by Coo Sweet
"I'll go get somebody. She'll be okay," he stammered, bolting toward the doorway.
“No. Don’t leave us.” Sage shook from the waves of fear and shock that buffeted his body.
Peyton ran back to him. He shoved his face so close to Sage, he could see his friend’s pupils dilate from the terror that strangled him. Peyton gripped Sage’s shoulder. He shook him hard enough to rattle his teeth.
“I. Have. To. Get. Help.” Peyton squeezed hard, forcing Sage to focus on each word. “OK? Promise I’ll be right back.”
Sage swallowed a sob and nodded in agreement. Peyton took off running again. Sage watched his back until the sunlight outside the restroom swallowed Peyton up.
While he waited he cooed softly to Serenity. He smoothed her shirt and placed her hands in her lap to keep them off the bloody floor.
Moments later, Peyton returned with Sage’s mother in tow.
Before she even hit the doorway, she frantically punched numbers into a cell phone, jamming it to her ear.
"I need help, quick. City View Park. The women's restroom. Yes! An ambulance. Please hurry." She clicked the phone off and shot inside the restroom.
A pair of paramedics worked feverishly over Serenity. Sage’s mother watched their frenzied ministrations. Both boys' heads were clasped to her body. Their arms wrapped around her waist.
With their grief-stricken faces, and blood-stained clothes and hair, the trio painted a picture of a bizarre group hug.
The paramedics’ tempo slowed and eventually stopped. They strapped Serenity to a stretcher. One of them pulled a sheet over her face. Sage tore away from his mother’s arms. He rushed toward the men and tugged on what he now considered profanely idle hands.
“No. Try something else. Don’t stop. Help her.”
The paramedics bowed their heads and submitted to his raging words and insistent hands as best they could. Sage’s mother and Peyton jumped into action prying him off. It took them awhile to wrestle him loose.
Sage fought for Serenity until the last of his strength was sapped. He may not have fought for her before, but he fought that day. Then he fell limp, into his mother’s aching arms.
When the men were finally freed from his grip, they hustled Serenity’s body toward the circle of sunlight beaming into the restroom.
A week later Sage and Peyton sat quietly in a sunny bedroom.
Aside from the furnishings, it was hard to believe a sixth grade boy regularly occupied the space. There was no evidence of clutter, contraband snacks, or dirty clothes hiding under the bed. Not even a telltale air freshening device to combat the odor of unwashed armpits, stinky feet, or fuzzy teeth.
The boys sat together on an immaculate bed. Their dapper suits a stark contrast to the wounded looks on their faces.
They focused, with bated breath, on a conversation outside the room. The voices drifted from a loft. Two women sat there nursing cups of coffee long gone cold. They were dressed in dark, stylish clothes.
Sage’s mother, Nadine, was the lady of the house. In addition to the somber mourning clothes she was dressed in, she also wore the stress from the previous week on her striking face.
"I can't believe they're burying that child today. Shame she died like that," Nadine said to her guest.
Peyton’s mother, Gail, wagged her head in agreement. She retrieved a compact from her purse, opened it, and checked her already flawless makeup in the tiny mirror.
"Well, you know they put her on a pedestal. Always bragging on her making straight A's in school, how pretty she was...going to be somebody great someday." Gail took another look in the mirror, “But I guess when you have a mama who runs the streets like hers did, and you have a daddy who was never in the picture, you might push yourself to do better. Rise above all the bullshit so to speak. Hell, that girl was scared to death to fail if you ask me."
Nadine shifted in her seat, noticeably uncomfortable with casting even the slightest hint of disrespect at the dead girl. She even glanced over her shoulder, as if to check for witnesses to their gossiping tongues.
"True. But what's a young girl know about giving herself an abortion? And with a coat hanger of all things? I haven't heard of anybody doing that since I was a teenager."
"Anybody know who the daddy was?" Gail asked.
"I don't know. But I’ll tell you what…whoever he is, they need to cut his balls and his thing off," Nadine snarled.
"I hear you. All these young boys think about is sticking it in whoever's willing. You let my son come home talking about he got somebody pregnant. I'll wring his neck! I'm way too fine to be a grandma anytime soon."
Gail admired herself in the mirror one last time. Finally satisfied with what she saw, she snapped it shut and slid it back into her purse.
"Oh, you got that right. Heads will roll up in here, too," said Nadine, slamming her empty mug down for emphasis.
Sage, silent and inert as a tombstone, sat on the bed with a pillow pressed to his chest. A chain of tears dotted the pillowcase.
Peyton was seated at his friend’s desk. He stabbed a note pad with a pen. The motion was slight at first, but he soon picked up momentum and jack-hammered the pen into the paper. That convulsive action snapped Sage out of his stupor. He leaped from his bed, strode to the desk, and snatched the pad and pen from Peyton’s hands.
“Stop it before you mess up my desk!”
Tension between the boys hung heavy in the air like the stink of a fresh fart.
“You stop it, dumbass!” said Peyton.
He jumped up from the desk and pushed Sage to the ground. He stood over him with fists clenched. His chest heaved from the adrenaline pumping through his body.
The sound from the scuffle caught the attention of the boys’ mothers.
Nadine raised an eyebrow.
“What in the--”
She got up to investigate. By the time she reached the doorway of Sage’s room the boys had retreated to neutral corners. Nadine stuck her head in the room. Beneath knitted brows, her eyes panned from one boy to the other. Neither of them engaged contact with her hawkish gaze.
“Everything alright in here?” she asked.
Sage ran a finger across one eye. “Sure, Ma. We’re fine.”
Peyton offered only a tight nod of his head.
Nadine crossed her hands over her chest, obviously not falling for the boys’ weak lie.
“You’re fine, huh?” She stepped into the room and walked over to her son. She raised his chin with a trembling hand.
Sage bit his lip--a painful warning not to spill tears again.
“Yeah, Mom. We’re okay. Really.”
Nadine clasped Sage to her body with a tight squeeze.
“We don’t have to do this, you know? Everyone would understand if you skipped the service,” she assured him.
Sage pulled away from her with more force than he intended. Nadine staggered back a few steps. Sage took some measured breaths to calm himself.
“No. I’m going,” he said, glancing at Peyton, who nodded slightly. “I mean we’re going. It’ll be okay, Mom.”
Hearing the resolve in her son’s voice, Nadine chose to back off.
“Alright. Your dad should be here soon to pick us up. You guys want something to eat before we leave?”
“No!” the boys said in unison, both having been repulsed by even the thought of food for the past week. Nadine raised her hands in apology.
“Okay. Just checking,” she said.
The second she left the room, Sage pushed the door partially closed. He flopped back on the bed. Peyton joined him.
He turned a serious eye toward his friend.
“Sorry for pushing
you,” Peyton said.
Sage shrugged. “Sorry I yelled at you.”
“It’s okay. I know this is hard for you. Serenity being your girl and all.”
“She wasn’t my girl,” hissed Sage. He shot upright from the force of the words.
Peyton tensed, balled up his fists, ready to defend himself again if necessary.
“Oh, yeah? Then why’d she let you do all those things to her, huh? That stuff you told us about,” Peyton taunted.
“I didn’t do anything to her, stupid. I only said that so you guys would leave me alone.”
“So all that stuff about you being in her room--what her titties looked like--that was all a lie?”
Sage didn’t answer. He focused on a microscopic speck of dirt beneath one of his fingernails, letting his mind drift back to that day at Serenity’s.
Serenity hadn’t been expecting him to just show up at her house, that was plain to see by her shocked expression, and by the way she blocked the door when she’d realized who was standing there.
“What are you doing here, Sage?”
He shuffled his feet, not sure how to answer the question. Should he tell her he was there to declare his undying love? That even if he lived to be a hundred, she would always be the only girl in the world for him?
When he finally did open his mouth to speak, Serenity had no use for social niceties.
“Look, I’m busy right now. You have to go, okay? I’ll talk to you later.”
Before she had a chance to close the door--and he had a chance to apologize for his unexpected arrival--a voice came from the back of the apartment.
“Girl, what’s taking you so long? Get your fine ass back in here.” Serenity blushed, pushed on the door.
“I’m sorry. I gotta go. Please don’t be mad.” She squeezed his hand to make amends for the pitiful look spreading across his face. Then she gently closed the door.
When he heard the lock click, a gang-load of emotions tackled his body all at once. He wanted to cry, but knew he was supposed to be too big for that. He wanted to strike out and hit somebody... Serenity...the boy waiting for her...even himself for being such a fool in love.
Most of all he wanted answers. Who was with her? Were they doing what he thought they were doing?
He knew her bedroom window faced the front of the apartment. She’d open it sometimes and converse with friends there. With just enough cover from the shrubs planted near the window, he could probably get a peek at whatever was going on in the room. His heart pumping furiously, he crept into the bushes and raised his head to the edge of the windowsill.
What he saw hit him in two places. His gut and half a foot lower, in his groin. His stomach lurched at the sight of Serenity. Topless. In the arms of an older boy he didn’t recognize. And with no warning, but a heavy dose of guilt and shame, he felt himself stiffen across the crotch of his jeans.
Peyton’s voice in his ear snatched Sage back to the confines of the room.
“So you didn’t get her preg--”
“No! Are you crazy? I didn’t even know she was pregnant,” said Sage, pressing his legs together like he had to pee. Or maybe suppress a reaction to the memory he’d just had.
“You think it’s true? About the abortion, I mean,” Peyton asked.
“I guess so. You heard what my mom said didn’t you? But why would Serenity do that? She should have told me. I would have helped her!”
“Helped her how, dodo? You’re eleven. What could you do?” Peyton huffed and rolled his eyes.
“I don’t know, but she didn’t have to hurt herself like that,” Sage whispered.
Just then, a tidal wave of unrelenting emotions pushed down on the boys’ bony shoulders. They began to feel like the weight of their ordeal might actually be strong enough to swallow them up and drown them.
The sorrow they’d endured for the better part of a week dragged them to a place where they were literally forced to lean into one another just to gain enough strength to rise above the memories of that awful bloody day. And to grab a sip of fresh, clean air...to get some tiny sliver of relief from the lurid recollection of Serenity’s violated body.
She rested in a lavish coffin on display in the chapel of the funeral home. The room was filled with extravagant flower arrangements, and the unmistakable aura of Sage’s grief.
He’d lied to his mother and said he needed to pee. Instead of going to the restroom, he’d sneaked into the chapel before the service was due to start.
It took him a minute to gather his nerves enough to walk to the casket. When he got close enough, he stretched on his tiptoes and peered inside. Tears flooded his eyes. Funny how there seemed to be an endless supply of them no matter how hard he wished they’d dry up and stop ambushing him. He snatched a tissue from his pocket and pressed it to his face.
Serenity looked surprisingly normal. Not at all what he’d expected for a corpse. Instead, she embodied her name. From all appearances she could have been taking a pleasant afternoon nap. Except for the coffin. And the flowers. And the dead part.
Sage couldn’t resist touching her. He brushed the back of his hand against hers. Her skin felt cool and dry, like paper fresh from a new ream. Emboldened by those ordinary sensations, Sage bent his head and kissed Serenity’s cold, hard mouth. It was like kissing a smooth stone.
Checking over his shoulder to make sure he was still alone, he removed one of her earrings. Sage held it in the palm of his hand. He marveled at the fact that an inanimate piece of jewelry generated more heat than Serenity’s preserved body. He closed his fingers around the earring and rearranged Serenity’s hair to conceal the theft.
"You're my girl forever, Serenity. Cross my heart and hope to die," he whispered to her, crossing his heart with sure, steady fingers.
Sage placed the earring in his pocket. He pulled a school photo of himself from another. He pressed down a creased corner of the picture and slipped it beneath Serenity’s dress.
The boys sat in the chapel of the mortuary, shoulder to shoulder on a stiff wooden pew. Their body language mirrored the seat’s composition—-cold and stiff.
Curious mourners sneaked peeks at them. From the sly corner of an eye, beneath a false eyelash, or under the cover of a wide-brimmed hat the boys were thoroughly scrutinized. The ones whose mamas hadn’t taught them any better dropped their heads and whispered, gawked, even pointed at them.
Sage responded to their macabre curiosity by shrinking into the cavity of the pew. Peyton preferred to engage them in a menacing game of stare-down.
Nadine draped an arm over Sage’s shoulder. She pulled him closer to her side.
"You okay, baby?" she asked. He nodded.
"This will be over soon," she promised. Sage nodded again, with barely enough conviction to measure any movement at all.
The funeral moved along in a predictable fashion. A choir sang. The pastor droned on about a life cut short too soon. Muffled weeping punctuated the service, and when the time came to file past Serenity's casket, much of the congregation's collective attention shifted to Serenity’s mother. Maybe to break the monotony, but more than likely to see the show.
With her tear streaked make-up, disheveled clothes, and half-combed hair the grieving mother looked like she’d stepped out of some abstract painting. There was a perceptive buzz coming from the mourners nearest to her.
Sage caught a whiff of their morbid anticipation. He wrinkled his nose in disgust at the stink coming off it.
"Do I have to go up there?" he asked, clutching at Nadine’s sleeve.
"No, baby. Of course not," she said, and patted his hand.
Serenity's mother took her place in front of the casket. A concerned relative flanked her. She elbowed the relat
ive aside with such ferocity that it drew a chorus of “Oh, Lord”, from several uncouth individuals craning their necks to get a better view of her.
The distraught woman leaned over the casket. She tried to cradle her baby one last time. Her companion tugged at her with a loud grunt and a visible show of force. Despite his efforts, she almost succeeded in lifting Serenity's shoulders out of the casket.
With hardly a second to spare, two stout funeral directors raced over and pried the woman’s arms loose. She collapsed in their grasp. They managed to escort -- actually drag her to a seat.
