The S-Word

by Chelsea Pitcher

  The most sought-after guy in school thinks I’m beautiful. I can’t help it. I smile.

  He takes that as a sign too.

  Now his hands are tugging at my dress. I keep thinking: I just put it on. Why would I want to take it off?

  Stupidity. Nonsense. But this is all my brain can process at the moment. It seems fixated on this simple contradiction, like, if I can figure that out, everything will make sense.

  My first real words of protest are “I can’t do this.”

  (As “I need to breathe” was apparently open to interpretation.)

  And yes. I say “I can’t do this” rather than “I don’t want to do this.” Seems clear-cut to me. But Drake’s response indicates it isn’t clear-cut at all; as if he too is working out an equation in his head, and if he can simply show that I can, in fact, do this (Look! It’s happening! You’re doing it!), I’ll change my mind.

  But I don’t change my mind. I don’t change it in the least, even as my brain tries to send messages to my heart that everything is completely fine.

  It goes a little like this:

  Everything’s fine. No big deal. A kiss is just a kiss. And these may be the only kisses you’ll ever get. Yes, by some celestial oversight, or rip in the space-time continuum, an actual human being has deigned to kiss you. That, in and of itself, should not be cause for panicking.

  Never mind that my heart is panicking, regardless of the pretty lies my brain tries to tell. No butterfly fluttering in this chest of mine. My heart is all-out slamming against me. And heat, unbearable heat. The heat of fear, the heat of shame. I’m scared, and though I haven’t even done anything wrong, I’m already sorry.

  Relax, says my naïve brain. He’ll stop if you properly articulate yourself (“I can’t do this” joining “I need to breathe” on the list of Improperly Articulated Feelings). He’ll remember the rules any moment now, remember he belongs to someone else. Remember his decency.

  He’s just confused/overexcited/testing me. Probably some game boys play.

  “I need to stop,” I say.

  I’m the one who needs to? asks my brain. As if my hands are barreling across his skin like territory I can’t wait to claim. As if I’ve been doing anything but moving backward and pulling his hands away.

  I suppose he takes my words to mean I need to stop doing that—resisting—because he doesn’t stop anything. Not one thing.

  Now his hands are visiting places I’ve never invited anyone, hidden places, places I keep secret for a reason.

  Saving them for someone who loves me.

  (And since no one ever will, you’ll be untouched forever, taunts brain. And heart replies, Safe.)

  At this point the conversation inside of me has taken precedence over anything going on outside. Maybe it’s for the best. Drake is using his hand to dive into me. His face is close to mine, whispering how it feels to touch me. How it makes him feel.

  That’s what it should be about, right? How it makes him feel?

  I start to choose my phrases at random. “Stop,” I say. “I can’t do this. You need to slow down. Seriously.” I add the “seriously” when he rips my dress. He rips my dress, so that the moment this is over, I can’t pretend it never happened. There is evidence for everyone to see.

  Even you.

  Oh God. What will you think of me? But I can’t even focus on what this will do to other people because I’m too busy telling myself this can’t be happening to me. It can’t. It can’t be. Everyone hears stories of these things. We all think of what we will do.

  I would kick. I would scream. Bite, tear out hair, anything.

  But I don’t do any of those things because those things would prove something unspeakable is happening. Drake is my friend. He’s my friend. He would never do anything to hurt me. I must not have made it clear to him—

  My brain doesn’t get to finish this time. My heart is fast at its heels and it is screaming:

  You’ve said stop, you’ve said it a dozen times now. He knows what that means. Of course he knows what it means. He’s not listening. He’s not stopping. Look at him, he’s—

  Then, static.

  The outside world goes quiet. I can hear no breathing. No voice speaking. My heart and my brain are at war and it completely takes over me. I don’t have to think about the fact that my dress isn’t the only thing he’s ripping. I don’t have to feel it, or anything. I’m having a conversation with myself, that’s all.

  I close my eyes so I’m the only one in the room I can see.

  Time passes strangely. At least, that’s how I feel after. But it doesn’t matter because this war inside me stretches out into eternity. It is never-ending. My brain and my heart, mortal enemies. Neither will listen to the other ever again.

  In the hours that follow, my heart speaks with a quieter voice.

  All the while, my brain asks me things: If you wanted him to leave, why didn’t you fight? Why didn’t you scream?

  All that time in that room while he was misunderstanding (must have been misunderstanding), I spoke softly: convincing, then pleading. I never once raised my voice.

  Why?

  Then finally, after hours and hours of hearing this question on repeat in my brain, my heart replies:

  Because he wasn’t a wild animal come to swallow me. Because he wasn’t a loathed enemy. He was a friend. A friend of my best friend. A friend of all of our families. Because it’s so much easier to believe I made a mistake than it is to admit someone raped me.

  Why didn’t I raise my voice?

  He could hear me perfectly.

  twenty-three

  THE KNOCK ON my window comes at ten after one. My dad’s sleeping soundly in the next room. Sure, I could have driven the five blocks from Drake’s to my mom’s place, but I needed the sound barrier created by Dad’s snoring to hide my sobs. I don’t know how I knew Lizzie’s entry would pull all the anguish out of me, I just knew.

  And I was right. Contrary to popular opinion, it does not feel good to let out what I’ve been holding in. It’s been poison in my gut and when I let it out, it’s all I can taste.

  My eyes are dry when Jesse crawls through the window. I left it cracked so he could let himself in. I’m sitting on the bed like a statue, the book of poems he gave to Lizzie in my hands. Opened to the last page.

  I start to read before he’s all the way inside.

  “Ericka Engleson has written twenty-two acclaimed titles in her lifetime, including The Unofficial Guide to the Lesbian Love Nest and fourteen books of erotic poetry. She lives in Vermont with her wife and their two beloved Yorkies.”

  He sits on the bed but keeps his distance. Yeah, he’s scared.

  “Tell me something, Jesse.” I hold up the book, cocking my head to one side. “You gave Lizzie a book of erotic lesbian poetry. Whyever so?”

  He fiddles with the zipper of his sweatshirt. “Where did you get that?”

  Ooh. Big mistake. Answering a question with a question is a telltale sign of guilt.

  “I got it in Lizzie’s bedroom,” I say. “When and why is none of your business.”

  He studies his palms like they’ll give him the answers to the universe. His breath is coming out in little puffs. “I don’t—I don’t know anything . . .”

  “Well, maybe you need more information.” I lean over the bed. In one swift movement, I’ve switched the book of poems with the stack of pages I left sitting on my nightstand. The ones containing all of Lizzie’s secrets, but only if you read carefully.

  “After this year, I might lose the chance to tell you how I feel,” I quote from her September entry.

  “I don’t want to hear this.”

  “I didn’t either,” I say, fingers tracing the writing. “Not this way. Not from her diary. Not when she could’ve said it to my face.”

  “Angie.”

  “God, not even to my face.” I shake my head. “She could’ve passed me a note in class. Stuck it in my locker and bolted—”

  �
�Baby.”

  “Whispered it quietly, when she thought I was sleeping.”

  He reaches out. I jerk away, thinking he’s going for the pages in my hand. But I should know better than that.

  He’s the only person in the world who doesn’t want to read them.

  “Tell me what I can do for you,” he says, lips barely moving.

  “You can listen. Listen to her story and understand. All she ever wanted was understanding—”

  “I’ll try.” His voice is meek and broken.

  “Thank you. Now, where was I?” I flip to the second page. “Here it is: I used to sing for you all the time. Remember? At the park, when the three of us played trolls and fairies . . . Your eyes lit up at the sounds I could make.”

  I pause, smiling at the memory. Seeing it in an entirely new light.

  “That’s sweet,” Jesse says.

  “Isn’t it? Lizzie really had a thing for old Drakey-boy.” My body tenses at the mention of his name. But Jesse’s still watching me, so I keep reading:

  “What if you could hear me sing again? Would your heart hear what your eyes refuse to see? Would you come running to me? Or even walking? Walking I would accept, at this point.”

  Jesse laughs softly. “Lizzie was funny.”

  “Lizzie was fucking hilarious. And nobody knew . . .”

  “I knew.” After a minute, he adds, “What else?” He says it casually, like we’re discussing modern fashions, but he’s tearing at his cuticles like he’s trying to unravel himself from the outside.

  “Here, she talks about auditioning for Midsummer: You’ll come to watch the play. The school’s MVPs always do. Cheerleaders and football stars mingling with the artists . . . Then, maybe for one brief moment, you’ll take my hand and feel what I still can’t speak.”

  Jesse’s gaze flicks to the windowsill. I know what he’s thinking: Two steps, and I’m out of this place. Two steps, and I never have to come back.

  “Just one more,” I promise. “One more passage about Drake. That’s who she loved, right? Drake, the football star. Drake, who turned into an ugly troll when we wanted to play fairies. And my God, to love him her entire life . . . that’s dedication.” I flip to Lizzie’s prom-night entry. My gut starts clenching, begging me to turn away.

  “I’m really sorry about this,” I say to Jesse, though he must know I’m not just talking to him. “I’m really sorry.”

  “Angie.”

  “He rips my dress,” I read quickly. “He rips my dress, so that the moment this is over, I can’t pretend it never happened. There is evidence for everyone to see. Even you.”

  His eyes are closed when I look up again.

  “You,” I repeat, flipping from page to page. “You’ll come to watch the play. You’ll take my hand. I might lose the chance to tell you how I feel . . .” I return to the final page. “A different ‘you’ from who was in the room.”

  Jesse swallows audibly. He must know what I’m going to ask next. He turns away just as I speak the words, “Did you know?”

  Still, my voice finds him. “She never told me,” he says. “But we talked a lot during rehearsals. She thought I was gay . . .”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” The pages slip from my hands.

  He pulls his knees up to his chest. He’s cradling himself, there on the corner of my bed. “I didn’t know you then. I hardly knew Lizzie . . .”

  I nod, but my heart is sinking. My entire body is sinking, and I don’t think I’ll ever climb out of this abyss. “All this time, I thought she was in love with Drake.”

  Brown hair. Blue eyes. Always a secret.

  He looks up at me. His eyes are wet, and I don’t know if he’s sad for me, or for Lizzie, or for both of us. For the future we’ll never have in any capacity. “I don’t think she wanted you to know,” he says finally.

  “She could’ve told me.”

  He nods but I can tell he doesn’t believe me. He thinks I’m lying to myself.

  Why shouldn’t I? I’ve lied to everyone else.

  “She was probably afraid,” he says after a minute. “You meant the world to her.” It’s the absolute worst thing he can say. The numbness inside me ruptures. I have to fight to stop from breaking.

  “And I let her down.” I swallow over and over. I feel the poison rising again. But I refuse to let it out in front of Jesse. “How could I have missed this? How could I have thought she loved Drake? She didn’t even like him . . .” I think of the prom-night entry, devoid of any romantic feelings. If Lizzie had loved Drake, she would’ve wanted to kiss him, even if she felt conflicted. She would’ve noticed the curve of his lips, the smell of his skin. She would’ve noticed something.

  But she didn’t.

  Lifting Lizzie’s pages from the ground, I slide them into my nightstand drawer. “You know what’s really pathetic? I never would’ve figured it out without the missing entry. I would’ve spent my whole stupid life thinking—”

  “Wait—what do you mean, missing?”

  I stop, just watching him. “You really didn’t read anything that was being passed around, did you?”

  “Of course I didn’t,” Jesse says, and I have to believe him. He has no reason to lie about the thing I’ve been doing all along.

  I inhale slowly. “The pages that got passed around were only from certain dates,” I explain. “But the week of prom never showed up. So I figured either she didn’t write about it or that part was missing.”

  “How did you find it, then?”

  “I went over to Drake’s tonight.”

  “Are you okay?” His body’s inching toward mine. I don’t think he even realizes he’s doing it.

  I curl in on myself. “I’m fine. He’s the one who should be worried. I—” I freeze. My entire body crystallizes. “Wait a second.”

  “What?”

  “Did you know about him?” I push myself to the edge of the bed. My teeth are so clenched it’s a wonder the words can slip past my lips.

  But he hears me. I can tell by the look on his face. “Know what?” he asks, trembling.

  “Did you know what he did?”

  “I don’t . . .”

  “You warned me about him,” I say breathlessly. “You got my number that night he followed me after class. You said you were worried. Why were you worried, Jesse? Did you know the entire time?”

  “I didn’t!” His voice cracks. I wonder if he’s going to break down right in front of me. I can’t tell if that would be brave or weak, and suddenly it’s very important, because I’m certain I’m going to cry in front of him. “I just suspected.”

  “Well, congratulations. You were right.”

  He’s hiding his face between his knees. “No.”

  “Yes.”

  “It can’t be what happened. It can’t be.”

  “It is. And I let him go after her. I practically fucking orchestrated it.” I close my eyes, trying to push away the memories. But behind my lids, the images of Lizzie in the hotel room are rearranging. Telling a different story from the one I chose to believe.

  She’s reaching out for me.

  She’s crying.

  She’s begging me to stop him.

  This isn’t how it happened, but every second since I read the missing entry I’ve seen it this way. I’ve seen myself abandoning her in her darkest moment.

  I’ve seen myself pushing her into her grave.

  “I believed something ridiculous about her because I didn’t want to believe he’d hurt her this way.” I turn away from Jesse. From everything. “I didn’t want to hurt myself, so I let her suffer. I let her die.”

  “You didn’t.” His arms go around me. It happens so fast, it actually startles me, and I’m pushing him away before I can stop myself.

  “Don’t touch me!” I should lower my voice, but I can’t calm down. “I don’t deserve to be touched after what I did—I deserve to be punished. So does Drake.”

  “Sweetheart.” His arms are scrambling to hold me, and
it’s the first time he’s ever fought me this way.

  I catch his eye, so he can see what a bad idea this is. “Don’t you dare,” I say. “Don’t tell me not to hurt him.”

  “I don’t . . .” Without me to hold on to, his hands go to his hair. “I think people should be warned about him. But whatever you’re planning—”

  “Don’t worry your pretty little head.”

  “I’m worried about you. You’re going to make yourself insane.”

  “Oh, baby, I’m so far beyond that.”

  “Angie.”

  “What? What can you say to defend the person who raped my best friend? What can you say to defend the people who killed her?”

  He stares at me like I’m a stranger. And honest to God it makes me laugh.

  I say, “They did. You know they did. If any one of us hadn’t treated her like complete shit, she would still be here.”

  “I didn’t treat her like shit.”

  “I guess you’re special then.”

  “That’s not what I meant.” He’s staring at me and staring at me but I can’t see him. “I’m telling you I tried to be her friend. After that night. After . . .”

  “What happened?”

  “I pushed too hard. I knew something had happened that she wasn’t saying. I thought if I could get to the truth, some of the tormenting would stop.”

  “It wouldn’t have. They all love having someone to hate. It would’ve just made it worse when no one believed her.”

  “You would have believed her.”

  The words chill me deeper than I can say.

  “But she never told you?” I ask. “Not about . . . him?”

  He shakes his head. “She got mad when I wouldn’t let it go. She said we were only friends during the play and pretty much told me to get lost.”

  “That doesn’t sound like Lizzie at all.”

  “She wasn’t herself at the end.”

  “No.” I lower my head. The sadness is rising up in me, tearing my insides to shreds. “I can’t handle this.”

  “Yes, you can.”

  “No, I can’t.” I pull my knees up to my chest. “I can’t do this. I just want it to end.”