Girl on the Verge

by Pintip Dunn

  How did it feel to hold this knowledge close to your heart? Not just in a transient kiss, but as a foundational truth of your life. No wonder the other girls walked through this world differently. Confidently. They knew, at the very core of their being, that somebody loved them.

  Maybe things would be different for her now. Maybe this was the secret ingredient she’d been missing. Maybe this was what she needed to feel that she belonged.

  And then the kiss changed, deepened. It turned from sweet to searing in a second. The flimsy wrap fell from her shoulders to the floor. His hands roamed along her sides, and she shivered, winding her arms around him, pressing the Taser she was holding into his back.

  He broke away from her mouth and groaned. “Oh, Shelly, you’re so hot. You’re killing me.”

  This was it. She had to take this chance. She had to trust, for once in her life, that someone was who he professed to be. That he meant what he said. That he loved her. For herself.

  She’d always thought she would find her other half in another girl, someone she could call her sister. But maybe she was wrong. Maybe she had been searching for Ethan all along. For this boy, she’d be willing to give her heart, her soul, her everything.

  He just had to pass one more test.

  Without warning, she shot her hand out and grabbed his crotch. She expected it to be big and bulging and straining against his pants. She’d felt it before, under the table during dinner with Khun Yai. But there was nothing. He was panting, and she was half-naked.

  And there was nothing.

  Rage filled her vision. The bastard. He was lying to her this entire time.

  She flipped the Taser on. And jabbed him in the ribs, again and again, until he collapsed to the floor.

  Chapter 49

  Outside my window, the night deepens to black and then lightens with the dawn. It’s not my imagination, then. Hours have passed. It’s a new day, and we’re still here. If I were making notches in the wood, I’d have to carve a second mark. And there’s still no sign of Ethan.

  Did our plan work? Are they sleeping? What did he have to do to distract her long enough to get the necklace? Was it just a kiss or, dear god, did they actually have sex?

  Or maybe it all went horribly wrong. Maybe they never got that far because Ethan is now dead.

  Oh, Phra Buddha Chao, I pray. Please let Ethan be okay. Please don’t let her hurt him. Please help us get out of here and forget this whole nightmare ever happened.

  I wish Shelly had given me a chain, too. I’d give anything to pace the room so that I could work off some of this nervous energy. Instead I’m just sitting here, holding onto the glass, while the anxiety builds inside me.

  My palm was bloody before I figured out I should cover the glass in a granola bar wrapper. Now, my hand is shaking from the strain. I lower it to the bed to rest, only to jerk it back up at the slightest sound.

  But the noises are so soft I wonder if I’m hallucinating them. Damn it. I’ve been sitting here forever. For all I know, neither Shelly nor Ethan is in the cabin anymore.

  That’s it. I have to do something. I’ve been trying to be patient because I didn’t want to mess up Ethan’s plans, but I can’t wait anymore.

  “Shelly!” I call as loudly as I can. My voice is hoarse, so I clear my throat and try again. “Shelly, are you here? I need to talk to you!”

  I count to ten, and I’m about to scream out again when the door opens.

  “Yes?” she asks, her eyebrows raised. She’s wearing baggy jeans and a torn gray T-shirt. The clothes she was wearing when she arrived at my house. I haven’t seen her in this outfit since that first day. Her hair is pulled into a limp ponytail, and she’s not wearing a speck of makeup.

  “Can you uncuff me?” I ask. “I need to use the bathroom. It would be nice to get something to eat, too.”

  She nods at the red chamber pot beside the bed. “You seem to be doing just fine.”

  “You’re not surprised?” I curl my hand around the mirror shard. A little too hard, since the glass pokes through the wrapper and into my skin. “Did you leave those supplies for me?”

  She shrugs. “Maybe.”

  “Why would you do that? You know, I broke all five of my nails and almost dislocated my shoulder prying off that plank. What if I hadn’t found it? Why not just give me the supplies if you wanted me to have them?”

  She looks at me listlessly. “I had to make it interesting for you, didn’t I?” she says, her voice hitching. “Make you feel like you were . . . accomplishing . . . something.” She buries her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking.

  “Shelly,” I say, shocked. “What’s the matter?”

  “I tried and tried,” she wails. “You asked me to bring you here, and I did. But I had to lock you up until I could be sure I could trust you. I worked so hard to make this okay for you. I’ve learned from my past, from the last person who was kept in this room. I tried to make it amusing—like a game—to keep your spirits up. You like games, don’t you? What fun would it be if I just handed you the supplies? I’m not a bad person, Kan. I’m not cruel. I only hurt people when it’s necessary. I even stopped by the convenience store, with you in the trunk, and bought your favorite granola bars. Most people wouldn’t do that. They wouldn’t care. But I do. And you don’t even appreciate it.” She bursts into fresh tears.

  “I do appreciate you,” I say carefully.

  “You don’t. You didn’t help me when I needed you. You didn’t teach me how to make him like me. And now, look what happened.”

  I go still. “What happened? What did you do to Ethan?”

  She takes a deep breath and dries her eyes. The question, inexplicably, seems to calm her. “Why don’t you see for yourself?” She opens the door.

  Through the entryway, I look into the den beyond, where Ethan lies in a heap on the bear rug.

  My heart stops. “Oh my god, Shelly. Is he dead?”

  “Not yet.” She pulls the gun from her back pocket, tapping it against her palm as though it were a ballpoint pen. “He might have severe injuries, though. I tased him a half dozen times. I probably should’ve stopped after he passed out. But it doesn’t matter. If he dies now, it will save me the trouble of killing him later.”

  “What?” I whisper, my chest tight. I must’ve squeezed the glass because all of a sudden a sharp pain lances across my palm. “You can’t just leave him there, Shelly. You have to help him. He needs to get to a hospital.”

  “No,” she snaps. “You lied to me. Both of you. You thought you could trick me. Pretend to be my friend. Pretend to love me. But I’m not a complete fool. I know he came in here to visit you.”

  She slaps her hand against the wall. “What did you say to him? Did you guys think it would be funny to have him pretend he was hot for me? To make me feel, for the first time in my life, that I was loved—only to rip it away again. Did that make you laugh, Kan? Did you enjoy humiliating me?”

  I shrink into myself. “No! I swear to you, that’s not what we were doing. We weren’t laughing at you. We just wanted to get away.”

  “I don’t care what your reasoning was,” she says. “It was cruel. In fact, it’s the meanest thing anyone’s ever done to me. And you were the one who engineered it.”

  She advances toward me. “Put down the glass, Kan. I know you found the mirror wedged behind the drawer. Who do you think left it there for you? I wanted to give you a moment of hope, however fleeting. I can see the blood on your hand. There’s no use hiding it. Just let it go.”

  I don’t want to. It’s my only weapon. If I give up the mirror, I’ll have nothing.

  “Now, Kan.” She raises the gun and aims it at my knee. Would she actually shoot me over this? I’m not sure. Maybe this is just an idle threat....

  BANG.

  I about fall off the bed. I don’t feel any pain, though, so she must’ve missed. On purpose. There’s a bullet hole on the bed six inches from my leg. Holy crap, this isn’t a bluff.

&nb
sp; Quickly, I open my palm and let the wrapped shard of glass tumble onto the mattress.

  “Good girl,” she says, reminding me ironically of Khun Yai. Keeping the gun trained on me, she walks toward me. I flinch, but she just unlocks the cuffs. The BFF necklace, however, is still hanging around her neck. So we were wrong about that, too.

  “You want out of this room? Fine.” She yanks me forward. The pain blurs my vision, but that’s the least of my worries. She pulls me into the den and shoves me onto the floor, next to Ethan’s unconscious body. “You and Ethan love each other so much, you should do everything together. Well, now you can die together. Isn’t that romantic? Don’t ever say I wasn’t thinking about your wants, all the way to the end.”

  “Why are you doing this?” I whisper. “I’m your sister.”

  For a moment, her face crumples. “You think this is easy for me? I didn’t want this. I wanted you and me together, for always. But I can’t trust you. You and your lying boyfriend. So you have to die.”

  “I’m sorry, Shelly! I didn’t know, okay? I didn’t know you were my true sister. My true family.”

  The gun bobbles in her hand. “Khun Yai told you?”

  “I found the envelopes. The ones addressed to your mom, in Khun Yai’s handwriting. It looked like she was sending your mom checks on a monthly basis. It’s not a huge leap to assume they were child support payments. Am I right? Did my father have an affair with your mom? Are we . . . sisters?”

  “Cousins,” she says, her voice shaking. “All my life, I’ve wanted to know my father. I thought he might give me the love that was so . . . difficult for my mom. But she refused to tell me who he was. When she died, I found the envelopes in her office, along with a letter to me. In it, she explained everything. How she fell in love with a man from Thailand. When he was here visiting his sister—your mother. How the man’s mother disapproved and bribed my mom to go away. How she never saw my father again.” Her face tightens. “So, yes, we are sisters, in a sense. But that doesn’t change anything.”

  “Of course it does.” So I was right and wrong. But it doesn’t matter. In Thailand, we view our cousins as sisters and brothers. I try to rise, but my foot slips on the bear rug. “You could have a family, Shelly. Not just my mom and Khun Yai, but our whole family over in Thailand. So many aunts and uncles and cousins you won’t know what to do with them. We could go there together. The police would never find us there. I’ll introduce you to the family. I’ll show you around Bangkok, I’ll translate everything, teach you the language.”

  “They won’t accept me.”

  “They will.” I attempt to stand again, and this time I succeed. What’s more, I feel something sharp against my chest. Of course. How could I forget? The second shard of mirror that I put in my pocket. I’m not without a weapon, after all. “I’ll explain everything to them. They’re not all as strict and traditional as Khun Yai. You know they love foreigners over there? They’re obsessed with all things farang, and they’ll see you as a movie star.”

  “Me?” The gun lowers. “A movie star? That’s absurd.”

  “It’s not absurd,” I say. She’s no longer looking at me. She’s staring at the floor, thinking. I ease my hand up to my shirt pocket and dig around for the shard. My fingers brush against something sharp. Got it. “We can book a flight tomorrow. Before either of us is a suspect in any crime.”

  Her head snaps up suddenly. She sees me holding the mirror shard, and her eyes narrow. “Once again, you’re lying to me.” She raises the gun and points it at me. “Seriously, Kan? You really think a little piece of glass is a match for this gun?”

  I exhale slowly until my body, my mind, my breath become perfectly still. I need more than words to convince her. I need something to show her, once and for all, that I’m on her side. That I’ll do anything for her.

  “You are my sister, Shelly. No matter what happens, you will always be my sister.”

  I raise the piece of glass, not toward her but up to my own face. “There’s something you never told me. Something I never asked. Your mother. When she died, why was there a zigzag scar on her face?”

  Her mouth twitches. “She didn’t understand my pain. She dismissed the scar on my face, belittled the trauma I went through. So, I just wanted her to know. A few minutes before she died, I wanted her to know how it felt to be me.”

  So Shelly killed her mom, too, I thought dully. Did she enjoy choosing the wedding dress? Was her mother’s murder another chance for her to enact one of her fantasies?

  But as curious as I am about the answers, now isn’t the time to ask questions. Before I can change my mind, I press the glass into my cheek. The pain is deep and immediate, but I push the mirror in further. Quickly, I zigzag the glass up my face, ripping, shredding, destroying my skin.

  Her mouth drops open. “What the hell are you doing?”

  Somewhere in the deep recesses of my brain, I register that the cut hurts. It hurts like hell. I should be on the floor by now, writhing and screaming. But I don’t feel the pain anymore. I feel like I’m hovering somewhere above, watching myself perform these actions, say these words.

  “I’m making myself look like you, Shelly,” I say, my voice ridiculously calm. “We’re the same, you see? Not just on the outside, but on the inside, too. We’ve both been alone. We both felt like outsiders. We both know how it feels to stand outside a group, when everyone else is laughing and we don’t even understand the jokes. We both know how it feels to be excluded. Even if it’s subtle, it’s no less devastating. We both know how it feels to be passed over, to have a crush on a boy who would never, ever be interested in us. I’ve felt all these things, Shelly. I know you have, too. You don’t have to be alone anymore. That’s what this scar represents. We’re the same. Sisters in every sense of the word.”

  She blinks, tears rushing to her eyes. “You would disfigure yourself permanently, for me? You would give up your beauty for me?”

  “I’d give up everything for you, Shelly.” I walk closer to her and gently, ever so gently, reach out and caress her scar. She buries her face against my neck, weeping. I put my arms around her, and the gun falls limply to her side.

  In one smooth motion, I grab the gun and whack her in the head. She slumps over, and I whack her again, putting everything I have into the motion. Seventeen years of keeping my mouth shut and going with the flow. Seventeen years of straddling two worlds, not knowing where I belong. But also, seventeen years of love and friendship and laughter. Seventeen years of the bright, shiny moments that make life worth living. I whack and I whack and I whack. This isn’t about me being a good girl anymore. This is about me surviving.

  When she is well and truly unconscious, I run for the door. There’s no way I can carry Ethan. I need to get help, quickly, before she wakes up. But the door’s locked from the inside. Damn it!

  This. Can’t. Be. Happening. Not now, not after all this. I pound my fists uselessly against the wood—and then I remember the BFF necklace. The key might not be the one for the handcuffs, but it just might fit in this lock.

  Sprinting back to Shelly, I yank the necklace from her. I run back to the door, and, oh dear god, it fits. It actually fits.

  I fling the door open, and the woods rush up to greet me. I want to stop and savor the blinding sun, the crisp air, the earthy scent of the soil. But I can’t. Not yet. Ethan’s not safe yet.

  I look around wildly, but it’s all the same. A dense bunch of trees and vegetation, with narrow paths in about five directions. Which way is it to civilization? Shelly had to drive here somehow. She certainly didn’t carry us to the cabin. I scan the ground. There! Tire tracks. The narrow opening barely looks like it could fit a car, but this has to be it.

  Throwing a prayer to the wind, I start running. I’m not a distance runner. Never have been. In fact, I’m that girl who gets winded after two laps in gym class. But being tired is not an option. I pump my arms; I leap forward with each stride. I push my way through that forest. So man
y times, I stumble on a branch. So many times, I want to stop, to give my fiery lungs a chance to cool down.

  But I don’t. Who knows how long Shelly will be out? The difference between Ethan’s life and potential death could be a matter of seconds. I won’t lose him because I took a break.

  And then, amazingly enough, I hear it. The roar of a car engine. I put on a burst of speed and crash onto the middle of the road just as a car is approaching. The minivan slams on its brakes, and the woman in the driver’s seat gapes at me.

  I limp to her window and see a toddler with curly dark hair behind her in a car seat.

  “You’re that girl who’s been missing,” the woman blurts out. “The one whose fingerprints were on the paperweight. It’s been all over the news. They cleared you, you know. They found another set of prints on the rock, one that was more consistent with the blows. Everyone’s looking for you and that boy.”

  “Yes,” I pant, almost weeping. “He’s still back there, with the kidnapper. We have to call the police.”

  Without a word, she punches three numbers into her cell phone and hands it to me. Through the earpiece, I hear an operator’s voice say, “Nine-one-one,” and it is the single sweetest sound in the entire world.

  Chapter 50

  A few months later . . .

  I’m in my room, packing. We leave in a couple days for a one-week vacation to Chicago. For the first time since my dad passed away, my mom’s taking an entire week off. We’re going to sightsee and take a tour of the Illinois Institute of Art.

  After Khun Yai returned from the hospital, she had a change of heart about my future. She agreed to let me apply to the school of my choice. After I confessed that I’m already designing clothes in secret, she even helped me properly set up the studio over the garage. No more sewing machines and dressmaker’s dummies shoved into the closets. Instead, all of my equipment is displayed out in the open, the way it should be. More importantly, she supports me. When my designs won first place in the county fashion show, she hugged me tightly and said, “It might be the most impractical star in the universe, but so long as you catch it, that’s what counts.”