“Breakfast is seven to ten,” he said. “The pool is open till midnight, but use at your own risk. There’s no lifeguard, and honestly, I’m not sure the last time that thing was cleaned.”
Xavier promised he would pay Sasha back as soon as they got home, but she said not to worry about it. When the front desk kid couldn’t see, she peeled bills off a huge roll of cash.
“Whoa, Nelly . . . ,” Xavier said.
“From my job and Marc,” she said. And Xavier wondered if when she’d originally left she had planned on being gone for much longer. Maybe if he hadn’t gone with her, she’d never have come back at all.
* * *
They climbed a narrow set of stairs. The higher they went, the hotter it got. It was just before noon, but Xavier felt outside of time, and just barely on earth.
Their room was at the end of a hallway. He slipped the key into the lock and turned. The room was small and dim, cheesy and chintzy, but Xavier loved everything about it—the seashell lamp, the aqua walls, the framed blotchy seaside scene. There was only one bed, covered in a thin white duvet and a mountain of pillows. Being alone with Sasha in that room somehow felt more alone than alone in the car, alone in the tent. Sasha sat down on the bed and stared at the wall. He thought of the time when their positions had been switched, him barely functional, Sasha taking care of him.
“Sasha?” Xavier said. He went over to her, stood next to her, unsure what to do with his hands. Where did you go? She turned, looked at him, but did not seem to see him. Please come back.
“I’m so tired,” she said. And she slipped off her shoes and got under the covers. A few minutes later, she was fast asleep.
I drove and drove, following the eensy little bread crumbs from PLACE to PLACE to PLACE, and when the crumbs stopped, I JUST KEPT DRIVING.
Sometimes we texted, me and Ivy/me and “IVY.”
I checked Instagram, looked at more posts she never would have posted. Responded to more texts she NEVER WOULD HAVE WRITTEN. Kept pretending and pretending to think “IVY” was Ivy. I am so good at pretending.
WHAT WILL I FIND WHEN I FINALLY CATCH UP?
I know what I want to BELIEVE, but it is DANGEROUS to WANT to believe a thing, because then your DUMB STUPID IDIOT BRAIN finds things to make the thing you want to be true look true EVEN IF IT ISN’T. If you were a LITTLE FISHY living in the BIG OCEAN and your GREATEST WISH was to be EATEN BY A SHARK, well even a tired octopus would start to look VERY SHARKY to you. EVENTUALLY you’d see those TENTACLE SUCKERS, and they’d look like TEETH, they’d look like SHARP SHARK TEETH. If you know what I’m saying.
So I DROVE and DROVE and told my brain SHUT RIGHT UP, YOU ARE NOT WELCOME HERE.
HOPE WILL KILL YOU, that much I know.
But other things will kill you faster.
Xavier
Sasha slept and slept, flat on her back, lips slightly parted. She looked like a character from a fairy tale, someone under a spell. Pale sunlight filtered through the windows right onto her face, but she did not stir. Xavier watched her, then decided it was creepy to watch someone sleep, so he forced himself to turn away. When he turned back, the sun had gone behind a cloud and the light in the room was dim. For a moment, his heart pounded. She was so still, she looked dead.
Xavier shook his head.
He had to get out of that room, he decided. He was going a little crazy. Xavier went downstairs. There was no one there. He heard the binging and pinging of a handheld video game coming from a room off the side of the front desk, but that was it. He sat in a chair in the lobby and read an old water-wrinkled magazine about sailboats and a catalog for above-ground swimming pools. He stared at the huge plate-glass window facing the street, at the backs of the gold and blue letters, at the fake palm tree, at the fake flower arrangements. Across the empty parking lot and across the freeway were a convenience store and a gas station. Xavier walked outside. He was hungry. He bought a tiny little pizza that was spinning slowly in a heated case next to two very shiny hot dogs. He bought a large orange soda. He searched for a present for Sasha, something fun for when she woke up. There were bags of shark-shaped gummies and he got one. He imagined opening up the bag and lining the gummies up on the window. Xavier imagined her smiling when she saw them. Sasha, watch out! Shark attack!! is what he’d say.
She was still asleep when Xavier got back.
He went downstairs and ate in the lobby, sitting on a very scratchy chair. The guy at the front desk was back now, talking on the phone to someone with very bad reception, he was saying, “Not bloated—LOA-DED. I said it is LOA-DED.” Xavier sort of wished he had his own phone with him.
More hours passed. He sat and he waited and he wondered if he would tell Sasha the truth when she woke up. He closed his eyes and tried to imagine doing so, but it seemed impossible.
Xavier climbed those hot stairs again. It was late afternoon now. He tried to be as quiet as he could, but when he opened the door, Sasha opened her eyes.
She sat up, moving in slow motion like she was underwater. “What time is it?” she said. Her voice was thick with sleep. She rubbed her eyes.
“Four fifteen,” Xavier said. “You snoozed for a really long time. You seemed like you needed it.”
She swallowed, then looked blankly around the room.
“There’s a convenience store across the street, pretty decent food if you like E. coli on your pizza. . . .”
Xavier stopped and stared at her. Even like that, hair in her face, eyes puffy, lips dry, she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. He took a breath. It wasn’t the right time to tell her, he knew that. But what if there was no such thing as the right time? What if the part of him that told him there was, was the same as the part of him that kept him from figuring out how he felt in the first place, that kept him from kissing her those times he wanted to/could have/should have?
Telling her would change things. But maybe that was okay.
Ignore your sweaty hands, ignore your dry mouth, the pounding of your desperate heart.
“Sasha, listen. I know this is going to sound like it’s coming out of nowhere. Or maybe it won’t. Or maybe it will sound crazy. . . .” The words fell out of his mouth without waiting for him to even think them. “Maybe you already know what I’m about to say, but . . . We’ve been friends for a while and during that time I was so preoccupied with . . .” But no, he didn’t want to mention Ivy at all, not now. He felt his face growing hot. He forced himself to look up at her. He had to be brave. She deserved for him to be brave. “I feel like maybe . . .” Say it. Say it. JUST SAY IT.
“Xavier.”
Sasha was staring back at him, eyes wide, entirely unreadable. Was that excitement? Hope? Happiness? Horror? Did she know what he was about to say? She must know. She knew. Xavier couldn’t breathe.
“Xavier,” she said again. She stood up from the bed, walked toward him, looking at him like she’d never seen him before in her life. Did she want him to say it or was she trying to stop him?
She had the strangest expression on her face, and Xavier had no idea what it meant.
“Can I . . . kiss you?” He heard the words as he said them.
She just stayed there blinking, like she could not understand what he was saying. She opened her mouth and then snapped it shut.
“I’m sorry,” Xavier said. “I don’t mean to make things weird. . . .”
She stared at him and slowly nodded.
“You’re sure?” Xavier said.
She nodded again.
And he knew then that she was just scared, too, scared the way he had been for so long.
“There is nothing to be afraid of,” Xavier told her. “I promise.”
Their lips were five feet apart, four feet, three feet, two feet, one foot, one inch. Xavier paused.
This is actually happening, Xavier told himself. Don’t ever forget this moment.
And then he kissed her.
There they were, lips against lips, his body was on fire.
“Is this okay?” Xavier said.
She pulled back a few inches, just enough to look him in the eye. And she seemed for a second unsure, but she said, “Yes. I’ve wanted this for so long.” And then they were kissing again, fast and hard, desperate and urgent, like this was their one chance, like they were running out of time.
I was sitting in the car in the parking lot of a GODDAMN MCDONALD’S, and I was holding my lucky penny that I got at a PENNY-SQUISHING MACHINE at a REST STOP and STARING at it, and what I was thinking was MAYBE IT IS BROKEN, because it is TOO GODDAMN HOT here in this car far from home in this HOT PLACE where I had never even been before and did not think I would like to go again.
Maybe my penny stopped working or maybe the luck has drained RIGHT OUT OF IT, because of the HEAT and the SWEAT, and oh, I am only kidding. I DID NOT BELIEVE IN MY LUCKY PENNY, ANYWAY.
“IVY” had not posted in MANY, MANY HOURS, and “IVY” had not written me back EITHER. And it occurred to me then, WHAT IF THIS IVY JUST DISAPPEARS. What if “IVY” STOPS WRITING BACK ENTIRELY, the way she always USED TO DO, which I hated the VERY MOST? The problem was, in the past when Ivy vanished, I knew she’d always come back. And this time, well, THIS TIME I COULD NOT SAY THAT. I looked at my phone, LOOKED and LOOKED and LOOKED, and then went to Instagram and pulled that little wall of photos down and released it JUST IN CASE there was a new one since the last time I checked one-and-one-half minutes before. BUT THERE WERE NO NEW ONES. PULL and RELEASE and PULL and RELEASE. But NOTHNG WAS HAPPENING AND I WAS NOT FEELING VERY GOOD. I was feeling VERY BAD ACTUALLY, if you want to know the truth.
I told myself to CALM DOWN. I told myself to TAKE A BREATH. I even said these things OUT LOUD to myself in the CAR in the MCDONALD’S PARKING LOT, which should give you some idea of how bad it had gotten.
I WAITED AND WAITED AND WAITED. My stomach was twisting around like it was full of WORMS and SNAKES. I looked at that AWFUL LAST PICTURE that helped me NOT AT ALL. A shiny table, blue plastic flowers, a chipped white vase. The flowers were worse than dead. THEY WERE NEVER EVEN ALIVE. I stared at the picture and stared at it. It wasn’t even CAPTIONED. It was just THERE. There was no GEO-TAG, and Ivy had stopped answering my TEXTS. WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK? THIS WOULD NOT HELP ME AT ALL.
So I forced myself to look at the pictures that were already there to pass the time: the gummy peaches in Georgia, the coffee in South Carolina, the rest stops, and the ice-cream cones. Some of these things, they could have been from her. They really could have been. Ivy LOVED gummies. I LOVE TO CHEW, she said once. MY ANIMAL BRAIN thinks if I’m CHEWING this much, I must be eating an ANIMAL I HUNTED and KILLED, and it is rewarding me for it. But Ivy thought meat was mean . . . one of the few, maybe the VERY ONLY things that Ivy did to be nice was not eat meat. GUMMIES HAVE GELATIN, I told her once when I was mad at her for a reason I cannot even remember, but I am sure it was very valid. THEY ARE NOT VEGETARIAN. She shrugged. I’M NOT A VEGETARIAN, I JUST DON’T EAT ANYTHING THAT MAKES ME FEEL GUILTY. AND I FEEL FINE EATING THESE. I FEEL GREAT. It was perfect Ivy logic. So messed up that you almost had to respect it. ALMOST.
Xavier
Her hands were moving up under the back of his shirt, their clothes were coming off piece by piece in that warm, dim room. Then Xavier’s shirt was on the floor and hers was, too, and they were pressed together, and her skin was so warm, and they tumbled onto the bed. Xavier was on top, he pushed himself up on one arm to look at her. Her eyes were closed. His heart squeezed in his chest. It seemed to him that perhaps his entire life had been building toward this moment, of him in bed with Sasha, his favorite person, who as it turned out was exactly what he’d always been looking for. He felt his lips curve into a smile. Her eyes were still closed.
“This is so . . . ,” he said. But he couldn’t even finish.
This was what?
This was everything.
He didn’t want to rush it. He wanted to remember every second.
He ran his fingers over her lower lip and across her jaw, traced the curve of her collarbone with his thumb.
He looked at that locket around her neck, at the bronze chain against her smooth skin, and felt a wave of tenderness. It was the one her grandmother had given her, the one she always wore. He thought about how tender and tough Sasha was. How much she cared about the people she loved. He reached out to stroke it, ran his fingers gently across her throat, wrapped his fingers softly around her neck, and leaned down to kiss her.
Sasha’s eyes popped open. She sat up, her face frozen in a mask of pure horror.
“Oh my god,” she whispered. “What the fuck am I doing?”
Xavier’s stomach twisted. What was happening?
“I can’t. Not after everything.”
She got out of bed and started gathering up her clothes. She pulled her tank top over her head, pulled her shorts up her legs, shoved her feet into her shoes.
“Sasha, please. You have to tell me what’s happening. Don’t run away again! Is it because of Steph? Is this because of . . .”
But he didn’t even get to finish his question. She was already out the door.
Sasha
Out in the hot, empty parking lot, hands on knees, gut punched, bent over heaving, ragged raw. That was how it happened, that was how I got back into my body, gasping for air, finding nothing. Those blue hairs, Xavier’s hairs—I could feel them now, sliding from my stomach, uncurling, skinny blue snakes crawling up.
I gagged.
I raised my hand to my throat.
Choked.
There was the truth. I could not hide from it. I could not run from it. I could not imagine it away.
I thought of Xavier back there in the hotel room, his skin smooth and warm, body pressed against mine. At first, I’d felt nothing at all. . . .
His fingers around my throat, that’s what finally broke me.
Just like what broke Ivy.
What did he do?
What have I done?
I’d been running on pure adrenaline, pure terror, no sleep, outside of my body. And then the thing I’d desperately wanted for so long started happening. But it wasn’t what I wanted at all. Not anymore. The shell I’d built around myself broke open and everything came out:
Xavier killed Ivy.
And I covered it up.
I gagged again, spit up sour bile. And then I started to run. My feet pounded the ground as the sun went down. I could feel the heat of the day coming up from the road. Headlights flipped on. Horns honked. Thoughts exploded in my brain like firecrackers.
All along I’d been trying so hard to protect him, to protect him from the consequences of what he’d done, protect him even from the knowledge of it. But why?
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.
What made what he did somehow okay? Because he was my friend? Because he was a “nice guy”? Because he was messed up when he did it? Because I was in love with him?
I thought of times I’d heard of someone offering excuses where there were none. The girl in the article defending her rapist friend because his victim was drunk, the mother of the boy at school who hit his girlfriend saying relationships are complicated, the murderer’s father on the news claiming his son was just a naive kid who made a mistake.
And in that moment, I understood something:
The faraway monster always looks different than the monster in front of you, in your arms, in your heart. When someone you cherish does something incomprehensible, you will find reasons to decide they are the exception. You will cling to the details, tell yourself, but this is different. But it never is.
No one thinks the people they love are monsters. Because love is the biggest liar of all.
I closed my eyes and felt the weight of her in my arms, felt the damp fabric of her sweatshirt as I packed it full of rocks.
Holy fuck. I was losing my mind.
Maybe I’d already lost it. Maybe I’d lost it when I took Xavier’s hairs and swallowed them down, or before that, in the woods along
with my necklace. Maybe I’d lost it at Sloe Joe’s the moment Ivy came in, tiny and wiry and so alive on the day I was about to tell Xavier the truth.
Xavier killed Ivy.
And I put her body in a lake.
And there was no taking it back.
You can just never take anything back.
The pavement under me shifted. My hands slammed into the blacktop, tiny rocks jammed into my palms. I stayed like that, hands and knees pressed to the road.
I closed my eyes tight. The whole time I was worried about what would happen when he finally found out Ivy was dead. Or if he ever understood what he’d done.
What I wasn’t counting on was this: how I’d feel when I faced it myself.
What the fuck was I going to do now?
When I was a kid I used to try and melt ice with my EYES. I would take a cube out and put it on the table. I would STARE and STARE and STARE and pretend that my eyes were shooting LASERS that would turn the ICE into WATER. And do you know what?
IT WORKED.
Now maybe you will say, BUT IT WOULD HAVE TURNED TO WATER, ANYWAY. THAT IS what ice DOES, it MELTS. Well, I will say, WHAT ARE YOU an ICE PROFESSOR? You can CHANGE things just by LOOKING at them is my point. And THAT is what happened that day in the car with that dumb picture that looked like nothing at all, LESS than nothing. WORSE than nothing. Because then suddenly it was everything.
Bad Girls with Perfect Faces Page 14