by Nikki Roman
“Let’s eat,” she says, skipping out my bedroom door.
I linger in bed a while longer, inhaling Bailey’s scent. And then, finding her bra underneath my bed, I hide it in my dresser.
On my lips, a grin as wide as the Kool-Aid man’s forms.
Chapter 5
Miemah
Surfside High was my domain. The blood of its students sprayed on its walls marked my territory, like a dog’s piss on a fire hydrant. With each beat down, the power I had grew. It grew, and grew, and grew. Until, its climax at the retention pond with Trenton and Bailey. My power ended there, hit its peak and plummeted off the cliff it had created on its rise.
A week after the shooting, most of the students returned to Surfside. Most of them. Bailey was M.I.A. I had scared the little chicken right out of her coop and she never returned. Nor Clad. There were pictures of his mug shot on the news and all over Facebook, but no mentioning of Bailey. The girl who’d started it all had fallen off the face of the Earth.
With my loss of power came new freedoms. The calluses on my knuckles turned to soft wrinkled skin, my classmates’ fear of me faded. I made friends outside my circle of minions and stopped beating the crap out of kids.
But something was missing.
I had friends, real friends, the kind who worried about me when I came to school with bloodshot eyes from crying, the kind who were soft and could talk with me forever about boys and life.
But something was missing.
I had Trenton, my dad’s abuse, and hidden packs of cigarettes under my pillows.
But something was still missing. Something vital. Something essential to my very existence… Bailey.
All these years, I had wholeheartedly believed that Bailey’s existence depended on my own. Now that she had moved to another city, leaving her modest apartment and freshly built high school behind for the ocean, I realized it was I who existed because of her.
I was free in so many ways, yet I felt like I walked pathways bordered by electric fences, a shock collar around my neck. I was an animal, taught to rely on the safety of my cage and when Bailey left, I was sent into a free, open, wild place.
They call it freedom, that move to a larger less familiar cage lacking all securities. I was supposed to adapt. But animals don’t stock up on food due to the possibility of starving days ahead. I was ill prepared. What would have happened had she actually died that day, drowned in that pond?
Would I have gone with her?
•••
At school I was composed. Hair falling just right. Hoops dangling from my ears, the bigger the better. Tight jeans strangling my legs. White teeth and nude lipped smiles. The red weepy eyes that had been my trademark. Except no one knew that I had stopped crying about my dad and had moved on to crying over Bailey.
When I came home, it was Bailey. When I was watching football with Papa, it was Bailey. When I was with Trenton and my eyes glazed over as his hands slid under my shirt, it was Bailey. When I pushed Alana against a locker, her mouth opening wide, eyes rolling to the back of her head in pain, and I wouldn’t let go until she promised to give me Bailey’s new address—it was Bailey.
“This better be right,” I said, forcing Alana’s head against the locker one final time.
My calluses could come back. My friends could disappear. I could return to beating the crap out of everybody, if only I could see her once more. Touch her maybe… but see her definitely.
For months I stared at that pink sticky note and Alana’s shaky handwriting. I don’t know what I thought would happen if I went—what I thought I would discover—but it terrified me. Whatever it was that kept me from going to see her, it held me with a tight grip. Until today.
It. Just. Let. Go.
•••
I purchase a pair of hundred dollar binoculars at Wal-Mart; bird watching binoculars. I dress in all black and hide my eyes behind mirror framed sunglasses. With my car still running and the radio playing, I zero in on Bailey’s apartment.
A butterfly flitters around her yard; a man walks his dog and lets it take a crap in her yard. Her mom leaves the apartment in a skimpy outfit, hair and makeup done up like she’s going off to work the corner. She has skinny arms and legs like Bailey, but her stomach is round. I watch her as she picks up a newspaper at the end of the drive and throws it away, then gets into her car and drives off.
I fall asleep without realizing it; footsteps in the vicinity of Bailey’s apartment jar me awake. My binoculars still hanging from my neck, I press them to my eyes. A dark, girlish figure walks up to the front door with heavy, apprehensive footsteps. I recognize the teal hoodie and blonde hair poking out from under it as belonging to Ashten. She knocks on the door, and then when nobody answers, sits down in front of it and begins to cry.
From a light above the door, I can see her face wet with tears, her disfigured arms peeking out of rolled sleeves. I have the urge to get out of my car and kill her on the spot. It has been such a very long time since I laid a finger on anyone, and I am burning to do harm.
Turning off my car, I open the door, and shut it louder than I meant to. Ashten stops crying. “Who is it?” she calls out scanning the streets. “I have a knife!”
So do I. And brass knuckles, and a pistol, and not to mention my amazing fists.
She whips out her knife, her body rigid as she turns in a small circle. “I’m leaving now. Don’t follow me or I’ll be forced to kill you!”
She scrambles off the steps. I don’t follow her, I know where she’s heading-the Allie. A place I will not be welcomed… not as Trenton’s girlfriend and certainly not as an Apocy.
I walk back to my car, sprawl out in the backseat and try to fall asleep again. If I go home tonight, Papa will kill me and if I don’t go home he will kill me. So I think it’s better to prolong my life, even if for just one more night.
•••
Tap tap tap. I wake up hot and sweaty with the sun blazing through the windows of my car. I sit up and groggily rub my eyes with the heel of my palms. An incessant tap, tap has interrupted my sleep.
“Stop it, would you!” I scream at the noise. “I’m trying to get some fucking sleep!”
I swing my head around and catch sight of the dastardly noisemaker—a bird no larger than a deck of cards pecking at the windshield as he chases around a bug. I get out of the car and try to shoo him away. He tilts his head at me, pauses, and then resumes pecking.
“Fine, you want to do this the hard way then we’ll do it the hard way!”
I open the trunk for a weapon. A beautiful spread is laid before me, knives, brass knuckles, a crowbar and two pistols. The pistols I took from Papa and the brass knuckles I have acquired from the various gangs I’ve been a part of.
I choose a pair of unspiked, bronze knuckles to do the job. Spiked ones would crack my windshield.
“You’re dead little birdy!” I cackle, pulling back my fist and preparing to knock his little feathered butt into oblivion. I let go of the tension that has spread throughout my arm and shoulder, letting my fist fly but catching myself right before digging into the bird.
It flies away, chirping at me boldly.
A tweeting of the human variety rings out above the bird’s distant chirp. Lyrics to a song I have never heard before, carrying with the wind to where I stand. Airy words. Worlds different from the pulsing music I listen to. A lullaby not meant for a baby. I scan the area, three apartments and one vacant house behind me, and then I see her, twirling up the walkway. Bailey has come home.
“It’s your lucky day, birdy.”
I climb back into my car, shutting the door quietly so as not to draw attention to myself. Bailey dances across the lawn, her hair a black blur as she spins faster and faster.
“Look at ya’ go,” I say to myself, staring at her through my binoculars. I detect a smile on her face—a real one, not like the kind she fronts at school.
She stops gracefully and continues up the sidewalk, her steps not the lea
st bit faltered. Unlocking the door, she steps inside. I give her just enough time to get to her bedroom, then I sneak around the side of the apartment and crouch below her window. It’s closed, luckily, and I can peak through the blinds; I can see her but she can’t see me.
She is undressing, putting on a silky nightgown. I can make out the thin line where my knife dug into her thigh, but other than that her skin is flawless. Hell, even Barbies have a line on the back of their legs where they were put together.
Angel is prancing around her feet, yapping. She bends down to pet him but stops short, her hand landing on her neck feeling for something that isn’t there. “Well, I still have you.” She sighs, petting Angel.
Her locket.
•••
Trenton ripped it off her neck when he thought she was dead. I can hear him telling me why now. “I only killed her so you couldn’t torture her anymore. I wanted the locket to remember her by. She was a sweet girl.”
Sweet girl. And what was I? The devil.
“You told me you wanted to kill her because her dad killed yours. Now, you twist your story around so you sound like a savior. You’re a murderer just as much as I am!”
“I liked her, Miemah. I kissed her, I held her while she slept. You made me kill her!” he screamed back, tears pooling in his eyes.
The true reason he had wanted to kill her was to avenge his dad, but he didn’t want to believe that… maybe because it made him feel too guilty.
And there was really no point in blaming Bailey for the death of his father. What did he think? That she had been right there beside her father, swinging punches? She was a toddler.
I bet she was off to the side, pissing her pants crying. Besides, I know that if Trenton’s dad was anything like him he probably deserved to get his head bashed in; he probably started the damn fight.
“See, I didn’t make you kill anyone,” I said to Trenton the day that Bailey appeared at school like Jesus Christ himself, resurrected from the dead. “God, Trenton don’t you ever finish anything?” I meant it to be sarcastic but it came out sounding accusatory.
“She was dead, absolutely, completely, without a doubt dead,” he said in shock.
“Maybe she was faking.”
The locket is in Trenton’s bedroom, hidden beneath the mattress and box spring of his bed. I have seen him pull it out and sleep with it around his neck.
“This really hurts me,” I said to him, “me being your girlfriend and all, knowing you’re obsessed with another girl.”
“I’m not obsessed! I just miss her! Okay? We were friends, she told me things… oh, forget it, you wouldn’t understand.”
He was right; I couldn’t understand. Try as I might, it made no sense whatsoever to me. He said he loved me… but if that were true, then why couldn’t he let her go? It wasn’t like he had a chance with her anyway. How many victims date their murderers?
•••
I follow Bailey around to the living room window. She’s in the kitchen, pouring milk into a bowl of cereal. She takes a few bites, pauses, and then jumps up with her hand over her mouth running to the bathroom.
I stand on tiptoes so I am able to see through the high bathroom window. Bailey vomits, her hair falling around the outside of the toilet bowl; I almost try to climb through the window to hold it for her.
She flushes the toilet and moves over to the bathtub. Sitting in the tub fully dressed she turns the shower head on and saturates herself, blinking away water as it streams over her face. The steam from the hot shower rises and fogs up the window. I can no longer see her. I brush dirt from my hands and sneak away to my car.
I sit with my back against the passenger side door, unseen by passersby, smoking a blunt; treating myself before I have to go back to Papa and take my beating.
I could live in my car and mug people for money just to get by. But Papa needs me. Who would clean his clothes and cook his dinners, who would he have to beat up? His fists would become sore from punching walls; I wouldn’t want that to happen.
I could get back Bailey’s locket for her easy. Take it back from Trenton and remove the pictures of her mom and dad, swap them for two pictures of myself. Wouldn’t that make her stomach churn? Two pictures of my smiling face.
•••
Mary Jane takes me higher than tree tops, higher than the Golden Gate Bridge. I’m soaring in thin atmosphere, so far up that the clouds break apart and there’s only a clear white-blue for miles and miles.
I’m laughing, laughing, laughing.
Laughing at the sound of a dog barking as it passes by my car. Laughing at the smoke that billows around my head and wafts with the wind, curling around a stop sign. Laughing at the sound of my own laughter. Everything is funny when you’re high. High-life is the utopian life.
But what comes up must come down and I plummet. Like a fallen Angel, the ground hits me hard, my wings snap. Depression wraps its cold arms around me and digs a hollow in my stomach.
I chew on a piece of gum to fight the hunger. I have no money and am too relaxed to jump a person. If Bailey left her apartment I could steal her money, except she probably doesn’t have any, either.
Slumped against my car, I chew all the flavor from my gum. The sun sets and darkness awakens me. In the dark I am safe, concealed.
•••
I take a stroll around Fort Myers beach, a few miles away from Bailey’s apartment. I’m waiting for her to fall asleep—which might be never.
The crashing waves and salty air sting my heart like an open wound, a depressing reminder of how Trenton and I used to come down here to smoke a blunt or two below the pier. We’d smoke until we thought we might lose consciousness and then hike up the sand to Dairy Queen. Munching on hamburgers, we people-watched into the early morning hours.
I ruined those times, though. I shouldn’t have got him caught up in my ongoing torment of Bailey. And to be honest, the relationship she and I had was sacred—only I was meant to destroy her.
She had been my property, until I signed over half the rights to Trenton. I thought sharing my love of tormenting her would make our relationship all the stronger, but what it really did was pull us apart.
Tonight, if Bailey leaves her window open and if she happens to fall asleep, I will climb into her room… and then, I don’t know what. Perhaps, I’ll give her a great big hug and tell her how sorry I am for all the anguish I have caused her. Perhaps, I’ll take my knife and finish the job, once and for all. Or maybe I’ll just stand there, silently watching as she breathes slowly.
The beach empties of families, teenagers take over for the night; carrying logs and coolers, setting up bonfires. Some have kegs, others nothing but a blanket to lie on.
I walk back to Bailey’s house. Leaving my weapons behind, I step around the back and see that her window is wide open, the curtains billowing in the cool night breeze.
She is asleep on the floor with Angel. I step in through the window, and as soon as I make it in, my foot hits something. A tremendous sound erupts as well over fifty orange prescription bottles roll across the floor.
Angel barks at the commotion, his hair standing on end.
“Shhh!” I hiss.
Bending down next to Bailey’s head, I push the hair from her face. It’s risky, beyond risky, to be in her room, to be touching her and not expect her to wake.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
That’s all I can muster; I’m sorry. It’s heartfelt, but doesn’t serve justice. She deserves to hear so much more from me, so much more that I could never communicate. I kiss her cheek; it’s wet with tears.
What it must be like to cry in your sleep every night, I wonder. Except, I really shouldn’t have to wonder, because I’ve been doing the same since the day I came into this world.
I run her hair over my palm, and then throw myself out the window like a grenade is exploding behind me. I get into my car and break down in a way that I haven’t in a long, long time. I disintegrate.
You’d think Florida would be underwater from all the tears that have been shed.
Chapter 6
Someone has been watching me sleep. I heard them climb in through my window and felt them touch my hair. I have really lost my mind.
I even imagined that Angel was barking and there was a great clatter. And my prescription bottle pyramid is collapsed, bottles scattered around the room like they were kicked.
“Angel, that took me forever!”
I pick them up and start to recreate the pyramid. Mom walks in as I’m concentrating on my third tier; she stands over me, silent as a hunter, fascinated.
“Uh, huh,” she says, breaking my pinpoint concentration and causing my third tier, second tier, and consequently first tier to fall down in a domino-effect. I kick the pile of bottles out of frustration.
“What’s wrong, baby?” Mom sits cross-legged on my floor, ready to listen.
“I- I am hearing things now, imagining things. Mom, I’m going insane!”
“You’re not going insane, everyone has that happen sometimes. What did you imagine?”
“That I heard Angel barking last night. Did you come into my room and kiss me while I slept?”
Mom’s face twists like she is sucking on a lemon, then she spits out a laugh, a crazy hysterical little laugh. “Maybe you should slow down on the Vicodin,” she says, ruffling my hair.
I stare at the bottles, imagine them heating up under my gaze. Orange plastic bubbling, until all they are is a puddle of melted orange sherbet on my floor.
Slow down? I wish. Wish I could slow down but my Vicodin addiction is like driving a fast car—if I hit the brakes too soon I’ll lose control, smack into a tree, and go flying through the windshield.
“Spencer knows,” I say.
“What does he think about it?”
“He says I have to stop and he’s right. But, I don’t know how I’ll be able to.”
“I was able to stop drinking. So you should have no problem giving up the Vicodin.”
