“It’s because they were touching. You told me yourself. Last night, they sat close and watched a movie. This morning, when you found them sleeping, they were holding hands.”
While Dr. Deng’s face is excited and determined, Indranie’s face churns with worry. She doesn’t look like herself.
“But Rey was feeling better before last night. They weren’t holding hands before then.”
Dr. Deng laughs a sarcastic sound. “Is that what you think? I’m not so sure. I have an idea that these two have been getting close under your nose.”
If Indranie is surprised, she hides it. “The protocol for phase one explicitly sets the distance between participants at a minimum of seventy-five feet. That’s why Marisol stays in the carriage house. We haven’t even completed the first week.”
“Where’s Rey?” My voice trembles, and my hands twitch on the blanket. I still feel half frozen.
“Don’t talk to me about the protocol—I wrote it! I know what it is and isn’t supposed to do. Besides, the test with the soldier proved that it would work at closer range. We have a responsibility to take advantage of whatever opportunity comes out of the trial.”
“That’s not how any of this is supposed to work!” Indranie shouts.
I have an overwhelming fear so strong that it is almost enough to get me out of bed. I see Rey flying off the balcony. I see her body smashing into the ground. See her eyes open and unblinking like the girl at the concert. I feel a boot crush my hand at a concert, smoke choking me. But that isn’t real. At least it isn’t real for me.
“Where’s Rey? Where is she?” I thought I was shouting, but the sound that comes back to me is weak. At least it’s enough to get their attention.
“She’s fine, honey,” Indranie says, patting my hand. Dr. Deng lets a smile cover his face. I think of the kids’ song “La Víbora de la Mar,” the sea snake. That’s what he looks like.
I struggle to get up. It’s so much harder than it should be.
“Shhh. It’s okay. Lie back down, Marisol.” Indranie pushes me gently into bed and pulls the covers around me.
My every heartbeat is fear, first for Rey, then for Gabi, and I don’t have time to be ashamed that my sister is not first.
“Where’s Gabi?”
“She’s outside. She’s fine.”
“Where’s Rey?” I ask again. “Is she really okay?” These two can be lying to me, and I would never know.
Their worried expressions mirror each other.
“Rey is doing great,” Dr. Deng says.
“I want to see her. Them. I want to see them.”
Indranie helps me stand, holding on to me because my legs tremble from the effort. She walks me across the room until, finally, I drop into a chair by the window. Indranie pulls a blanket off the bed to put around me. It doesn’t matter. I can’t stop shivering.
I watch my sister and Rey from the window as they play a made-up game—part chase, part dance, part cartwheels, all laughter. They are fine. Better than fine: they’re happy. Rey’s laugh is loudest, longest. Her joy rolls off her in waves. I should be able to feel it from where I sit. But I can’t even lift the corners of my mouth to smile. A heaviness sits under my skin, above my bones—an invisible, smothering blanket. Pavor, angustia, pánico, a collection of heavy, gut-churning feelings. I am drowning.
Chapter 22
Aimee—”
“Don’t say anything. You lied to me, Amber. I’m supposed to be your best friend. And you lied.”
“You don’t understand. He told me it was okay; he told me there wouldn’t be any side effects.”
“That makes you stupid and a liar.”
Aimee slams the door hard, and I startle. The timer on the shelf goes off, but I don’t get up. I have finally found a position where almost no bones hurt. Rey stands to reach the timer, and the bed shifts under me. My shoulders and hips scream in protest. I bite my lip to keep from crying.
“Time for meds,” Rey says. She dumps pills into her hand and picks out three different-colored ones.
“These are totally the pharmaceutical greatest hits.” She holds one up, diamond-shaped and blue. “Classic SSRI. Helps with suicidal thoughts. Also, may cause suicidal thoughts. Aimee was right: side effects are a bitch.”
I know Rey’s joking should make me happy. But I don’t feel it. I asked Dr. Deng why I can’t feel happiness, even when everything is working out.
“That’s what depression is,” he said.
It has been three days since the cuff started working—Indranie says it’s malfunctioning; Dr. Deng says it’s working better than expected—and two days since I moved into Rey’s room. Dr. Deng suggested Gabi was disturbed by my crying at night. He said, “Wouldn’t you like your little sister to get as much rest as possible? After all, she needs her rest so she can learn. She’s doing so well in school.” I hated watching Dr. Deng form words about my sister. I hated that I knew, that everyone in the room knew, that the reason he wanted me and Rey in the same room was to increase the success of the experiment. With every touch between us, Rey’s grief floods into me. Only, she doesn’t know. And I won’t tell her—not now that she’s finally feeling happier.
I swallow the pills without water because my mouth is always filled with saliva. A side effect of grief, Dr. Deng says.
Indranie worries that getting Rey’s memories from the night of Riley’s death means the experiment is out of control. Dr. Deng tells her not to worry, that we’re ahead of schedule, practically in phase two protocols, whatever that means. To make Indranie feel better, Dr. Deng gives me medicine for depression. He might as well give me candy. Nothing touches this suffocating blanket I live under.
“And now we do shots,” Rey says, uncovering the two small plastic cups of a clear, bitter liquid we both drink every night.
“It’s almost like a party,” she says after we drink the medicine as quickly as we can so it doesn’t linger in our mouths. “Saddest party in creation, but hey! We have Amber and Aimee.”
Despite her grin, Rey watches me with worried eyes when she thinks I don’t notice. I know I look bad. I have lost weight despite Señora Borges’s best efforts. I cannot swallow much more than this palmful of pills.
“Another episode?” Rey asks.
“Sure,” I say. And the process begins again. Amber spends the episode doing something stupid and Aimee rescues her, then tells her all the mistakes she’s made. I don’t think I realized before how much they yell at each other.
“Does Amber seem like a good friend to you?” I ask Rey. Since I don’t usually say much during Cedar Hollow—or much at all—Rey pauses the DVD and looks at me.
“What do you mean?”
It’s hard forming words that make sense, even in my mind, but I try. “Does it seem like Amber cares about Aimee? As a friend?”
Rey shakes her head with a smile. “Nope.”
That is what I thought, but it still makes me sad. Sadder.
“Amber is on fire for Aimee.” Rey laughs.
“What?”
“She’s got the hots for her. Carries a torch, you know.”
I don’t know. My confused expression must tell Rey that.
“Come on, Marisol. You have to see it. Amber’s in love with Aimee. That’s why she’s so mean to her.”
I sit up, nearly banging my head on one of the bookshelves above Rey’s bed.
“That’s not true,” I say. Then, “How do you know this?”
“Of course it’s true. If you looked, you’d see. Total, unrequited love. It’s obvious.”
“Do they say this? Have I missed an episode?”
“No, not out in the open, but everyone ships them.” I’m not sure what Rey is saying, if she is joking or if this is something real. She plays the video again, and I study Aimee’s face. Is there any sign at all that she knows how
Amber feels? I shake my head. It’s ridiculous.
“Tell me you don’t ship them,” Rey says.
“I don’t know what that means.”
“You want them in a relationship, you know—you want them to be together. You’re rooting for them.”
“But they are not in a relationship, not in real life.”
Rey rolls her eyes at me. “These are not actual people. They aren’t real life at all. So, what’s wrong with having a little fun with it?”
I can’t organize my protests; I can’t say what I’m feeling the right way. But I know that it can’t be true. “But Amber is so pretty,” I say. It’s a stupid thing to say, meaningless. My face flushes at my words.
“So, lesbians are ugly?” She raises just one eyebrow—the way Gabi can. On the screen, Amber is having a talk with her father.
“I’m not saying anyone is ugly. But . . . I don’t know what I’m saying. Amber has a boyfriend. They both do.”
Rey turns her body toward me, ignoring the screen. “Is this a problem for you?”
“What do you mean?” She is so close to me, I am afraid to move.
“I mean, is this a Jesus thing?”
“I don’t understand.” I’m getting tired of saying those words.
“Is this, like, a homophobic Jesus thing? ‘Thou shalt not fall in love with your own gender’ or whatever the fuck? Do you even know any gay people in El Salvador?”
My body stiffens, turns to glass. If she looked closely, she’d see through me.
I clear my throat. “How would I know?”
“You’d know. Come on. In school? Dancing in clubs? Holding hands?”
“No. No, I don’t know.”
Rey pulls away, frowning. “Don’t get upset about it. It’s cool. Jesus is, um, he’s fine. And I get it. Takes people some time to evolve. My dad took years to evolve. He’s still evolving out of his primordial old white man amoeba.”
I struggle to make sense of her words. One meaning is clear, though: she thinks badly of me. “You don’t know anything about me. You think things about me because of where I’m from. That I’m a, a Bible-thumper, you called me.”
Rey stops the DVD as Amber and her boyfriend are fighting in a car. Their frozen faces are full of fear and anger. It seems like it’s everywhere.
“Are we seriously having this fight? I don’t want to argue with you, Marisol. I’m sorry. Forget it, okay?”
I think the wave of grief I feel rising in me is my own. “You don’t know anything about me. I don’t even believe in God.”
“You don’t?”
It’s not something I like to admit, even to myself. And I would never let Gabi know this, because I tell her that God holds her in his hand, and that nothing bad will happen to her because He loves her. I tell her this because she knows, deep in her soul, that I cannot keep her safe, not really and not forever. I’ve told her so many lies.
I shake my head. It is swimming with tears that I cannot release.
“I believe in luck. Bad luck. That’s all I have.” The effort to keep the tears inside makes me shake so hard that I can’t hide it from Rey.
“Oh God, Marisol, I’m sorry.” She hugs me and I receive two gifts at once, one I want more every day and another that I wish I could leave behind: the soft feel of Rey’s skin on mine and the sound of a boy dying.
* * *
“You can’t leave me,” I say to the boy on the ground. I crawled from my space under the stage and found him nearby. I don’t look at his legs—at where his legs should be—because if I see it, I will not be able to stop seeing it. They aren’t there, my mind tells me. They are atoms and dust and shards of broken glass.
“Reyanne, Reyanne, Reyanne.” The boy clutches my hands in spasms, like heartbeats.
“Riley George Warner, you cannot leave me here. We came into this world together, and we are going out together,” I sob.
“Reyanne, Reyanne, remember me, okay? Don’t forget me.”
“You’re not going anywhere, jackass.” I am crying into his shirt; the smell of clean laundry and his own skin surrounds me. It’s a scent I know as well as I know myself.
“Hold my hand,” he says. I cry harder because I’m already holding his hand, and he can’t feel it. Hands on my shoulders pull me away from Riley, and paramedics cut open his shirt and crowd me out. They’re helping him, I think. They’re taking him, I think.
* * *
Rey pulls away from me and stares into my blank face. I think she’s repeating my name. I cry silently, unable to stop the tears. Worry marks her face, and I know she wants to help, but when she leans in to hug me harder, longer, I flinch. I know it is my job to take this grief away from her. I’m doing the best I can, but right now, it’s too much.
“I, I, uh, need the bathroom.” I stumble into her bathroom and close the door. I hate that I can only help Rey by hurting myself. But what did I expect? I knew. No one lied. Well, maybe they did lie, but so what if they did? It doesn’t matter that they didn’t tell me carrying someone else’s grief would feel like being torn in two. Who says life is fair? Every vision I have of Rey’s grief is followed by memories that live in me despite how hard I’ve tried to suppress them.
“¿Quién dice que la vida es justa?” Mamá says when I complain it’s unfair that Pablo can be out all night when I have to be home by dusk. I want to visit Liliana at the bar, but Mamá looks at me wearily. “Es muy peligroso salir de noche para una niña,” she says. I want to say, Sixteen is old enough that other girls go out, dancing and laughing, and I want to be with them. But I know my words won’t make a difference.
When Gabi shows me her nail polish—big bottles of expensive colors, a whole box of them—I barely stop to wonder where they came from. My mind is full of Liliana and how I will sneak out to see her.
“Paint my nails, Sol? They come out nicer when you do it.”
I watch my mother take her medicine, the one that guarantees her hip won’t hurt and that she’ll sleep through the night.
“I’ll make you a deal,” I whisper to Gabi. “If I paint your nails, you’ll keep my secret.”
She rolls her eyes. “¿Otro secreto?” she asks. I nod.
Gabi’s expression turns sly. “You have a boyfriend, don’t you?”
“¡No! Por supuesto que no,” I say.
“Okay.” Gabi shrugs. “But you could tell me, you know. I know all about boyfriends.” She grins.
When Gabi’s nails are done and she is parked in front of the TV, when Mamá’s snores can be heard behind her closed door, I leave. I run straight to el Club, afraid I’ve taken too long, that she’ll leave without me. At the back door of the bar, I bang, hard, knowing it will be difficult to hear over the sound system.
Finally, the door opens.
“Is Lilí still here?” I ask Belén, who works at the bar with Liliana.
Belén gives me a flat, uninterested look and shouts behind her, “¡Lilí, tu amiguita está aquí!”
In March I’ll be seventeen—only two years younger than Lilí. Maybe then Belén will stop calling me “little friend.” Liliana appears behind Belén. Seeing me, her face falls in disappointment.
“What?” she asks.
“Aren’t you glad to see me?” My heart trips in my chest. Lilí’s face takes too long to find a smile.
“Seguro que sí, hermanita. Give me a second, okay? I’m supposed to be working.” She turns to talk to Belén, pulling her long hair off her neck into a ponytail. It’s something I’ve seen her do a thousand times, imagining that someday I would dare to kiss the spot on her neck, just under her ponytail, where I know she’ll be ticklish.
“Okay, ¿qué pasa?” she asks, closing the door behind her.
“I missed you,” I say, determined to keep the smile on my face.
“Aren’t you supposed to be home?
Won’t tu mamá be upset?”
“Do you want me to leave?” I can’t keep the hurt from straining my voice. A moment ago I was bold, like a drunk singing in the rain. Now I’m the fool, crossing into traffic, laughing at disaster.
Lilí sighs heavily. Then, the smile I love to dream about lights her face. She takes my hand and opens my crossed arms.
“I guess what Mamá doesn’t know won’t hurt her,” she says, pulling me close with the patience of a fisherman, reeling, reeling. My head fills with the scent of Liliana’s perfume and I can’t think. She pulls until her arms wrap around me. I’m close enough for kisses, something she’s never allowed before.
I’ve wanted this for so long, this feeling that I should have had with boys and never did. But it’s happening at a speed I can’t understand. Something feels wrong.
I try to breathe, to catch my heart before it runs out of my chest. I need a second to think.
“¿No me quieres?” Liliana asks. I can’t tell if she’s joking or if she means it. She can’t mean it. She can’t think I don’t want her.
Lilí’s feather earrings tickle my nose. She lowers her head to me, and I think of the tacones altos she always wears, making her taller than me. Her lips move above mine, and I don’t have a thought in my head other than the sound of her breathing, the warmth of it on my skin.
“It’s true,” she says with a cruel laugh, “sos tortillera.”
A slap would not have been sharper. The words take a second to reach my brain, but they hit my stomach immediately, a sickness rising through my body in waves. Liliana pushes me away. Her face distorts into a sneer.
“Go home to Mamá, you twisted thing,” she spits. “I’m a real woman, the way God intended. I wouldn’t soil myself with one like you.” She pushes me again, and I lose my balance, falling into the street. I am the fool, I think as my face burns hearing the laughter from a couple across the street. I run home, full of shame.
The Grief Keeper Page 18