Girl on the Verge

by Pintip Dunn

  She stopped by her room and stashed the box in the closet, which Khun Yai had turned into a prayer space. And then, she headed straight for the bathroom to wash the blood off her hands.

  She plugged up the drain and turned on the faucet as hot as she could make it. Once the sink was filled, she dunked her hands in. Instantly, the water became cloudy with blood.

  Biting her lip, she scrubbed her hands in the scalding water. Too bad she couldn’t have burned her hands along with Ethan’s shirt. She had wanted to hang on to the shirt, but she had learned by now that nothing good came out of keeping material things.

  “Don’t be sentimental,” she had been lectured. “Don’t get attached to objects. Don’t get attached to people. Don’t even get attached to your identity. There will come a time when you have to give up all those things.”

  Shelly saw the wisdom in the advice—but she didn’t want to believe it. She still hoped that she could hang on to her identity. She just had to choose the right one.

  She had blood underneath her fingernails. Great. The water turned cool, and she drained the sink and started all over again. But the dried blood was damned hard to get out.

  Sweat gathered on her neck and dripped into the cleavage manufactured by her push-up bra. This was ridiculous. She had done much harder things in life, things no one else at Foxville High would dream of doing. And she did them without flinching, because she had her eyes on the end goal. She knew what she wanted, and she wouldn’t let some dried blood defeat her. She wouldn’t.

  “Damn it,” she muttered. “What’s it going to take to get you out?”

  “Try using a nail file,” a voice said behind her.

  Shelly jumped. Khun Yai stood in the doorway, her arms crossed, her eyes running from Shelly’s face to her bra.

  “Khun Yai!” Shelly snuck a look at the mirror. Crap. She’d been so preoccupied by her hands, she’d forgotten to wash the blood splatters from her face. “How long have you been standing there?”

  “Long enough,” Khun Yai said.

  Chapter 35

  Riley might be the key to everything—but she’s also a goddamn ghost. Nobody seems to have heard of her. I talked to the rest of the neighbors on the street. Went by the Dairy Queen, where the local high school kids hang out. I even stopped by the coffee shop and library.

  Everyone had heard of Shelly and Sheila Ambrose—but no one knew anything about a teenage girl named Riley. Of course, all I have is a name and Mrs. Watson’s description. Dirty blond hair. Pale skin. Nondescript. That could be half the girls at Foxville High.

  Mrs. Watson has no reason to lie. Right? But maybe she’s been drinking too much of her own lemonade.

  I might believe that—if it weren’t for the necklace. The damn R & S necklace.

  Riley exists. I’m sure of it. Now I just have to find her.

  By midafternoon, however, I give up. It’s getting late, and I need to get home before Khun Yai starts to worry.

  There’s one more avenue that I haven’t considered. It’s simple and direct—and it just might get me the answers I need.

  All I have to do is ask Shelly.

  * * *

  My phone dies as I get in my car, so I don’t have my playlist of songs for the drive home. That’s okay. I have to figure out how to approach Shelly, anyhow. I need to be casual but firm. Nonthreatening but cautious. I haven’t talked to her since we watched Walt Peterson run away with a Twizzlers box over his privates. Not since I found out she was pretending to be me and sexting with my boyfriend.

  Somehow, I need to set aside the anger and hurt of betrayal. Go back to the friendship we used to have. That’s the only way I’ll get her to confide in me.

  I pull onto our street, and my stomach seizes. Something’s wrong. An ambulance sits in our driveway, its lights flashing red. People stand on the lawn, and the paramedics are carrying a stretcher out of our house. Someone is lying on it. No, not just someone. Khun Yai.

  I jerk the car to a stop in the middle of the road and tumble out of the driver’s seat. My legs don’t work properly. They’ve turned into soft pretzel dough, folding in half with every step. I hobble through the crowd, jostling Mrs. Jenson’s elbow and tripping over Bobby Cade’s skateboard.

  “Coming through!” the paramedic yells. “A little space, please. Coming through.”

  I break through the mob just as the stretcher passes. My hand shoots to my mouth. Khun Yai’s face is the color of coconut milk, and an oxygen tube sprouts from her nose. She is still. Deathly still.

  My knees give out, and I sink onto the wet grass. I register numbly that Khun Yai must’ve watered the lawn. She does that every night. It relaxes her, she says. The plants are good company for her thoughts.

  “Kan!” Shelly materializes in front of me. Her eyes are worried, and her lower lip is trembling. “Where have you been? I’ve been calling and calling, but I couldn’t get through.”

  “My phone died,” I say faintly. “I didn’t bring a charger with me.”

  She wraps her arms around me and pulls me up. I cling to her. For a moment, I forget about my suspicions. The fact that she sexted with my boyfriend seems juvenile. All I care about is the answer she’s about to give me.

  “Is Khun Yai okay?” I plead. “Tell me. What happened?”

  She shakes her head. “I don’t know. When I came home, she was lying on the lawn, and the hose was running beside her, flooding the grass.”

  “So she fainted? She’s been forgetting her medicine lately.” I lurch forward, and if it weren’t for Shelly’s arm around my waist, I might’ve face-planted on the grass. “Oh my god. This is my fault. I was supposed to stay with her. To remind her to take her pills. This happened because of me.”

  “We don’t know that,” Shelly says. She moves her hands to my shoulders. “You need to keep it together. For your mom. For Khun Yai. You can’t go off the deep end. Got it?”

  I manage to nod.

  “Good. Your mom’s going to meet us at the hospital, since she’s already there, and she wants me to drive so we’ll have another mode of transportation.” She looks at my car parked in the middle of the street. “We’ll take your car. It’s blocking the ambulance.”

  I nod again, helpless to do anything else.

  She tugs the car keys from my hand. “Let’s go, then.”

  “We should bring Khun Yai a new outfit,” I say, fighting through the haze in my brain. “Her clothes are probably wet. You know how she is. She’ll want to change, and she won’t like the hospital gowns.”

  Shelly pats the overnight bag on her shoulder. “Done.”

  “And maybe some food. As soon as she wakes, she’ll want Thai food. Boiled rice.”

  She opens the bag, so I can see the hot-food thermos inside. “Got it.”

  “What about her toothbrush? And the rest of her toiletries . . .”

  “Kan, you focus on keeping yourself together,” she says gently. “I know how hard this must be, for you and your mom. I’ve got everything under control. Trust me.”

  I open my mouth to thank her, to tell her I’m glad she’s here. Glad she’s taking care of everything. But then, I freeze. My eyes fasten on the jasmine plant by our front door. Khun Yai’s favorite. She brought the seeds all the way from Thailand, and we celebrated with a takeout dinner the first time the delicate white flowers bloomed. Without fail, it’s the first plant Khun Yai waters when she turns on the hose.

  Today, the soil underneath the plant is bone dry. Which means Khun Yai wasn’t watering the plants when she collapsed. Which means she was dragged there—and someone turned on the hose as a cover-up.

  I try to raise the corners of my mouth, but my lips feel like Play-Doh. “What would I do without you, Shelly?”

  She beams. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you, Kan. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

  Chapter 36

  We rush to the hospital, only to wait. One long wait in the visitor’s lounge to see my mom, to talk
to Khun Yai’s doctors. Shelly and I huddle on the yellow and orange plastic chairs. A vending machine hums in the corner, and a toddler sits on the scratchy carpet, trying to pull out the fibers while his mom talks on the phone. The intercom blares every few minutes, instructing doctors to get to their places, stat, and the air smells like antiseptic and overly ripe bananas. Better than dirty diapers, I suppose.

  I pace the lounge, from the vending machine to the plastic chairs to the kid. Vending machine, plastic chairs, kid. The jasmine plant keeps popping up in my head—and I keep pushing it away. I’m probably jumping to conclusions. Maybe Khun Yai decided to switch up her routine. Maybe she turned on the hose and crossed the lawn to speak to a neighbor. Who knows? A million things could’ve happened. The cracked soil beneath a jasmine plant proves nothing.

  I peek at Shelly from the corner of my eye. Sure, I know the girl is a little strange. But is she capable of attempted murder?

  I have no idea. All I know is that I can’t trust her. No matter how helpful she seems to be.

  After I take a dozen laps around the lounge, my mom appears, still wearing her white coat over her cartoon-printed scrubs.

  “Girls!” She sweeps first me and then Shelly into a hard embrace. “Thank you for calling the ambulance,” she says to Shelly. “Thank you for being there for my mom.”

  She turns to me with a searching look. “And where were you when Khun Yai collapsed?”

  The lie springs to my lips. “I went to Ethan’s dance competition. Even after you told me not to. I’m sorry.”

  She sighs and holds her arms out to me again. I walk into them, and she presses her cheek against mine. “It’s okay.”

  “It’s not okay,” I say miserably. “I’m the reason she’s here. She probably fainted because she forgot to take her pills, and I wasn’t there to remind her.”

  “That’s not why, luk lak,” my mother says. I jerk a little in her arms. That’s the first time she’s ever called me that. All it took was for Khun Yai to get hurt. “Khun Yai is as sharp as any tool in my medical bag. She doesn’t take those pills because she’s stubborn—not because she forgets.” She pulls back and looks at me. “I came home during my lunch hour. Practically forced the pill down her throat. She’s worse than you were as a child.”

  My mouth drops. “So, she didn’t collapse because she missed her pill. What happened?”

  She hesitates. “We don’t know. But there’s a lump on the back of her head.”

  “What?” I feel like I’m grasping wildly in the air, trying to catch the dust motes. Trying to catch anything. “You mean she was attacked?” I think of the jasmine plant, as dry as the desert. And it takes all my strength not to turn and look at Shelly.

  Mae moves her shoulders. “Not necessarily. She could’ve fainted and landed on a rock or some other hard surface. Maybe she had the lump from before. I really don’t know. But I’m sure her doctor will come give us his theories very soon.”

  “Very soon” turns out to be twenty minutes. Twenty long minutes during which Shelly fetches tea and sandwiches for me and my mom. Twenty endless minutes when I bite my tongue and stay as far away as possible from her. I want to tell my mom about my suspicions. But I have no proof, and no doubt she’ll react the same way as before.

  Besides, I don’t know that Shelly had anything to do with Khun Yai’s “accident.” Maybe she’s made some questionable judgments. Maybe her lack of social intelligence has made her cross the line. That doesn’t mean she’s capable of violence. Probably, she’s just a lonely girl wanting a place to belong. Just like me. Just like all of us.

  Probably. Maybe. Maybe not.

  When the man and woman in white coats arrive, they don’t talk to me but pull my mother aside. I lean forward to bring me closer to the trio, and strain to hear.

  A few minutes later, Mae comes back, her eyes glossy with tears. “Whatever caused the lump, the impact was heavy enough to burst some blood vessels in her brain, so they’re taking her in for emergency surgery.”

  “Emergency surgery?” I whisper. “That doesn’t sound good.”

  “It’s not. But the good news is, if the surgery is successful, she’ll likely have a full recovery. We just have to wait.”

  And wait. And wait.

  Hours pass. I doze lightly in the plastic chairs and resume my pacing of the lounge. The harried mom takes the toddler home around midnight, and I pray to Buddha. I’m not religious, not really, but prayer has been instilled in me from the time I was a child. I recite a chant before going to bed every night, and I pray to—or more accurately, talk with—my deceased father.

  Prayers such as this: Please, Por, protect me and keep me safe. Help me be a good girl, to respect and obey my elders, to do well in school. That’s the standard litany I was taught. To this list, I usually add my own selfish desires. Please, Por, tell Mae to buy me that new pair of shoes. Help me get Mrs. Miley for homeroom, so that she’ll let me sneak off and use the sewing machines. Convince Ethan to kiss me.

  Like I said, it’s more of a conversation than an actual prayer.

  But I pray now to Buddha. As fervently as I know how.

  Please, Phra Buddha Chao, let Khun Yai be okay. Let the surgery be a success. I’ll be a good girl, I promise. I’ll listen respectfully, and I’ll never disobey my elders again. I’ll do anything. Please. Just let her live.

  Finally, the doctor comes out. Only one of them this time— the woman with the silver-brown bob and the kind eyes. She converses briefly with my mom and then leaves.

  Mae shoots me a brilliant smile. “The surgery was a success. Khun Yai is still sleeping from the general anesthesia, but the doctor thinks she’ll wake from it by morning. She’s going to be okay, Kan.” My mother pulls me close. “She’s going to be okay.”

  A weight lifts off my chest, and I take my first full breath in hours.

  * * *

  But just because I can breathe doesn’t mean there isn’t more waiting. It’s past midnight now, and Shelly persuaded my mom to go home and take a quick nap. I insisted on staying, and Shelly volunteered to keep me company.

  The visitors’ lounge is even drearier at night. The artificial lights flicker above us, and the blinds covering the windows are closed, shutting us in. I haven’t seen anyone other than Shelly in the last hour. I zone out, and Shelly doodles with the crayons the toddler left on the side table.

  I watch her fingers move across the paper for a good five minutes before I notice what she’s drawing. A bloody red heart, broken into two pieces like the BFF necklaces. The bottom of each heart is long and jagged like a key, also like the necklaces.

  And like those metal pendants, it’s sadder for the two halves to be together than to be apart.

  I clear my throat, which is scratchy from disuse. “Can I ask you something? Can you tell me about . . . Riley?”

  The crayon freezes. “Where did you hear that name?” Her knuckles turn white. I’m surprised the crayon doesn’t break in half.

  “I went to your old neighborhood,” I say softly. “I was driving past Lakewood on the way to the dance competition, so I stopped by to see where you grew up. I talked to one of your neighbors. A Mrs. Watson?”

  “You can’t trust Mrs. Watson,” Shelly says flatly. She starts coloring again, but she presses so hard that the crayon rips through the paper. “She doesn’t have any friends, so she makes up imaginary people and stories.”

  “She said she used to babysit you. That a girl named Riley came to live with you and your mom for a few months. Is that true?”

  Shelly doesn’t say anything. She retraces the jagged edges of the heart again and again.

  I touch her arm, and she looks at me. Her eyes are dark, fathomless—and impossibly lonely. Despite everything, despite her lies and my suspicions, her look strikes a chord deep inside me. Because I’ve felt like this, too. I’ve been alone, too.

  “Was Riley who you meant when you talked about your former friend?” I whisper. “Was she the one who h
urt you, Shelly?”

  She squeezes her eyes shut. “There was a girl named Riley,” she says in a dull voice. “And she did come to live with the Ambroses. But she’s not here anymore.”

  “Where is she?”

  She bends over the paper and adds more color to the heart. Blue and orange and yellow, so that it looks like there’s a fire flaming inside. A single tear drops onto the paper.

  “Shelly,” I say urgently, leaning forward. Taking her hand. “Where is Riley?”

  “I can’t talk about it,” she chokes out. And then, she wrenches her hand out of my grip and runs from the room.

  Leaving me with her broken, flaming heart.

  Chapter 37

  That name. Shelly hadn’t heard it in months. She hadn’t even allowed herself to think it. And now, hearing it on Kan’s lips brought all the memories back. Every. Last. One.

  She kept it together until she reached the ladies’ room, and then she fell to her knees on the cold linoleum floor.

  Once upon a time, she had been so hopeful with this girl. As hopeful as she now was with Kan. Once upon a time, she believed she had found what she was looking for. The best friend necklaces had hung in their rightful places. One around her neck. And the other around the neck of the girl she thought of as her sister. Her blood sister. Her true sister.

  Well, it hadn’t worked out. Her so-called “sister” turned on her. She didn’t want to be united forever and ever, after all.

  So Riley had to die. There was no choice, really. Shelly hadn’t wanted it to end that way. There were so many other options from which they could’ve picked. Happy options. But the girl insisted.

  And so Riley died, and Shelly lived.

  She took a deep breath. Picked herself off the floor and splashed water on her face. When she looked in the mirror, she could no longer tell whom she saw.

  She would give it one more shot. She had to. In a way, she didn’t have a choice here, either. She had to find the girl who was meant to be her sister. The one who made her feel like she belonged.