34 Pieces of You

by Carmen Rodrigues

  I had heard about this side of her from school, but I had never seen it. “How many did you take?” I kept my tone casual so she’d feel comfortable telling me. But she could hear the tension in my voice.

  “Oh, come on, Jess.” She fell back against the bed, and the towel on her head rolled open. Her hair was twisted up in a bun, the color so black it was nearly purple.

  I stared at her. “What did you do to your hair? I thought we agreed you wouldn’t do that.”

  “Oh my God.” She hopped off the bed. She sat at her desk and began to brush her hair violently. Minutes later she set the brush down, spun around, and said, “FYI: You’re being a priss-bitch again.”

  The words hurt, and I could see that white flag being lowered. Soon she would gather it in her arms, fold it corner by corner into a tiny, neat square that would be hidden away. “Why are you being like this? Did you have a fight with somebody?”

  “Obviously.” Ellie laughed. “Because I fight with everybody. Is that what you’re saying?”

  “With who?” I asked, knowing better than to be distracted into a conversation about what she did or didn’t always do.

  “Who cares?”

  “With who, Ellie?”

  “My stepfather, okay? God.”

  “When?”

  She rolled her eyes. “I don’t know. Yesterday. Today. All week. What the fuck difference does it make? You can’t fix this, Jess. You can’t fix me. So stop trying.”

  “Is that why you didn’t text me back yesterday?”

  Her face closed off entirely then. She swiveled around and began brushing her hair again.

  “How many did you take?” She could avoid answering my question about the text, but this I needed to know.

  She shrugged her shoulders. “Are you deaf? Why do you give a fuck about this?”

  “Because I do.”

  “I was just testing them out—”

  “What does that even mean?”

  She hesitated for a second. “I don’t know, okay?”

  “How many?”

  She slammed the brush down. “Two, okay? Why do you fucking care?”

  I sat next to her, put my hands on top of hers, trying to calm her. “Please don’t talk to me like that.”

  “Jess, you’re so confused.” She pulled her hands away from mine.

  “No, I’m not confused. I’m not.” I leaned over and tried to kiss her, but she shoved me away.

  “You’re acting crazy.”

  “I’m not,” I said, the tears gathering.

  “Are you actually going to cry now? Oh, you’re kidding me. You’re like some sort of goody-goody. How can you ever understand me?”

  It was those last words that made me do it. I went for the bottle and uncapped it, dropping two pills into my palm.

  “What are you doing?” Ellie asked. “Stop it. Just stop it.”

  I popped the pills into my mouth, swallowing quickly. Ellie grabbed my face, squeezed my cheeks so that my lips puckered together painfully. “Spit them out,” she said. “Spit them out!”

  I twisted away from her. “Too late. You want this. Then I want this. That’s how it works.”

  She took a step forward. I thought she was going to hit me, but she grabbed my arm and dragged me to the bathroom. I fought her the whole way, but despite her stature she was way stronger. She shoved me to the floor in front of the toilet. Then she knelt down beside me. “Open your mouth,” she said, but I ignored her. “Open your mouth, Jess!” She sounded like a parent, like if I didn’t listen to her, she’d count to three and then who knows what. “Jess,” she said, “you don’t know what you’re doing. You’re going to get hurt like this. Is that what you want?” She waited for me to speak, but for once I let the silence settle between us.

  “Fine.” She stood up. A few seconds later her bedroom door slammed shut. I knew I should go after her, but I couldn’t make myself move. It was quiet for a bit, but then I heard this mournful kind of wailing, a sound that should never belong to a human being.

  I got to my feet, every part of me shaking, and made my way to her room.

  She was naked, sitting on the bed with her bare back to me. She was bent over, something silver in her hands.

  “What are you doing?” I moved closer, and that’s when I saw her hand move swiftly, the slice of a blade across her thigh, and then blood, bright and thick. “What are you doing?” I shouted. She was sobbing now. I took the blade away from her and ran to the bathroom to get a washcloth and some peroxide from underneath the sink. When I returned, she was curled up in the fetal position on her bed, the blood seeping into the sheets. I cleaned the wound as best I could and held the cloth to her skin to stop the bleeding. Telling her the whole time that everything would be okay.

  “But it’s not,” she kept saying. “It’s not.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  I started to feel the OxyContin. My mind seemed to ease away from itself, the worries still there but not my ability to care. I wondered if it felt the same to Ellie, if that was why she took them in the first place.

  The bleeding had stopped now. I wiped the remnants of it from her naked body, the washcloth passing line after line of old cuts. I began to cry softly. When I stood, Ellie whimpered, “Don’t leave me.”

  “I’m right here,” I said. I undressed quickly until we both wore only our histories—hers mutilated, and mine uninterrupted until now. I crawled into bed, curved my body around hers, and whispered, “Let’s sleep, Ellie. When we wake, everything will be better.”

  28.

  You have everything I ever wanted.

  Sarah

  AFTER. APRIL.

  The next morning, Jake is gone, and I have to convince myself that he was really here. That I didn’t imagine him. That I’m not as far gone as I think. And after a while, I’m able to believe in the memory of waking beside him in the night, his hand running up my thigh until it rested in that indent between my waist and hip.

  “Are you okay? How do you feel?” he asked.

  I twisted around, too sleepy to find words, the noise in my head down to a soft rumble. “Yeah, I’m better, I think.”

  “Sleep some more. You’re exhausted.” He pulled me closer, until my head lay against his chest, and caressed my back with tentative hands. I tried to relax into him, push away the millions of questions flooding my head. There were still no answers, still no reasons why. The only concrete thing was his presence in my bed. But maybe that was all that mattered. Maybe just for the moment we both needed to forget. I reached up to kiss him, but he was hesitant. “Jake, it’s okay. I want this.” I kissed him again, this time peeling up his undershirt until my hands lay flat against his abdomen. His skin was warm, taut. I slid my hands higher, running them over his flesh like it was familiar to me, when, really, I had never treated his body this intimately before.

  “Sarah, wait,” he said, but I continued touching him. “Sarah, I just want to hold you.” He wrapped his hands in my hair, his breath as shallow as mine. “I can’t.”

  It wasn’t the worst thing he had ever said to me, but it hurt all the same. It was our song and dance. He didn’t want me. He didn’t know what he wanted. Or he didn’t think he could give me what I wanted. “Why did you come?” I asked.

  “I just needed to see you.”

  “So you see me,” I said, my hurt turning into anger. I tried to pull away, but he held the length of me, keeping me still. He buried his head in my neck and whispered, “Please, Sarah. Don’t, okay? I just need time . . .” His voice cracked. He stopped talking and held me tighter, his face hidden from my sight.

  I rubbed his back. I knew how hard it was for him to say even that much, but I needed more. “Promise you won’t disappear on me. . . .”

  He nodded, his breath ragged. “I promise. Okay?”

  But the next morning, like always, he was gone.

  I take deep breaths, searching for my center like Concerned Therapist has taught me. But all I find are the things
I have lost: my friendship with Jessie, the way Mattie used to trust me, the way Meg used to look up to me, the way my parents believed in me.

  I find myself back in my bedroom, the room soaked in Jake’s scent. I stare at the tangled sheets, and a deeper loneliness takes root.

  I miss Ellie. I miss everything that was our Before. And for that reason alone, I dig a hole to China. I open the box, slowly taking out photos: Ellie in her Mork & Mindy T-shirt and me, looking slightly unsure, that flower tucked behind my ear; Ellie helping me blow out the candles on my sixteenth birthday; Ellie the week before she died, her hair as black as Snow White’s.

  The bubble in my chest is full now. The pain is so great I run from it. I run until I’m in my parents’ bathroom, my face pressed to the cold tile floor. But the pain follows, and all these voices surround me.

  I have a secret. Jake never wanted you. You just kept throwing yourself at him. Some days I just want it to all be over. I promise. Just let me stay. Jake used you, the way you used me. We use each other.

  I stare at my bandaged arm, the cut hidden beneath it the work of a jagged key. And I know there is only one way to make this pain stop.

  There’s time, I hear Ellie say.

  I’m barely able to breathe as I grab my father’s shaving kit from below his sink. I pull the straight razor free, taking everything that is dark inside me and silencing it with that first jolt of pain.

  A thin stream of blood rushes down my palm, drips off my fingertips, and settles into the grout. I close my eyes, and Ellie is there. Purple pills raining down on us. The bubble in my chest ripping my skin, eager to get out.

  I lean my head against the cabinet, tug the blade deep into my flesh. The blood streams out now, pools onto the floor. I fall onto the tile. The dusty sea of lost things beneath my parents’ claw-foot tub fades into Ellie twirling and singing, I have so many secrets, but I won’t tell you. The room twirls with her.

  Sarah, catch up. Sarah. Sarah. Sarah.

  My body grows colder and colder. And still, through it all, Ellie calls my name.

  29.

  Do you remember how we moved in tandem, my arms wrapped around your waist, my head hidden underneath the back side of your shirt? You baked pies and sang and I found that dimple above your hip bone and told it the secrets of my day . . . of fingers stained red with finger paint, of a recess spent chasing the girl with floppy hair and murky eyes.

  You were thirty-six then, and you loved him.

  Jake

  AFTER. APRIL.

  I am covered in Sarah’s blood. That’s why I am sitting here, in the hospital’s designated smoking area, talking to a detective. All I want to do is smoke my cigarette, but it’s hard to smoke when your hands are shaking so bad.

  “I just want to know if she’s okay,” I say. In response, the detective jots something onto his notepad and nods. He’s a large man with deep-set eyes and spotty gray hair. He slides an ashtray across the picnic table and says, “I just need to write my report, okay?”

  An ambulance screeches to a halt outside the emergency-room doors. The detective watches it unload, his eyes automatically tracking the medics’ movements. When the patient’s inside, he says, “You’re not in trouble, Jake.”

  I put out my cigarette. “I don’t care about that. I just want to know if she’s okay.” I pick a piece of dried blood from the fabric of my sweatpants and set it on the picnic table. I consider returning to the ER’s front desk, demanding that the nurse give me a logical reason why I can’t see Sarah, why they won’t provide me with any new information. “I just really need to know, okay?” My voice rises, and the detective shoots me a look in response.

  “Son, you’re going to have to stay calm; getting excited isn’t going to help your friend—”

  “I’m calm.” I lower my voice. “But she’s more than a friend, okay?”

  “Son, I know you’re frustrated, but rules are rules. The hospital can’t release any information on your friend’s condition if you’re not a family member—”

  “But I’m the one who called the ambulance—”

  “And that was a good thing. You might have saved your friend’s life.”

  I flinch at the phrase “might have saved.” The detective’s voice grows softer. “You’ll find out more. I promise. Now let me do my job, okay?” The detective taps his pen over his notepad. He’s only interested in facts, and so I give him the facts. As I speak, the pounding in my head grows, and over it is a loop of Sarah’s voice asking me to not disappear. And when I close my eyes, there is a flash of her lying on her parents’ bathroom floor, her nightgown soaked in blood.

  “How did you know?” The detective leans in, real curious. “How did you know to go inside when she didn’t answer the door?”

  “I was worried. She doesn’t leave her house, really—”

  “How do you know that?” he asks, and even though he says I’m not in trouble, his voice is wary.

  “Because . . . ,” I say, and I tell him about the night before, how I was there with her, how I left because I didn’t want her mom to find me there in the morning. How I went for a jog. How her mom’s car was gone when I got back. Halfway through, my voice halts like a train that’s hit a wall. A pain shoots through me, stretches from the top of my head to the tips of my toes. It’s the same pain I felt with Ellie. I sit on the picnic bench and try to steady myself. I put my hands over my eyes, run them through my hair. I take a moment to breathe. “I should have never left.”

  The detective reaches out, pats me awkwardly on the shoulder. “Ain’t no one to blame for what she did. She’s just in a lot of pain. Now you just take a minute for yourself, okay?” He stands. “You just sit tight.”

  He walks briskly toward the emergency-room entrance, disappearing behind the double doors. I lay my head against the picnic table. I open my mouth, breathe in and out, watching the air turn into fog. The loop in my head grows stronger. It says, If I need you, you’ll come back for me? It says, Don’t disappear.

  And underneath the loop is the sound of someone in a lot of pain. It is the sound of someone crying.

  30.

  I don’t believe you when you hold my hand and say you never want to let me go.

  Jessie

  BEFORE. NOVEMBER.

  I woke to Ellie beside me, her arm flung across my chest, her eyes watching me. The room was dark. I looked out the window. The rest of the world was dark too, except for a streetlight glowing in the distance.

  “What time is it?”

  “Nine, I think,” Ellie said.

  “What?” I sat up, the panic automatic. “My mom’s going to kill—”

  “Don’t worry,” Ellie said. “Your mom thinks you’re at Lola’s, still studying for a test.”

  My head felt foggy. It was a struggle to string words together. “But I’m not at Lola’s. I’m here.”

  “Jess, don’t make this into a thing.”

  “You took my phone?”

  “What’s the big deal? I couldn’t very well text her from my phone. Then she’d know you were here.” She tugged me back down so that we were both lying on our backs. “Relax. There’s time.”

  I rolled onto my side, propping myself up on an elbow. I had so many questions, but I knew better than to ask them. “Are you feeling okay?”

  “Not really.” She took a deep breath and sighed.

  I stared at her in the dark, her black hair fanned around her face like some kind of ironic halo. The space beneath her eyes was swollen from crying.

  “Do you want me to tickle your back?” It was what my mom did for me whenever I got upset. Ellie nodded, turning away from me. I ran my fingers up and down her spine, and then I started tracing words onto her skin: “crab,” “happy,” “peace.” Finally, when her shoulders sloped a little and I could tell she was slightly relaxed, I traced “love.”

  “What word was that?” She rolled over to face me. I shrugged, too nervous to speak. She took another deep breath, her eyes inc
redibly sad.

  I touched her face lightly and said, “You really scared me. I . . . I didn’t know. Are you . . .” I paused, trying to find the right question. “Does this happen a lot?” I knew that it did. The scars told me so. But I thought this might ease her into talking about it.

  The look on her face told me it wasn’t up for discussion. And when she changed the subject by asking me to grab her water bottle, I wasn’t surprised.

  Halfway there, I picked her robe up off the floor and wrapped it around me.

  “No,” Ellie said. “I wish you wouldn’t.”

  I turned back to her.

  “Would you take it off?” she asked.

  “Ellie,” I said, unsure.

  “Please, Jess.”

  I nodded, but my hands trembled slightly as I slipped the robe onto the floor. I crossed my arms self-consciously over my belly, but she came to me and lowered them to my sides. Then she stepped back and took me in. Finally she said, “You’re beautiful, Jess.”

  I felt so many things right then, but mostly that I wanted this moment to last forever.

  She handed me the robe, and again I put it on. When she sat down, I followed—the water now forgotten—as I waited for whatever might come next. She was silent, her thoughts somewhere far off. I wanted to bring her back to me, so I said, “Ellie, are you—”

  She put her finger to my lips, tears streaming down her face again. “Jess,” she said, her voice hollow. “I slept with Tommy.”

  I was sure I hadn’t heard her correctly. It seemed impossible, but then she said, her tone matter-of-fact, “It was last night. That’s why I didn’t text you back.”

  “I don’t believe you. You’re lying,” I said, telling myself this was just another way for her to test me.

  “It’s true,” she whispered.

  I moved away from her, toward the window, and pressed my face to the cold glass. Everything inside me was shutting down, and instead of tears there was something much darker: a stark emptiness I had never felt before.