The four of them aren’t hard to find. Seeing their smiling faces makes my stomach clench. They seemed like okay guys, before.
Mr. Case slides a pad of paper across the top of his desk toward me. He sets a pen on top. “Write down what happened and the names of all the boys, please.”
“Why?”
“Because I would like a record of what happened from you.” He adds, “You’re not in any trouble, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
It is. I don’t want to write about it, but it’s better than having to sit there and watch his face while telling him every detail. I pick up the pad. “How much information do you want me to give?”
“Whatever you think I should know,” he replies. And, “Did you require medical attention?”
I shake my head.
He’s quiet while I write. I keep it brief. Just the facts. I make sure I write down that I felt like I didn’t have a choice, because I feel like I need to say that. Dr. Lisa would want me to—for the record and for myself.
I hand him the pad when I’m done.
“Thank you,” he says. “I’m going to read this, and after, I’m going to talk to the boys.”
My heart gives a thump. “I’m not lying,” I insist.
He blinks. “I didn’t think you were. I’m just telling you the rules I have to follow. I have to talk to the boys, and I will have to talk to your guardians and to their parents.”
“It’s not that serious,” I say, standing up so fast I almost knock over the chair. “Forget I said anything.”
His expression is sympathetic. “I can’t do that, Alexa. I have a duty as your principal and I’m going to follow it. On this property you’re under my protection, and I take that responsibility very seriously. I want you to know that.”
It doesn’t make me feel any better.
“Now, I assume Detective Willis will follow up with you and proceed from there as far as charges are concerned. Is there anything you need from me?”
I shake my head. The only thing I want is for him to drop all of this, but I know he won’t.
He clears his throat again. “It’s none of my business, but you should go to the doctor, or at least see the school nurse and have her examine you.”
I look at him, feeling that slight shift of self that means I’m disconnecting. It’s like I’m watching myself from outside my body. I have to hang on, get back in. “They didn’t rape me.”
He winces. “No, but if one of them has something, you could get a throat infection. Also, if there’s bruising, it should be documented.”
One of the girls at the motel got gonorrhea in her throat. “I’ll get my aunt to take me.” I don’t know if it’s a lie or not.
Mr. Case smiles slightly. “Good. Is there anything else you’d like to discuss?”
I raise a brow. “I didn’t want to discuss this at all.”
“No. I don’t imagine you did. I wish you had felt safe enough to come to me in the first place.”
“I didn’t think you’d believe me.”
He doesn’t seem offended or even surprised by my honesty. “You’re not the one who ought to be ashamed. If anyone ever makes you feel that way again, I want you to come straight to me. Please.”
“Can I go back to class?”
I can’t get out of there fast enough. I have to force myself to pause long enough to respond when he says goodbye.
I practically run from the office. Everyone is staring at me, I know it. To make matters worse, the bell rings for the last class. Students file out of classrooms, filling the corridor. A lot of them look at me. A lot of them don’t. I make it to my locker with my head down, grab my books, and head to class.
When I walk into the room, everyone looks up. I can tell who was talking about me. Word has spread fast. There’s only one person who isn’t looking at me like I’m something they scraped off the bottom of their shoe, and that’s Zack. He’s sitting in the desk next to mine.
“Hi,” he says when I sit down.
I force myself to meet his gaze. “Hi.”
“Everything good?”
I nod. “I’m—”
“The school slut,” says a girl behind me. Loudly enough that people laugh, and the teacher looks up with a scowl.
My face flames. I don’t know why. I’ve been called worse.
Zack turns in his seat. “That’s very misogynistic of you,” he says calmly. “Not to mention, cruel and bitchy. So unattractive.”
Someone giggles. I don’t look. The girl doesn’t say a word in response. Zack turns back toward the front of the room.
“You don’t have to defend me,” I tell him.
“I know, but I’m going to. You got a problem with that?”
I smile at his mock attitude and shake my head.
“Good,” he says, and he smiles.
For a second, everything is right in the world.
* * *
Detective Willis is at the house when I get home. The sight of her pisses me off. My aunt has that look on her face that she gets when she wants to hug me but doesn’t know if she should. Can’t I just be left alone?
“You could have come to me first,” I tell her. “Would have been nice to have a heads-up before getting called to the office.”
“I’m sorry about that. We don’t always have control over how these things go down once they’ve been reported.”
“I didn’t want it reported. I wanted it to go away.”
“I need to take your statement,” Detective Willis tells me. She’s got her cop face on.
“I wrote it down for Principal Case. Can’t you get it from him?”
“He emailed me a copy of what you gave him, but I have a few questions I want to ask you as well.”
I shrug. “Whatever.” I’ve already opened that door once today, so it’s easy to start slipping away from them, to shut myself off.
Detective Willis isn’t Mr. Case, though. She sees it. “That’s not really why I’m here, though.”
I hesitate. It’s a trick to keep me present, but it works. “What is?”
“We found a girl this morning. I’d like your help identifying her.”
“So?” Then it hits me why they both looked so sad when I came in. “You found her body.”
Detective Willis nods. “Yes. She had the same brand on her hip as you. We’re in the process of IDing her, but we don’t have all the names of the girls from the hospital and none of the other girls who were under Mitch’s control will tell me if they knew her.”
“They won’t?” No, of course they wouldn’t.
She shakes her head. Her hair waves around her face. “Alexa, you’re the only one who has managed to reintegrate into society.”
Meaning, I’m the only one of the motel girls who hasn’t gone back to the life. Have they all gone back to Mitch? If it weren’t for Krys, who knows where I’d be. Maybe I’d be on my back again too.
“So, what? You want me to look at the body?” Not like I haven’t seen a dead person before. Lily #1 OD’ed in front of me.
“I have a photo.” She slides a folder across the table. “Honey, I think it’s Ivy. She doesn’t look good, just so you know.”
Ivy. My heart stops for one chest-crushing second.
Krys reaches over and grabs my hand. “You don’t have to look if you don’t want to.”
“Yeah,” I say. “I do.” I open the folder with shaking fingers.
It’s terrible. I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s obvious she’d been dead for a while.
“What happened to her?” I ask. My voice is a whisper. I don’t want to know this girl, but I recognize the scars and the birthmark on her hip. They dumped her naked. The motherfuckers couldn’t even give her that much dignity.
“She was beaten to death,” Detective Willis replies. “Is it her?”
I wish I had tears for her, but there’s nothing but a strange burning in the pit of my stomach. After all she and I went through together, and I can
’t even give her tears. The last time I saw her, I let her walk away.
I nod, my throat closing up like invisible fingers are wrapped around it. “Her name was Jaime.”
* * *
We’d only been at the motel a few days. Before that, we’d been in an apartment, but the landlord found out how many of us Mitch had living there and threatened to call the cops, so we moved at two in the morning.
It was a Thursday night. Aubrey, one of my regulars, had already been in, and he always came by on Thursday. He did the long haul from Boston to Florida. He always used my shower before getting into my bed. Some guys weren’t so considerate, and there were those who let you know they were going to shower after they were done with you—because while we were good enough to use, they didn’t want the smell of shame to linger.
Anyway, it was Thursday and my only visitor had been Aubrey. I watched through a haze of indifference as Daisy stared at the TV while “entertaining” a trucker from Idaho. She never missed an episode of Friends, even one she’d already watched a hundred times. That world was her happy place. We all had one—the place we went to. Mine was a little spot in my head where I did normal things, like puzzles and crafts. I’d been there while the heels of Aubrey’s big hands dug into my collarbones, pinning me to the mattress.
The sheet beneath me was sticky. I could change it, but it wasn’t like it mattered. The men that came here didn’t care about that.
So, I was still on this sheet, watching Friends as Daisy did her thing, when the door opened and Mitch walked in. He had a new girl with him. She was about my age. Blond. Terrified. Her eyes were brown. They were the biggest eyes I’d ever seen.
“Move over,” Mitch growled at me. The guy with Daisy watched us with interest, his man boobs jiggling with the motion of his hips. Jabba the Hut, I thought, sliding toward the side of the bed.
Mitch shoved the girl onto the mattress where I had been. It would have been kinder to put her on the clean section, but Mitch wasn’t about kindness. He pretended to be, at first, but it was part of the act. He was about to take care of this girl’s “breaking in.” It was his favorite part of the job, I’d once heard him say.
“Please help me,” the girl whispered, her voice little more than a sob.
The muscles in my face were too lax to make any sort of expression. “I can’t,” I said. Even if I weren’t stoned. Even if I were big enough to tackle Mitch, he had a gun and a buddy parked in a half-ton out in the lot with a rifle.
“Shut up.” Mitch shoved her face into a pillow with one hand and undid his pants with the other.
I reached over and took her hand. Her fingers gripped mine tight enough to cut off circulation—not that I could really feel it. I laid my head on the pillow beside hers. I couldn’t see her face, but I knew she could hear me. “It’s going to be okay,” I told her.
We both knew I was lying. Nothing would ever be okay again.
She was one of us now. One of Mitch’s flowers. And flowers never bloomed for long.
chapter twelve
Detective Willis really likes tea. She drinks three cups while we talk.
After I tell her about Jaime, I tell her the story of what happened in the bathroom. It’s almost easier to say it aloud than it was to write it because I don’t have to be entirely present when I talk. I can treat it like a story I read, or something I saw on TV. What is hard is having Krys there as I repeat all the details.
“There will be charges brought against the boys,” Detective Willis tells me, stirring sugar into her cup. “How do you feel about that?”
“Honestly?” I pick at a hangnail on my thumb. “I don’t feel much of anything.” And I don’t—not really. I have no say over what happens, even though it directly impacts me, so why even try?
She nods, like that’s a normal reaction when we both know it’s not. “Your principal seems like a pretty good guy.”
“Yeah.”
“He’s on your side in all of this.”
“That’s nice.” What else am I supposed to say? It doesn’t really matter if he’s on my side or not. I did what those boys said I did. Mr. Case can’t change that. Everybody acting like I was forced to my knees at gunpoint is being fucking ridiculous. The whole thing is ridiculous, really. But … I don’t know. I’m starting to think maybe I really don’t deserve to be treated like crap.
And Ivy didn’t deserve to die. I look at the folder that sits closed on the table. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the photos inside it. I still don’t cry, though. I can’t. Not yet.
“We’re going to get him,” Detective Willis tells me, looking me dead in the eye. Her eyes are the prettiest shade of green I’ve ever seen. Ringed with black, they stand out sharply in the darkness of her face. “I promise you.”
She means Mitch. The thought of him makes the scar on my back itch. The one from his belt. I hope that someday he won’t matter as much. Won’t scare me as much.
“I don’t think you will,” I tell her. “He’s tricky.”
“I’m still trying to figure out how he knew we were coming that night at the motel,” she confides. The night he happened not to be there. I’m not sure she and I should be talking about it this, honestly, but I don’t really have a good gauge of what’s acceptable and what’s not anymore. “You said he left right before we arrived?”
I told her and the other cops at least half a dozen times already. “I only remember because he gave us all some pills—more than usual—and I thought it was weird. He seemed nervous. Jumpy. He told us he loved us.”
She frowns. “He knew we were coming.”
I shrug. “I guess so.”
“How could he have known?”
Her voice is so low, I barely hear her. I don’t think she’s talking to me, but I answer her anyway. “He’s got cop friends.” Another shrug.
Detective Willis’s head snaps up. Her gaze is hard and angry. “How do you know that?”
I look at her. How come she doesn’t know? And does she really want me to tell her? I shift in my chair. “A couple came to the motel.”
The detective’s face tightens. “Fuck.”
It’s weird, hearing her swear. “I’m sorry.” I hate upsetting her. “I thought you knew.” I thought everyone knew.
I watch tension melt out of her as she reaches across the table and puts her hand on mine. Her fingers are warm from her tea cup. “Sweetie, you don’t apologize to me, okay? You’ve done nothing wrong.”
I still feel like crap though. “You really didn’t know.”
“Of course I didn’t! If I had, I’d report their asses. No way would I stand by and let something like that happen.”
She wouldn’t either. I believe her. The realization makes me a little sad. She’s a really good person, but she’s stupid as shit if she thinks she could have stopped those men from doing exactly what they wanted.
* * *
I have one souvenir from the motel. I was wearing it when the cops showed up. When I showed the item to Dr. Lisa, she thought it was okay for me to keep it, that sometimes reminders aren’t bad things. I guess she was right, because whenever I look at it, I don’t feel bad.
I keep it in the jewelry box that Krys got me. There’s not much in it, but according to her: “Every woman needs a place to keep her shinies.” I’ll take her word for it.
It’s a bracelet. Nothing really special about it, except it was handmade for me by the one girl who refused to be just a flower—Jaime/Ivy. When Mitch wasn’t around, she made sure at least one person called her by her real name—or she would herself. She never fully gave in like the rest of us.
Until that day in the park with Frank. I knew she was lost then, because she tried to play me. She wasn’t Jaime anymore. Mitch had broken her.
The bracelet is made out of an old necklace chain, a couple of charms, and several strands of yarn and fabric strips. Some of the fabric is from a pair of stockings I had—a lot of the johns liked it when we wore schoolgirl socks or thigh
-highs. There’s some of the lace trim from a pair of panties in the weave. The yarn is from Jaime’s sweater that Mitch ripped when he took it from her. He bought all of our clothes—we didn’t get to keep our own things. There’s a bit of a pair of her socks in there too, knotted tassels from the cheap curtains and bedspreads. It’s all intertwined with the chain, fastened by its delicate clasp.
I love it, but I never wear it anymore. It’s all I have left of her. She was the one good thing in the motel. The only one of us who stayed strong and positive, even though Mitch did his best to break her. He must be so smug now. So pleased with himself for breaking her.
She was my friend, though I didn’t appreciate her at the time. She was the only thing that kept me from breaking a mirror and slitting my wrists. Her and all her damn questions: Who are you? Where are you from? What’s your old school like? Who was your best friend? Most of the girls hated her for reminding us of what we’d lost, but now …
She made us all remember we were more than fucking flowers. And now she’s dead. Someone ended her and tossed her away. She’d be put in a box and stuck in the ground—planted, just like the flower she refused to be. I will never call her Ivy again. From now on, I will use her real name.
I close the lid of the jewelry box and wrap the bracelet around my wrist twice before fastening it. The chain is cool on my skin, the bits of fabric soft and warm. It’s funky and pretty and one of a kind. Like Jaime.
There are some things I don’t want to ever forget.
* * *
Elsa meets me to walk the dogs that night. Isis is happy to see her brother, who Elsa named Willoughby Clarence Trillby the Third and calls Trill for short. She’s got Cleo and Caesar as well. She hands me Cleo’s leash as soon as my pup and I join her on the step. This is our routine—I walk the girls and she walks the boys. The young ones are growing fast.
“You okay?” she asks once we hit the sidewalk.
I shrug. “No worse than I was.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
I give her a slight smile. “It means I’m okay.” I’m not looking forward to the fallout, but I don’t much care what happens to Mike and his friends. No, that’s a lie. I want them to pay for what they did—what I did. What Mitch did. I want to burn down the world, but I’m too afraid to strike the match.
What Unbreakable Looks Like Page 13