A Map for Wrecked Girls

by Jessica Taylor

  I adored worn-in jeans.

  She scooped her hair in her hand and swept it over one shoulder. “And, I don’t want to say this, but I get the impression he’s into me.”

  “Why don’t you want to say that?” Who was she kidding? She loved any kind of male attention.

  “Because”—she looked down at my carpet as she buckled her straps—“I’m kind of worried you’re into him.”

  I’d regret the next moment every day after. Because I laughed. “Jesse? He’s like our brother.”

  “I know, right? Okay. Cool.” Her warm smile fell away. She looked at me and every bit of Henri’s intensity reflected back. “I’d never want anything like that to come between us.”

  “You don’t have anything to worry about.”

  She walked to the mirror above my dresser and checked her outfit, tugging the shiny pieces into cleavage-baring place. “So, you’re sure you don’t want to come?”

  My paper wasn’t due until the end of the semester, so I drifted around the house all evening.

  I wasn’t some overachiever either. If a teacher would give me a B for a paper I could write the night before, that was good enough for me.

  It was strange being alone in my house at night. I couldn’t remember the last time it happened. I’d only stayed alone when I was sick and Henri went to school while my parents were at work—when Dad lived at home.

  The pictures lining our hallway didn’t feel like they were taken of our family. Our smiles were all hollow, which maybe should have foreshadowed our family’s demise.

  Slipping into my parents’ bedroom, I went to the small section of their closet where a few of my dad’s shirts remained. I buttoned a plaid shirt over my tank top and leggings and rolled the cuffs to my elbows—I couldn’t snatch one of his shirts while Henri was home and risk her glare, and not when my mom was around and she might turn on the waterworks.

  I lowered all the lights and buried myself between three blankets on the couch while I watched all the DVR’d shows Henri wouldn’t mind me seeing without her.

  I must have fallen asleep, because I woke up hours later to the front door swinging open and someone flicking on all the lights.

  “Emma. Emma. Shit. Help me with her.”

  Jesse’s voice. Henri crying.

  I blinked until I focused on Jesse—he had Henri slung over his shoulder.

  He tried to put her down on her feet, but her heels slipped out from beneath her. We both lunged to get our arms around her waist, and Jesse caught her. All night long I wished I’d done the catching.

  I wrapped my arm around Henri’s back and helped Jesse get her on the couch.

  With the sleeve of my dad’s plaid shirt, I wiped mascara streaks off her cheeks. “What happened?”

  That only made her sobbing come harder and faster.

  “Get those ridiculous shoes off her!” Jesse rushed past the couch and into the kitchen.

  Water surged into the sink as I tugged her skirt to cover her thighs. I lifted my chin above the couch and focused on Jesse. “What happened?” He didn’t answer. “Henri, come on. Talk to me.” I fumbled with those tiny little straps until I got them loose.

  Jesse strode past me and dropped to his knees in front of her.

  I latched on to his arm. “You better tell me what’s going on with her.”

  “She’s just wasted.”

  “She’d never drink this much.” Henri would have never drunk to the point where she couldn’t tell if all her hairs were in place. That night at Mick’s was the exception.

  “Well, she did tonight.” He thrust a glass of water past me and up to Henri’s mouth. He held it while she drank, keeping his hand under her chin and catching the dribbles in his palm. “They were passing drinks to her and mixing them strong. She thought it was mostly Coke, you know, but it was mostly rum.”

  “Who?”

  “Drink up.” He held the water for her until she drank the glass almost dry. “Jake Holt and his crew. Bunch of assholes.”

  Henri’s throat made a horrible gurgle. Jesse hoisted her to her feet and rushed her into the downstairs bathroom. At first, all I heard was gagging and then the unmistakable sound of vomiting.

  “Let me do this.”

  I pushed Jesse into the hallway and slammed the door, sealing Henri and me inside the bathroom together. I rubbed my hand up and down her back as she emptied her stomach.

  In a small voice, she asked, “Did I get it in my hair?”

  That’s when I knew she was going to be all right.

  “Your hair’s perfect.”

  Jesse helped me get her back to the couch and brought her another glass of water.

  “She’s going to be okay now that she got some of it out of her,” he said. “She’ll sober up fast.”

  She was shivering in her miniskirt and bare legs, so he grabbed one of my blankets off the floor and wrapped it around her. Jesse rubbed at his knuckles—they were purple. He unclenched his fist and his whole hand shook with effort.

  As Henri came around, he tucked her hair behind her ear. His whisper was barely loud enough for me to hear. “Do you want me to call the police?”

  I jumped up so fast, my feet stung against the hardwood floor. “Okay! Tell me what happened and tell me right now!”

  “Nothing happened,” she mumbled.

  “Those guys, the ones mixing those drinks—” Jesse combed through his hair with his hands. “They took her upstairs.”

  She’d be so mad at him if he’d caused a scene and embarrassed her. “But was she . . . willing?”

  “There were three of them. She said no. If she’d been cool with it, it would have been different. She’s a big girl—she can do what she wants. But I heard her say no, Em, and they heard her too, and they didn’t stop.”

  My breaths shook free from my chest. “I’ll get the phone.”

  Henri put up her hands. “No.”

  “Jesse, tell her we have to.”

  He crossed the room and bent close to my ear. “Look, I was watching her all night. She’s okay. I saw what was happening and I got upstairs as soon as they . . .” He rubbed his swollen hand. “I think I broke Jake Holt’s nose.”

  “Em,” Henri said. “Would you grab some ice for his hand?”

  We were all out of ziplock bags, so I grabbed a bag of frozen peas from the freezer. I could hear them whispering out in the family room. I couldn’t tell what they were saying, but I did hear my sister’s words: “Thank you.”

  She had her forehead pressed in the curve of Jesse’s neck as I dropped the peas into his lap. With his good hand, he rubbed her arm over the blanket.

  I’d become invisible—I stood in front of the couch for several seconds before they even looked up.

  The ticking of the clock on the mantel was the only sound for a long time. Henri and Jesse were touching each other, little tiny touches that would have looked innocent to most people. Her fingertips circling his purple knuckles. His socked feet brushing against her bare toes.

  An hour went by.

  I thought about Jake Holt and those other guys, what they’d done. It wasn’t rape—not yet—but still a crime. I didn’t even know the details. Maybe assault? Calling the cops was what I needed to do. But it was Henri’s story. If I tried to make her tell anyone what happened, she’d lie.

  We ordered a pizza from Crusty Charlie’s in the city, and while we waited on the delivery guy, Henri went upstairs and changed into a pair of yoga pants and an oversized sweater with toothpaste stains down the front.

  As I paid the delivery guy, Henri said something into Jesse’s ear. They’d never kept secrets from me.

  Henri ate a small piece of Canadian bacon and pineapple, I ate three, and Jesse ate almost all of the rest. She kept glancing between me and the staircase—she wanted me to go upstairs. I wouldn
’t dare leave them alone.

  Finally, Henri yawned.

  I shot daggers through Jesse. “She looks tired. You should probably let me put her to bed.”

  She worked a hand into the underside of her hair and leaned into the sofa cushions. “I’d actually rather not be alone.”

  “Well, you won’t be alone,” I said. “I’ll be here.”

  Henri stood and wiggled her fingers at Jesse. “Would you come lie down with me? For a while?”

  He took her hand, and I followed them both up the stairs. I wanted to scream at him that she was drunk. Accuse him of the same thing as those boys at the party. But Henri wasn’t drunk at all anymore. Hours had passed and she was stone-cold sober enough to know what she wanted.

  I was terrified of what that was.

  Before Jesse shut the door to Henri’s room and locked them both inside, he stared right at me.

  I stood in the doorway of my room. I didn’t know what the look meant. Was it an am-I-dreaming-or-is-this-really-happening kind of look? Was it apologetic? Was it ashamed?

  In the dark of my room, I lay on top of my comforter. Through the thin walls of our older Bay Area home, I could make out soft murmurs and kissing sounds. Fumblings. The weight of two people falling into Henri’s creaking bed.

  I rolled over and cried into my mattress. They weren’t trying to hurt me—Jesse didn’t know how I felt and I’d sworn to Henri I wasn’t into him—but all the things they didn’t know couldn’t stop the pain from flooding the empty places in me.

  She didn’t even care about him. This was stupid. An impulsive thank-you—Henri never did anything halfway.

  I heard it. The sound of his moaning. I cupped my pillow around my head and pressed until my ears burned.

  Their relationship had gone past crushes, past friendship, past anything my feelings for Jesse could ever reach. No longer did I want a house by the sea with my sister.

  CHAPTER 19

  We chose a spot halfway up the beach, in a wide-open space, at the highest point we could build a signal fire without risking the flames spreading to the trees. The cliff top was too windy, too hard to relight, but the smoke could climb taller than the cliff, high into the sky.

  “How do we even know who we’re signaling?” Henri emerged from the ocean, dripping and angry. She pulled her shorts up her damp thighs. “They could be human traffickers or mercenaries. We’re probably safer here.”

  I glanced up from filling the impression we’d made with crisp brown leaves. “It’s a cargo ship. And the best chance we’ve ever had at getting home.”

  “Maybe,” she said. “Doesn’t mean I’m helping.”

  Alex spread out on his stomach, rolling the metal spark wheel until the lighter flamed, and holding it to the brown leaves. “Surprise, surprise,” he said, but Henri was already gone.

  The two of us piled kindling along the base of the fire, fed wood until it roared. It sparked and crackled, the dry brush and branches burning hot and clear.

  “We need more smoke,” I said. “Something green.”

  A cluster of bamboo taller than Alex had fallen against the beach. Some fibers kept it connected to the other branches. He hacked it free with his knife and tossed it over the fire.

  Gray smoke spiraled toward the sky.

  Time drifted by.

  No rescue boats anchoring close to our shore.

  No planes overhead.

  Alex had said we were invisible. As the sun went down and orange firelight filled the darkness, I felt myself fading.

  A scream exploded from my throat, burst my eyelids open with the force of a physical thing. Drenched in my sweat and tears, I pushed up on my mat in the darkness.

  The tree branches tied to the hammock squeaked as Alex sat up. He left it swinging and crawled down to me on the shelter floor. “What is it? What?”

  “I’m okay. I’m okay.”

  I was dreaming of swirling oceans dragging Henri from my reach as water filled her mouth. Only I wasn’t dreaming—the roaring was real.

  “That’s a caiman, isn’t it?”

  Alex’s knee dug into my thigh as he crossed me and peeled back the tarp. The lighter would run out of fluid if we had to keep relighting, and Henri was supposed to be watching the fire before we traded off. “Your sister, she’s—”

  “What?”

  “Gone.”

  We pushed through the door. The caiman hurting me didn’t scare me nearly as much as the thought of it hurting Henri.

  Flames flicked amid the red-hot coals—she hadn’t been gone long enough to let the fire die. The roars grew louder.

  Alex spun right past our shelter, toward the beach. “It’s coming from this way.”

  He was wrong. It was the other way—the wild part of the jungle, the twisted brush not far from where the caiman had sprung from the water. “No, over here.”

  We darted in different directions, but I doubled back to the shelter for his knife. I knew where the sound had come from.

  The jungle fog was thick, then thicker. It snaked damply down my throat and snatched at my oxygen. Still, I pushed through the tangles of vines.

  Henri stood in a larger clearing, under the frail tree Alex had first suggested for our shelter, her skin blending into the heavy air so I couldn’t tell where she ended and the air around her began.

  Something darted between the trees. It was too dark to see at that distance, but I could hear its thick body turning up the underbrush.

  I lifted my finger to my lips, but Henri must have not seen me, because she said, “Emma, what are you doing out here? Do you hear them? I was just—”

  The caiman snapped its head and focused its glowing yellow eyes on Henri. Flying across the embankment, it charged my sister.

  I threw myself between them. Pain shot from my left wrist all the way up my arm. The edges of my vision blurred. I saw my left arm, the skin ripped open. In the moonlight, thick, sticky blood coated my hand. I scrambled up on all fours as the caiman lunged again. I raised my arm as high as time allowed and drove the knife into its skull. The caiman cried out, a terrible primal sound, and went still.

  “Emma! Oh God.” Henri pressed her hand to my arm and blood seeped between her fingers. My bleeding arm gave out from under me, and I fell.

  Holding my wrist above my heart barely slowed the bleeding. As Alex built the fire into a blaze bright enough to flood our dark clearing with light, blood still oozed from the wound.

  He fed the fire with his back to us. “What were you doing out there, anyway?”

  “I had to pee, if you must know,” Henri said, tying a vine like a tourniquet just above my elbow. I gasped and clenched my teeth. She’d gotten the cotton out of a tampon and was using it to staunch the bleeding. “Don’t act like this is my fault.”

  “Oh, no, Hank. Nothing’s ever your fault.”

  Their bickering didn’t interest me as much as the caiman carcass Alex carried back with us. I’d inched toward it while Alex had tried to stoke the fire for more light—I had to know if it was the same one. Alex’s knife was still lodged in its skull, and its open eyes had dulled from yellow to gray. On its back was that olive-green diamond.

  “Let me see.” Henri untwisted my arm against her stomach and gently lifted away the soaked cotton. “It’s a clean gash and narrow, but it’s deep.”

  “How deep?” Alex asked.

  I shrieked as Henri manipulated the raw skin. “It’s all the way to the bone, I think. I might puke. What are we going to do?”

  “We do have a sewing kit,” I said, breathing hard. Even if the bleeding stopped, walking around the island with an open wound was asking for an infection. “I guess I need stitches.”

  Alex shook his head. “Without anesthesia? Oh, Jones. It’s going to feel like your arm is burning in the fires of hell.”

  “I can
handle it.” I looked between them. My sister, she’d never do that kind of dirty work. “Alex, will you stitch me up?”

  His Adam’s apple bounced. “Okay.”

  “Do you want to bite down on something?” Henri asked.

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. Like, a belt or—”

  “I’ve got something better,” Alex said. With his back to us, he rustled around in his bag and came back with a pill between his fingers. “If you crush it, you’ll get the full effects of the Oxy immediately.”

  “You want her to snort it?” asked Henri.

  “No.” He held it out to me. “You could damage your nasal passages. Just chew it.”

  I stared at the little pink pill. “What does it feel like?”

  “Euphoric. Numb. It’s an opiate. I can’t say for sure—I’ve never tried it.”

  “Never?”

  “Never.”

  I tried to make eye contact with Henri, but she glanced away. She hated being wrong.

  “It’s highly addictive. Not worth the risk . . .” He blinked, nodded to my arm. “Unless you really need it.”

  “I’ll be fine without it.”

  With my back pressed against the palm tree, I closed my eyes just as Henri doused the cut with nearly the last of her hand sanitizer. Fire shot up my arm and I screamed, muffling my voice with my other hand. Calm—that was the only way to get through this.

  Henri pushed her forehead against mine and whispered, “You can do this,” before she reached into her bag and pulled out the travel sewing kit.

  “Let’s see.” Alex brushed over the spools of thread, fingers quivering. “Standard surgical black or blue to match your swimsuit?” He tried to smile.

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  Henri threaded the needle with black, cleaned it with a final dribble of hand sanitizer, and passed it to Alex. “Okay, she’s ready. I’ll hold her arm down. Shit, are you all right?”

  Alex swayed. All the color drained from his face.

  “You’re not feeling sick again, are you?” I held the back of my hand to his forehead, but it was cool.