The S-Word

by Chelsea Pitcher

  “Please don’t say that.”

  “I can’t help it.” I’m rocking back and forth and tears are soaking through to my pants.

  He scoots closer to me.

  My body goes rigid.

  “I’m not going to do anything,” he says, and it just makes me think of Drake.

  I cry harder, trying to push him away without moving my hands from where they’re wrapped around me. “I can’t do this.” I hug myself tighter. “I cannot live knowing what he did and I can’t live with myself if I don’t do anything.”

  “Angie.”

  “I can’t live knowing what we did to her. I can’t live knowing what I did.”

  “Listen to me.” His face is close but it’s not touching me. “You don’t have to forgive them but you have to forgive yourself.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Give yourself time.”

  “Time doesn’t do anything.”

  “It will.”

  I don’t answer, though I know it scares him. I can’t even talk, there’s so much poison pouring out of me. I want to swallow it down so I don’t have to feel it. I want to swallow it down and sleep.

  “Can I hold you?” he asks.

  The thought of him holding me makes me feel trapped. Like I’m in a coffin. But I can’t say no because he feels better than anyone I’ve ever met. “Please make this end.”

  His arms go around me so lightly, this time I could swear they’re wings. “It’s okay, baby,” he whispers, and the words pour over me. “I love you.”

  I laugh at him. “Yeah, right.”

  “Look at me.” He lifts my chin with his hand, though I keep trying to dodge his gaze. “I’m not saying let’s get married.” His breath is so close it makes me shiver. “I’m saying as a person, as a human being, I love you.”

  “You don’t even know me.”

  “I do.” He brushes the wet strands of hair from my face. “Everything’s going to be okay.” He looks so sincere I just want to make him feel better. To make up for the pain I’ve caused.

  I kiss him.

  He kisses me back. It’s probably the last thing we should be doing but I don’t care because I need to feel this right now. I need to feel his love so badly, I’m afraid I won’t survive without it. He’s being gentle so as not to hurt me, but I’m kissing him like I’m starving to death.

  “Can I take this off you?” I whisper, sliding my fingers down his sweatshirt. He nods. When I pull it over his head, his T-shirt comes with it. But he doesn’t seem to mind, and that’s good, because I don’t mind a bit.

  Now I can see him, taste him, touch him. His skin looks beautiful in the moonlight. I’ve never had romantic thoughts like this. But it literally aches to look at him, and before I can stop myself I’m climbing on top of him, fingers stumbling over his chest. They slide up to his shoulders and down the muscles in his arms.

  “Tell me if you want me to stop,” I say into his lips.

  He doesn’t hesitate. “I don’t.”

  I push him back, onto the bed. Lifting his arms over his head, I entwine my fingers with his, holding his hands against the mattress. But I start to worry that it’s bad, like I have him pinned, so I let go and focus on his lips. He’s kissing me more hungrily now, trailing his hands down my arms, to my waist. When he touches my stomach this wild electricity goes through me like I’m alive for the first time. Then I’m guiding his hands down, toward the waist of my pants. Just before he gets there he touches this rough patch on my skin, above my hip.

  Shit.

  He stops.

  Shit. Shit. Shit.

  I sit very still. Still is best. Still says: Not guilty.

  “What is that?” he asks, breathing heavily.

  “A birthmark.” I lean back a little, out of his hands.

  But his eyes are glued to the spot. My heart is beating so loudly I swear he can hear it.

  “Come back,” he says.

  I shake my head. I start to climb off him but he stops me. Just gently, with his hands on my hips. I could push him away if I wanted.

  “Baby, what’s wrong?” he asks.

  It’s probably the last time he’ll ever speak to me like that so I savor it, closing my eyes and letting myself feel warm. But the chill returns at full force when he lifts my waistband, just an inch, to see the word etched into my skin.

  KILLER

  “Did you do this?”

  I can’t breathe. I keep trying, but I can’t. He tries to give me space by relaxing into the bed, but he’s not relaxed, he’s stiff as can be, and I can tell he’s having trouble breathing too.

  “I guess that proves it.” I’m going for light and cheery, but I just sound tired. “You really didn’t read her diary.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Lizzie carved SLUT into herself, just above her hip.” I shrug, so casually. “We were best friends. Blood sisters, since first grade. I thought we should match.”

  “This is bad, Angie.” He pulls his T-shirt over his head. He does it reflexively, like he can’t stand the exposure now that we’ve stopped kissing.

  “Everything I do is bad.”

  Go ahead, ask me what I mean. I dare you.

  But he doesn’t. He says, “You didn’t kill her.”

  “Yes I did. I’m the reason they went after her.” My eyes close, but it’s too late. Tears are slipping past my lashes. “They did it for me.”

  “You never asked them to,” he says, brushing my cheek. His hands are so soft. I can’t believe he’s still touching me.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I say, leaning into him. Taking what I can get. But his hand falls away. “If I’d stood up to them one time, they would’ve stopped.”

  He doesn’t say anything. There’s nothing he can say. My actions are unforgivable. My inactions.

  “I thought she betrayed me,” I say, unable to take his silence. “I thought she only pretended to love me all those years. But I was wrong. She loved me too much.”

  He nods but doesn’t speak.

  “You know what the worst thing is? It’s not that her silence protected Drake. It’s that even if she wanted to sleep with him, she wouldn’t have deserved what we did. Even if she’d seduced him, she wouldn’t have deserved it.”

  “Of course she wouldn’t have,” he agrees. His body is rocking a tiny bit, quickly, like it’s vibrating. I wonder if he’s sorry he kissed me. I’m clearly unstable.

  That’s the nice way of putting it.

  “Everyone makes mistakes,” I say. “But Lizzie never made one in her entire life. And the one time she does—the time I think she does—I turn my back on her completely.” I look down at my scar. “That’s why I did it.”

  “You shouldn’t have done that to yourself,” he says. “Let me look at it.”

  I would rather tear out my eyes, but I go very still and I let him. “I deserve worse,” I say. “I abandoned her when she needed me most. I killed my best friend.”

  “Angelina.” I wait for him to contradict me, but he’s too busy staring at my skin. Running his fingers over the mark. “This scar is healed.”

  “So?”

  “So, Lizzie’s diary showed up at school last week. When did you do this?”

  “I don’t know. Sometime last week.”

  “When?” he asks, and his voice has gone cold. “Wednesday? Thursday? Pick a day, Angie.”

  “Why are you talking to me this way? We were just kissing.” But maybe that’s why he’s angry. Maybe he’s sorry he wasted those kisses on me. He was probably saving them.

  He swallows thickly. “I need to know.”

  “I don’t remember. Maybe Thursday.” My whole body’s shaking.

  But that’s okay. He’s not looking at me anymore. He’s looking at the space between us, like there’ll never be enough of it. When he finally lifts his head, his eyes are red. “This couldn’t have healed that quickly.”

  The world goes quiet. All I can hear is the ringing in my ears when I sa
y “It did.”

  He shakes his head. He’s staring at me and now I know he’s sorry he kissed me. No, not sorry. Sick. “It was you.”

  He crawls off the bed like it’s covered in insects. He’s backing himself into the wall, desperate to get away from me. “You wrote SUICIDE SLUT on the lockers in Lizzie’s writing. You brought copies of her diary to school.”

  I look at him. Just look. He’s even more beautiful now that I’m going to lose him.

  “Yes.”

  twenty-four

  FIVE ETERNAL SECONDS have passed since my darkest confession. The ringing in my ears is making me sick. I can barely breathe, but I open my mouth and I push out the words: “I found Lizzie’s diary the night of her funeral. I went back home with her dad. You saw how he was at the service. He could hardly get his legs to function.”

  Jesse watches me from the windowsill. He’s perched there in case he gets too disgusted and has to leave. Already the taste of him is gone from my lips.

  Now it’s just poison, and I deserve it.

  “I knew she had a diary. Most of us saw her with it. I wish I could tell you I only read it to understand, but that would be another lie. I wanted to see if she knew who was harassing her.”

  “Did she?” he says, barely a whisper. I wish he would just yell at me and get it over with. Tell me how horrible I am. It’s nothing I don’t already know. It might even be comforting to hear it.

  “Even in her diary, Lizzie was secretive. She mentioned Shelby, but not what Shelby did. Kennedy was tricky; it took some investigating to find out she was the girl Lizzie ‘betrayed.’ I have you to thank for that, spy-buddy,” I add, but he doesn’t smile. “The reference to Marvin was obvious—who else would be watching her through her windows?”

  He lowers his head. His arms wrap around him protectively. I envy those arms, but it’s too late to touch him.

  “The only person she blamed outright was Drake,” I say. “Even that, she had a hard time saying. But rape isn’t an easy word. I find myself talking around it—”

  His head snaps up. “Wait—you knew about him? And you went over there?”

  I shake my head. “I didn’t. I didn’t know.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Lizzie’s diary was intact except for one thing. The part where she wrote about prom was torn out. At least, that’s what I thought was missing. It made sense, because of the dates.” I smile, covering my face with my hand. “I should have figured out how she felt about me based on the things she said. It should’ve been obvious, if I hadn’t been looking for something else. But I was so focused on thinking she loved Drake because of the way she acted around him. Almost cold, like she was trying to keep us off her scent.”

  “She was.”

  “Yeah, but not in the way I thought. She never referred to her crush by name. Lizzie was smart. I spent a lot of time at her house.”

  “She thought you might read it?”

  “I never would have, back then. I think she was just being careful, you know? It’s sad, if you think about it. She let me think she was after my boyfriend rather than admit how she felt.”

  I sniff and try to hide it with a cough.

  Jesse looks at the box of tissues on my nightstand like he’s thinking of handing me one. He decides against it. I can tell he doesn’t want to be nice to me anymore. Why would he?

  So much for loving me.

  Finally, he says, “Maybe it wasn’t about hiding her feelings after what happened with Drake. Maybe she was just afraid of him.”

  “Maybe.” I nod slowly.

  “Or maybe she thought things would get worse if people knew how she felt about you.”

  I look over. He feels miles away from me. Still, when I ask “Could it have gotten worse?” I see the effect.

  “Trust me, baby,” he says, laughing into his hands. He’s forcing a smile to hide his bitterness. “Just the possibility is enough to keep people quiet for years.”

  I lower my head. “I would’ve accepted her,” I say, and I know it’s true. The truth sounds different. It tastes different too. “I don’t know if I could have felt . . . I don’t know. But I loved her more than anything.” I inhale slowly. “That’s why I had to be punished for what I did. That’s why we all did.”

  He stands, like he’s either going to come to me or bolt. “That’s why you wrote what you did at school? To punish them?”

  “I did it so they couldn’t forget. I could see them starting to move past it, treating other people like shit. Treating you like shit—”

  “Don’t make this about me.”

  “I’m not making it about you! I’m saying there’s a connection. I’m saying that it’s dangerous to forget.” I close my eyes, pressing my fingers into my eyelids. “That week, after her funeral, I walked by her locker and all the words had been washed away. Painted over, like they never existed. Like she never existed. Like we didn’t destroy her.”

  “So you wrote it again?”

  “I didn’t plan it. I just stood there, running my hands over the paint. If you got real close, you could still see the bumps where they’d etched it into the locker. They got smart after a while, you know? Once they realized marker would wash away.”

  He squeezes his eyes shut. “That’s horrible.”

  “That’s how I felt,” I say, scooting closer to where he’s standing. Sitting right in front of him. “It’s exactly how I felt, and before I could stop myself, I was writing SUICIDE SLUT over the fresh coat of paint. It made everything sound different, didn’t it? It made it obvious how stupid and cruel we’d been. SUICIDE SLUT. To me, it said we branded her a slut and now she’s gone.”

  “Angie.”

  “And just like that, I knew something had to be done.”

  “The diary?” He’s pacing a little. It would be cute if I weren’t so scared right now. So scared and so sick with myself.

  “I didn’t copy all the pages. Just the ones about people who’d affected her final days. I wanted to smoke out the guilty parties, get everyone looking in their direction. I guess, in a way, I wanted them to know I was coming for them.”

  “So Shelby . . . ?” he asks, tearing a cuticle from his thumb. Blood springs up in its place.

  “Shelby was tricky,” I confess. “Marvin got to her pages before she did. Just like you did with Marvin’s. Instant karma, I guess.”

  He slides his thumb between his lips. No doubt he’s thinking of that day, of Troy and Zeke treating him like garbage. Maybe they would’ve done it anyway, without Lizzie’s pages to provoke them.

  But we’ll never really know, and I’ll never be able to make it up to him.

  Suddenly he stops. He stares right through me. “You tricked me,” he says, dropping his hand. “You tricked me into letting you write on the walls of the boys’ bathroom.”

  “Jesse—”

  “Don’t say my name.” He backs away. “Don’t look at me. Don’t talk to me.”

  I stand, though I don’t dare touch him now. “Jesse, I’m sorry. It was wrong to do that to you. You have no idea how bad I felt.”

  He shakes his head. “You lie so easily.”

  “I’m not lying! I hated using you that way,” I insist, and it’s the truth. “I hated watching them read her words.” I curl my hands into fists. “But I’d already set things in motion. I couldn’t go back.”

  “You can always go back.”

  “God, I wish that were true. But I’ve tried to stop, Jesse. I can’t.”

  He’s holding his hair in his hands. Not long ago, my hands were holding him. How quickly everything slips from our grasp.

  “I don’t know how to deal with this,” he says. “I don’t know how to forgive you for . . . for everything.”

  “Good. You finally know how I feel.”

  “No. That’s the difference between you and me. I’m not going to launch some psycho attack on you. You’re out of my life.”

  “That’s probably for the best.”
/>   “Listen to yourself!” He steps up to me, and I can’t believe he can stand to be so close. “Listen to what you’re saying.”

  “I hear myself perfectly.” The words sound like an echo in my ears. They remind me of Lizzie, waiting for Drake to stop hurting her. Believing he would just because she wouldn’t hurt anybody.

  The numbness in my heart starts to spread.

  “What are you going to do?” Jesse studies my eyes.

  I dodge his gaze. “Nothing big.”

  “Please don’t do this.” He’s switched from angry to pleading in an instant, as if darkness can’t survive in his body. His hands slide over my arms. He’s so fucking warm. “You have to let it go. I meant it when I said—”

  “Just go, Jesse.” I slip out of his grasp. “You’re better than this. You’ve pretty much said so yourself.” My voice is more tired than mean.

  He’s working out a battle inside him. I can see it in the way he shakes. “I really want to help you.”

  I open the window for him. “You can’t.”

  “Just promise me one thing.” He’s staring at the glass. He’s staring like he knows, once he leaves, he’s never coming back. “Don’t go after Drake by yourself.” He looks over at me, still hopeful.

  “Aw, honey. Don’t you worry about that.”

  Jesse zips up his sweatshirt, bracing himself against the darkness. But me, I don’t even feel it.

  It’s already so much a part of me.

  twenty-five

  WEDNESDAY MORNING I manage to avoid Drake’s many calls. His texts are getting angrier in my inbox. But the only one I care about comes in from a number I don’t recognize. It says: DaddyMac6969.

  Looks like Shelby came through on her end of the bargain.

  I send her a quick response and head to the bleachers. I’m hoping to cut off a couple of Cheer Bears before they get to Cheer Central. I catch them halfway across the football field, arms linked, doing that faux-lesbian thing guys think is hot. Cara’s whispering so close to Elliot’s ear she’s practically nibbling on it. Her dark hair blends with Elliot’s red. A couple of runners have stopped to watch.