong. I couldn’t imagine how bad off Clay must be, and considered leaving the room to find out what I could. But I didn’t. I lay down and put the icepack against my throbbing cheek.
Beatriz
The doctor cleared Ben and showed us where Clay was being stitched up. His face looked like someone had taken a mallet to it.
Apparently, a police officer had taken a statement, but Clay had said he didn’t want to press charges. I wasn’t sure if I thought that was right. Why should my uncle get away with pummeling Clay? But why should Clay get away with killing my cousin? No, he didn’t kill Hope. He just set the whole mess in motion.
“My mom’s gonna freak out,” Clay said to Ben as we walked out of the room. His words were a little garbled since he jaw was swollen and his lip was split.
“You gonna tell her what happened?”
“No way. I’ll just tell her it was a skiing accident. She thinks that’s where I am.”
Ben asked, “Want me to get you to the airport?”
Clay nodded.
“I’ll drive,” I said, and they looked at me with unmasked surprise. I shrugged, not feeling like explaining how oddly responsible I felt for what my uncle did and how much I didn’t want to go to the cemetery (the service had to be over by now) or to the reception.
I zipped up my coat, and when I went to put my hand in my pocket, my fingers touched a copy of The Little Prince, which my aunt had given me.
At the funeral home, before the mourners had arrived, my Aunt Cassie had said, “It was Hope’s favorite book. I brought it to bury with her, but you ought to have it instead. No need for it to go under the ground along with—” and she’d started to cry, which made my mother cry, which made me cry. It was all so awful.
My phone vibrated in my other pocket. It had been vibrating for an hour. My parents, my brother, my aunt. Everyone wanted to know where I was. I ignored all calls.
“You’re gonna have to answer at some point,” Ben said, but I ignored that, too.
No one talked much until the airport. We dropped Clay at arrivals, and Ben asked Clay, “Are you gonna be okay?”
“Should be, as long as they let me on like this,” he said gesturing to his face. His bruises had deepened to an angry purplish-blue, and his nose was swollen, exaggerating the cut across the bridge of it. When he got out of the car, he winced and held his ribs.
“Maybe some hot flight attendant will try to make you feel better,” offered Ben.
“Yeah, right,” Clay said, blushing a little and pushing his black hair off of his bandaged forehead. “Have a safe drive. And, um, thanks. Sorry I messed everything up.”
He walked away, and Ben said to me, “Where now?”
I thought about it for a fraction of a second. “Open road.”
Ben
The plan all along was to drive home from the funeral. Before we left LA, B had announced to her parents, “I have to get my car back, so I was thinking . . . Ben wants to drive back from Rhode Island with me.”
Her mother had exploded, “Absolutely not!”
“I can’t drive alone.”
“Then we’ll ship the car.”
“Shipping could take a month. I heard them tell you that on the phone. Besides, I’ve never seen the middle of the country and — and I need this, Mamá. I need to be away from — from everything. And Ben and I will drive straight through. We’ll be back in four or five days.”
“You think we’re going to let you be alone together for that long when even a few hours has been off limits?”
I thought she had a point, but B squared off with her mother. “If we really wanted to, we could have snuck off half a dozen times today or any other day, actually, and had sex, but we didn’t. We won’t. And if we decide to at some point, believe me when I say I won’t be letting you know about it. Now, neither of you can take the trip easily, and I have nothing but time. I want this.”
Her mother shouted, “Who cares what you want?”
“Amor,” her father had pulled his wife back, saying, “maybe we should talk about this.” They left the room, but we could still hear very word. “You’ve seen how he’s been with her the past few days. He’s a good kid.”
“You want to throw our daughter in the way of sin? Fine. But I won’t give my blessing.” She stormed upstairs and even from that great distance, we could hear the door slam.
Mr. Rojas looked like he might follow her to continue the argument, but he simply sighed. “Ben, are your parents okay with this?”
“‘Okay’ would be stretching it, but my mother agreed.”
Mr. Rojas worked his mouth around for a while and gave me an “I hate to go against my wife” mixed with an “I’ll kill you if you deflower my daughter” look.
So I’d figured that we’d leave after the funeral and there would be more warnings and even a fight. I couldn’t believe B was going to take off like this and skip the rest of the funeral, but I wasn’t arguing. She texted her brother and then shut off her phone.
We grabbed our bags from the hotel and headed for the highway. I brought up going to Graceland, but B said she wouldn’t feel right goofing on Elvis with all that had happened. We drove until dinner and stopped for pizza that tasted like white bread and ketchup with Styrofoam melted on top. I still ate a ton.
“I thought my uncle was going to kill Clay,” was the only thing she said during the meal.
“So did I.”
It had been haunting me all afternoon. The blood. The rage. The powerlessness. I wasn’t sure how I could go back to the team after this. If there was a team anymore.
B cried on and off during the ride, and kept reading The Little Prince, which I’d never told her was one of my favorites. I’d seen her Aunt Cassie hand it to her, but B hadn’t said anything more about it.
We checked into separate rooms at a motel somewhere outside of Columbus and sat together for a while in my room joylessly watching a movie about Greek (or was it Roman?) soldiers slaughtering each other. B fell asleep in the middle and shambled off to her room before it ended. I didn’t get it. Back home, she was energetic enough to finish with her extra-curriculars, to do hours of homework, and still be awake enough to read or mess around online until her parents insisted she turn off the lights. But in the last few days, she had been so different. I guess it made sense. Her mind needed to escape. But why not escape with me?
Beatriz
I wanted to turn on my phone but I was afraid. I knew my parents were going to be furious. But I didn’t want to change what I was doing, and I didn’t want to hear how disappointed they were in me. Every time I thought about ditching the funeral, my stomach hurt.
Looking for pajamas, I unzipped a new pocket in my bag, and my fingers bumped a sharp corner. When I pulled the unfamiliar package out, I saw that it was a pack of condoms with a sticky-note attached that read:
Merry Christmas!
Hide this box better, you numbskull.
With love,
Your Evil Twin
Suddenly alert, I was tempted to call Antonio and curse him out. Or thank him. Or both. And then I was giggling because it was too insane that my brother did this. What if airport security had pulled it out in front of an entire line of strangers? Or Ben? Or what if my parents had tried shoving something in my bag and found it? But it was pretty funny, and I stepped to the door, ready to tell Ben about it. Then I thought twice about walking to him with contraception, even meant as a joke.
•
• •
The next morning, even the checkout desk of the trashy motel was buzzing with holiday cheer. Once in the car, armed with coffee and donuts, I was chattier than the day before and Ben started to relax a little. I put on some 80s music and asked about Ben’s family. Before I knew it, we were telling funny stories about birthday party mishaps and grandparents’ foolishness and trips where things got lost or planes were missed. Light, breezy, getting-to-know-you-even-better kind of stuff.
Around nine that night, we stopped for gas and went into the shop to find the bathrooms. When I came out, Ben told me to close my eyes and hold out my hands. I was a little nervous, but did it, hoping it wasn’t a trick. When I opened my eyes, I saw a pair of orange sparkly sunglasses.
He explained, “My family does Christmas Eve gifts. With everything going on, I didn’t think of the date, and I didn’t have anything to wrap this, but . . . I noticed you squinting for the past two days.”
It was the awesomest, ugliest Christmas present I’d ever gotten. “I thought my sunglasses were in my car, but I guess they’re in my book bag. Thanks. This is so . . .” I couldn’t think of the right words so I kissed him and told him to go get a drink while I looked around for something for him. The tacky possibilities were endless. Oklahoma mugs. Snowglobes. Shot glasses. Chewing tobacco. And then I saw the Sooners bobblehead, especially absurd because it was in the shape of a covered wagon and not an actual head.
“I know you like football, and I thought you could put this on your dashboard and remember this weird trip.”
Ben tapped it and the wagon went up and down, up and down. “That’s awful. I love it.” He puts his arms around me, wished me a Merry Christmas, and suggested we find somewhere to stay for the night.