by Kristi Scott
It’s not my imagination. This time the room really does grow silent.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
If I’m ever going to be part of Raven’s world, I’m going to have to prove myself.
Scrap turns to bellow some more to the room about how I’m such a princess I’ll never drink moonshine. His back is turned, blocking my hand from everyone else when I feel the bottle taken out of my palm and replaced by another one. It’s Flip. He winks at me and nods at the bottle. “This one’s not as harsh.”
I smile my thanks and just as Scrap turns back around, I tilt the bottle to my lips and chug it. A few people cheer me on. I don’t stop until I’ve counted to the beat of five. Then, slowly I lower the bottle, lick my lips and without taking my eyes off of Scrap, hand it back to Flip.
A vein in Scrap’s neck pulses as his eyes narrow. Then a small smile spreads across his face. He leans in and whispers in my ear. “You think that proves anything? Let’s up the ante a little and see what happens. You aren’t fooling anyone.”
I ignore him and stand to dance with Flip and Jazz to a song from the Ramones. After the song ends, I fall back on the futon laughing. Where is Raven? I’m feeling really weak and dizzy. I definitely drank way too much. Since I chugged that bottle I’ve also been taking sips on every other bottle passed around. I don’t care. It feels so good to just let loose.
After a few seconds, Scrap sits down beside me. I try to scoot away but he presses his leg against mine and draws a small pouch out of his rucksack. He dumps the contents on the futon beside me — long rubber band. A needle. A spoon and a small tight bundle.
He plops down beside me and lifts his chin. “Want to play with the big kids, do you?”
I stare glassy eyed at him. My head is spinning a little and my hearing seems distorted. Where is Raven?
Flip and Jazz walk over and I feel a surge of relief. They’ll take care of me. They won’t let Scrap harass me. But Scrap gives a low whistle and the couple head over and sit on the other side of him on the futon. I watch, wide-eyed as Scrap ties up Jazz’s arm at the forearm with what looks like the leg of a pair of tights.
Flip sits on the other side of Jazz, rubbing her back. I watch without blinking, everything swimming in and out of focus.
Jazz licks her lips as if she anticipating the drug hitting her system. Scrap hands the tied end of the tights to Flip who holds them as Scrap prepares the needle.
He puts a little piece of what looks like black stuff in a spoon. He dips an eyedropper into a glass of water and dribbles water onto the black stuff. Holding his lighter under the spoon, he shakes it very lightly over the flame. Tiny bubbles form on the watery mix on the spoon.
Flip leans over and plucks the tiny cotton ball off the head of a Q-tip and gently puts it in the water. Scrap hands Flip the spoon very carefully. He takes out a tiny package from the pocket of his flannel shirt. He rips the paper and takes out a syringe. He sticks the needle into the tiny ball of cotton on the spoon. The needle draws liquid up into its base.
Scraps turns toward Jazz, leans over, holding the syringe. Eyebrows scrunched together in concentration, he sticks the needle into her arm and pushes the syringe down slowly and steadily. A look of intense joy blankets Jazz’s face. She leans back into Flip’s chest. He wraps both his arms around her and kisses the top of her head.
“Your turn, princess.” Scrap leans in to my ear and whispers the words.
I shrink away, but then what he says next changes everything.
“You think you’re better than him, do you?”
I sit up and sway dizzily on my knees. I’m so incredibly drunk.
“Lemme go pee.” I rush into the tiny bathroom and close the door, my heart racing. It feels like the small room is rocking as if I’m in an airplane bathroom during turbulence. Closing my eyes makes it worse. Before I know it, I am leaning over, retching into the toilet. I puke until a thin stream of yellow bile is all that comes out and then I retch some more.
Finally, when I’m done, I get some toilet paper wet and wipe my face. I take a dab of toothpaste off the counter and rinse out my mouth and then I look in the mirror, planting my palms on the side of the sink.
In my reflection in the dirty mirror, my cheeks are flushed, my eyes bright. I don’t recognize myself. I squint my eyes at the blurry, spinning face in the mirror. It goes in and out of focus.
The girl in the mirror doesn’t look she nearly died from an eating disorder. She doesn’t look like a girl who scrapes up her pennies to go buy a new shirt at the thrift store. Or a girl who lives in a house in the bad part of town with bars on the windows.
Where is the girl who secretly watched Danielle all these years, not always with love but sometimes with envy—pulsing, sickening jealousy?
That girl is dead.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
When I come out of the bathroom, Scrap is over in the corner talking to someone, so I plop on the futon. I’m so tired all of a sudden, I could sleep right here with all the activity and noise. Within seconds, he’s beside me. I’m so sleepy I can barely take in what he is doing. I watch blurry eyed as he dumps some rubbing alcohol on a cotton swab and swipes at a fancy spoon with a curved handle. He put a tiny bundle of brownish stuff that looks like dirt in the middle of the spoon.
My heart is racing and my mouth is suddenly dry when I try to swallow. The shadows from the candles seem sinister, bouncing around like there is a dirt devil while the air around me feels preternaturally still.
Scrap balances the spoon on the floor carefully and cracks a bottle of water. He sticks the needle into the water and pulls some of it up into the syringe. He gently drips the water onto the heroin in the middle of the spoon. Then he flicks open a plastic red lighter and swirls the flame underneath the spoon.
His brow is furrowed with concentration.
A slight vinegary smell drifts over, mingling with the scent of Raven’s cinnamon scented candles burning in a pile on the small table.
He is now stirring the wet drug mixture on the spoon and then drops a tiny wad of cotton ball into it. He sticks the needle into the middle of the cotton and sucks up the drug.
Meanwhile, Flip is bending over me, tightening a stocking on my arm. His fingers brush the side of my breast as he does so. I try to push him away but my arm won’t move. I try to say “No,” but only a small sound comes out. Flip leans in close and whispers. “You sure about this?”
I try to shake my head no. I try to scream no, but nothing comes out. My eyes widen in panic, but he just smiles at me
“Maybe you want to try X instead? I just took some. It’s not as harsh, just a real mellow happy high.”
I swallow back the bile filling my throat and try to nod but my head won’t move.
“Okay, if you’re sure,” he says and tightens the rubber band, twisting it until the only thing I feel is the blood pulsing in that arm, hot and fierce and throbbing. My blood is pounding loudly in my ears, thumping with my heartbeat. My mouth feels numb and slack like I’ve had a shot of Novocain.
Scrap taps the needle on his own forearm, concentrating and not meeting my eyes.
Jazz lolls her head my way and smiles.
“You’ll be fine. We’ll take care of you,” she says.
The door slams open and Scrap jumps back as Raven’s face appears.
He takes it all in and rushes over to us, knocking the needle out of Scrap’s hand. “What the fuck is going on?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Raven and I are alone on his futon. The candles have burned low. I can move again.
He kicked everyone out hours ago. It took him thirty minutes to calm down.
“I can’t fucking believe he was going to shoot you up? What the fuck is wrong with him?” he said, pacing his small studio.
“I couldn’t move,” I say in a quiet voice, slurring my words. “I wanted them to stop.”
“You have to be really careful. Oogles, they have a high tolerance. They will drink booze-moon
shine and white lightning—that would kill someone else. Don’t touch anything they offer. Promise me?”
I shrug. He leans in and smooth’s my hair back from my forehead. “I have to tell you something.”
It feels like my heart has stopped. I know I’m holding my breath.
Danielle? He knows what happened to her. That’s where he was tonight?
“I’m leaving town at the end of August.”
“What?”
I sit up.
“This place,” he gestures around him. “They’re kicking me out then, plus we always leave town in the winter. We head out in the fall for the Sugar Beat Harvest I told you about. I’m the only one who really has a regular place to stay. Flip and Jazz and Scrap – they all crash on couches and sometimes even in the woods by the lake.”
You can’t leave.
But I don’t say it. I don’t say anything. He watches me for a second and then lies back down and closes his eyes.
August. I have until the end of August to convince him to stay. The clock is ticking. I lean over to the radio and put on The Verve and lean back, my head resting in the crook between his chest and outstretched arm.
“Bitter Sweet Symphony” filters through the room. It makes me happy, sad and hopeful all at once.
When the album is almost over I notice that Raven has fallen asleep beside me. It feels like I spend hours staring at his face, his long eyelashes falling onto his cheekbones even though I know it is only moments. I lean down and kiss his forehead very, very softly. I don’t want him to leave.
Plus, he can’t go yet—he has to help me figure out what happened to Danielle.
The cops have closed her case. Everyone has forgotten about her but him and me. I won’t. I promised her. While she lay in her coffin, dead, I promised her I’d find out what happened and make it right.
I curl up beside him and freeze as he rolls over and wraps his arms around me from behind. I barely breathe, afraid he is going to pull away. I gently take his hand and press it to my mouth, inhaling his scent and kissing it before I tuck it under my arm.
I finally sleep a little bit because when I open my eyes next, a golden ray of sunshine seeps through the one high window. I’m trying to memorize, soak up, this feeling — having Raven’s arms wrapped around me as he sleeps pressed up against me. I dreamily imagine bringing him home and introducing him to my mom. Maybe my mom will turn out to be totally cool about me having a boyfriend and will even let him stay the night at our house sometimes.
I can’t imagine anything much better than falling asleep in his arms like I did this morning. But then I remember what he told me—he’s leaving. I close my eyes. No. He can’t leave. I only just found him.
He stirs and opens one sleepy eye.
“How you feeling?”
“Kind of cruddy physically, but otherwise, good,” I mumble it into his sleeve.
“I’m still so mad about last night,” he says, leaning over and lighting a cigarette. I should’ve never left you alone.”
“Where were you?”
He closes his eyes and shakes his head. “I wanted to surprise you. I had to take the bus over to Tangletown to get it. Some guy on Craig’s List. I had no idea it would take that long.”
He puts something in my hands.
It’s a book. It’s the first edition Salome I told him about that day by the lake.
I stare at it. That’s why he didn’t want me to go with him?
I’m not just some stupid girl. He bought me this book. I grab the back of his head and pull him close, kissing him so long I get dizzy. He pulls back laughing.
“I take it you like it?”
“Love, love, love it!”
A big smile spreads across his face and then his brow furrows and he stands.
He starts to pace. “I should have never left you alone. I thought Flip would have been smarter. Or Jazz. I had no idea they’d brought smack and let that fuck into my place. My place.”
“Did Danielle do heroin? Did she?”
He gives me a sideways glance. “Emily, I swear, if she did, I didn’t know anything about it.”
I have to believe him.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
It’s Friday night and I’ve had a shower and am dressed, ready to go as soon as I hear from Raven. My mom invites me to sit and watch a movie, but I sit in my room waiting for Raven to call or text. I stare at my phone, willing it to ping or ring.
I haven’t seen him all week and his texts were few and far in between. What was going on? A roil of jealousy and insecurity makes my stomach twist.
When I think about how hard he pursued Danielle white-hot jealousy floods through my body. Why isn’t he chasing me? What about me is different than Danielle? Maybe I need to lose some weight. Maybe he liked her body better than mine?
I clean my room again, straightening and fixing everything even though it is already immaculate. I take the picture off my mirror and study it, wondering what Danielle felt like when she was in Raven’s arms. I bet she didn’t sit around waiting for him to call her. She probably went out with another boy or went to a party or something.
But I can only fight back a sob and a rising sense of panic filling my chest. I dig around in my bag for the other picture of Danielle, but remember it’s not there. I only have a few things left of Danielle and that picture is one of them. It makes me want to run and get on the bus and ask the driver if the found the photo. And then I could see Raven, too.
I glance at the clock. It’s getting late and he hasn’t called yet. Friday is our night. Every week, I lie to my mom and say I’m with Curtis. When I see the time — 11 p.m., I realize I can’t leave now. It’s too late. Unless I sneak out, I won’t be able to see Raven again even if he does call.
I fall asleep in my dress on top of my covers.
A few hours later, the chirping of my phone wakes me up.
A text.
From Raven.
Miss you.
I wait for something else—some reason why he didn’t call me tonight. Some explanation or apology. But there is nothing. I clutch the phone to my chest and fall asleep.
The next morning is Saturday. My mom is out of the house early. As soon as the weather heats up, she likes to spend most of her weekends with Sam at the lake. I don’t blame her.
She left me a note. French toast is warming in the oven.
I grab a new trash bag and scoop up all the pieces of French toast but one. I break off a few tiny pieces and then spill a little bit of syrup on them before I put them in the trash can — on top of the broken egg shells and cream container.
Then I grab my bag and head for Uptown.
RAVEN IS WAITING FOR me. He texted me while I was in the shower telling me to bring my suit and meet him at the bench at the lake where he saw me reading Flannery O’Connor. Right by where Danielle drowned. Why? Is he going to finally tell me what happened to her that night?
But when I see him, all thoughts of Danielle disappear. I stop myself from skipping over to him. He grabs my chin and kisses me so hard I forget where I am. I stop myself from asking what he did last night. What if he told me he was with another girl? I won’t be able to stand it. Danielle would never have acted like that — jealous or insecure.
“I want to show you this really cool little beach,” he said after he pulls back. “We call it the Secret Beach.”
I’m still a little breathless and disoriented from his kiss so I only nod.
He takes my hand and tugs me behind him as we go to the head of the tiny path that weaves through the brush to the beach where they found Danielle. I stop, unsure if I can go down there.
He turns, raising one eyebrow.
I close my eyes and swallow. All I can see are blue and red strobe lights flashing on horror stricken faces while two men carry Danielle’s body away in a big black bag.
I tug free and run away.
“Danielle!”
Her name coming out of his mouth makes me freeze for a
split second. She did mean more to him than he told me. I was right. I run, tears and my hair blinding me. He catches me right near the bench and pulls me in close, patting my head. I am stiff in his arms.
He finally realizes this and pulls back, tilting my chin up toward him.
“I’m sorry. I think I have some explaining to do,” he says. He pulls me down on the bench beside him. “I can’t believe I called you that,” He runs his fingers through his hair and then buries his face in his hands. “I’ve been thinking about her all morning.”
I pull back.
“But not for the reasons you think. I need to find out what happened to her, too. Because there is something about that night I didn’t tell you.”
My skin feels icy cold. Did he lie? Did he have something to do with her death?”
“I told you we argued that night, right? Well, what I didn’t tell you was that I broke up with her that night,” he said. “She wanted to take off and go home and I told her it was late that she needed to wait until morning. She curled up beside me, I fell asleep and when I woke she was gone. The next thing I heard of her, she was dead. I can’t help but feel that somehow that was my fault. I should’ve got up and walked her to her car or driven her home or something. She must’ve got up in the night upset and that’s how she died. I think it was my fault.”
I reach out for his hand. “No, it wasn’t your fault. Whatever happened after you fell asleep wasn’t your fault. But I don’t understand? Why did you break up?”
“It was going too fast. And I knew I was leaving town. And now, I’ve met you and I’m still leaving town. God, now I’ve fucked everything up.” He runs his fingers through his hair again as if he is trying to pull it out by the roots. His eyes are wild and darting around not meeting mine.
I try to take in what he is saying. He broke up with Danielle because it was going too fast and he was leaving town and now he’s in the same boat with me? But then fear shoots through me, as well. He broke up with her because he was leaving town.