Promiscuous

by Isobel Irons

  “Later, Grant.”

  “Later, Tash.”

  I step back into the doorway and watch him cross the small paved street to his fancy black car, which is still parked in front of Mrs. Jimenez’s house. It’s a good thing her son Manny is probably still in lockup, otherwise that shit would’ve been stolen by now. When he turns to open the door, I wave, even though my brain is still numbly processing the fact that the world is now a completely different place. Grant Blue and I might actually be sort of friends. Any moment now, cats and dogs will start hanging out together, and marshmallows will fall from the sky. Mass hysteria and bonfires will ensue.

  After he drives away, I go inside and lock the door behind me. But I can’t bring myself to let go of the damn Pre-Calculus textbook, so I take it to my room with me. I flip on my bedroom light and sit on my bed, just holding it to my chest, wondering how I could’ve hated something so much an hour ago and want to keep it forever now. I open it up and start flipping through the pages, bracing myself for a PTSD flashback of Trent’s breath, or the sound of my head cracking against his truck. But nothing happens. Instead, I just feel…tingly. Tentatively, I raise the textbook to my nose and give it a sniff.

  The pages smell like Irish Spring soap, with a hint of spearmint. I don’t know how he did it, but in my mind, Pre-Calculus will now and forever remind me of Grant. And what’s even more disturbing and wonderful, is that at some point during the last twenty minutes, he stopped being Grant Blue: perfection in unattainable teenage form. Now, I can’t help but see him as Grant: fellow flawed human being.

  And goddamn it, but that only makes me like him more than ever.

  ###

  The next day, I make it through an entire forty minutes of functions without wanting to kill myself. After our session in the library during free period, Grant says he’s going to sit with me in detention, so we can tackle limits. I have a feeling those are going to be worse than functions, but I’m a lot more optimistic about my chances of not having my soul crushed by them when Grant is helping me.

  I still can’t believe how comfortable he seems letting people see us together.

  Earlier, in Leadership, there was a point where Becca and her friends kept pointing and whispering at us. I was so close to picking up my stuff and exiling myself to Mr. Dodge’s office again, but Grant put his hand on my shoulder, in front of everyone, and quietly told me to ignore them. I have to admit, I might have thrown Becca a triumphant glare or two after that happened, just because the look on her face was so epically incredulous. I’m beginning to think she has a serious crush on Grant.

  And if I’m being honest with myself, she’s not the only one.

  In seventh period, I catch myself tapping my left foot all through art class, every time someone says the word ‘and.’ I try to imagine what it would be like to have to do this, all the time, but I can’t. It must be so hard for him, I think, constantly fighting these urges. Especially when he knows what he’s doing is unnecessary, but he still can’t stop himself.

  On some level, I realize I’m beginning to develop an unhealthy obsession of my own. Thinking about him that way is pointless, not to mention a little pathetic. But I can’t stop myself, either.

  In detention, I pretend to listen raptly as he explains how polynomial functions relate to limits. But really, I’m watching his lips move and daydreaming about a magical world where limits really don’t exist, a world where I could kiss Grant and he’d actually want to kiss me back. Sadly, that world exists only in my imagination, and the closest I’ll ever get is watching his lips move as he says my name.

  “Tash?”

  “What, huh?” I snap out of it, trying to keep a guilty look from crossing my face. “I was totally listening. Seriously.”

  “Okay, then,” he smiles, playing along. “What makes a function continuous?”

  I make a face. “Obviously, a function is continuous because it can’t be stopped.”

  Grant laughs. “I guess that’s partially—”

  “Ai, Dios Mio!” Daniela, the second sluttiest girl in school—if rumors can be believed—yells, from her place next to Miguel across the room. I jump, as she then erupts into high-pitched laughter, followed by a stream of rapid-fire Spanish. I only took the requisite two years, and didn’t really pay all that much attention, to be honest, so the only words I recognize are ‘chica’ and ‘flaca.’ She’s pointing to something on her phone and showing it to Miguel.

  Next to me, Grant sighs and stands up. “Sorry, but there’s a rule, no cell phones in detention.” He walks over to Daniela, slowly and calmly, and holds out his hand. “Dame tu telefono, por favor.”

  Of course Grant would also speak fluent Spanish. I shake my head. Overachiever.

  Pouting dramatically, Daniela forks over the phone. Grant glances down at it, then turns back my way. Then he stops. Looks at the phone again. His perfect eyebrows push together in a frown.

  When he gets back to our table, he says, “Tash, isn’t this your friend? Margaret?”

  “You mean Margot?” Something prickles in my gut. I reach for the phone, swiping it out of his hand before he can stop me.

  The prickle turns to a sharp stab when my eyes make sense of the blurred shape on the screen. It’s a cell phone shot of Margot, from above. She’s in her underwear, looking over her shoulder, trying to undo the strap of her bra. The bones in her back seem to be trying to press through her skin. Even if her face wasn’t in the picture, I’d have no doubt it was her. It was taken in Margot’s favorite handicapped bathroom stall. She probably didn’t even realize it. Not if Becca was quiet, and quick enough.

  I sit there holding the phone in shock, until my mind finally recovers enough to remember how to read. The caption below the picture is the worst part:

  TRY THE MARGOT RILEY DIET PLAN—IT WORKS! ALL YOU NEED IS A TOILET AND A STRONG GAG REFLEX!

  “Tash.” Grant’s voice seems to swim toward me through a raging river. The blood is pounding through my ears, turning my anger into a dull roar. This is it. This is the final straw. Becca Foster is fucking dead. And Margot will never know this happened, not if I can help it.

  When I look up at Grant, he’s holding his own cell phone, with a pained expression on his face.

  “I got it, too,” he says. “I’m pretty sure someone sent it to the whole school.”

  I knock over my chair in my haste to stand up. I feel like I’m going to throw up. But I can’t. There’s no time for that.

  “I have to find Margot.”

  Grant steps aside to let me pass. “Go ahead, I’ll cover for you.”

  When I get to the parking lot, I break out into a dead run. I have no idea what I’m going to say when I find her, or how I’m going to make this hurt less. All I know is, I can’t let Margot be alone when she sees that picture of herself. Because I love her more than anyone else in the world, a lot more than she loves herself, and I’ve never once thought she looked ugly. But when I saw that picture, some part of me was secretly disgusted.

  I can’t even imagine how Margot is going to like herself, ever again, after this.

  CHAPTER TEN

  I drive toward Lazy Acres like a bat out of hell.

  Every time I shift gears, my piece of shit car grinds and complains, but I don’t care. I jerk the wheel and speed up, trying not to think about anything but my destination.

  I’m so angry, so sick, so terrified, I can’t even think straight.

  When I get to Margot’s house, I park lopsided and leap out of the car. Some tiny part of me thinks maybe I’m overreacting, maybe it’s not that big of a deal. Teenage drama. A harmless prank. Something we’ll laugh about later. I have no doubt that’s what my mom would say, or Principal Shoemaker:

  ‘What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.’

  Wrong. What doesn’t kill you makes you harder. Angrier. Broken.

  Like me. If there’s one thing I never want for Margot, it’s that. I don’t want her to turn into me.

&n
bsp; With that thought spurring me on, I practically bust down the door of Margot’s house. Nana and Dottie are sitting in their usual chairs in front of the TV, vegging out to some soap opera. I don’t even stop to greet them, I just barge straight back to Margot’s room, calling her name.

  But she’s not there. Her backpack is, but she isn’t. Her laptop sits open on the bed, like she disappeared into thin air in the middle of studying.

  I hustle back out to the living room.

  “Nana, where’s Margot?”

  “Good afternoon to you too,” the old lady huffs, without tearing her eyes from the screen, “Little Miss ‘Barges in Without Saying Hello.’ Give us a kiss.”

  I bend down to lay a peck on Nana’s cheek, but on the inside I’m choking down a scream of frustration. “Seriously, Nana, when was the last time you saw Margot?”

  “She said something about going to the Mini Mart for a snack.”

  Oh, thank God. She’s still eating. That must mean she doesn’t know.

  I hover on the balls of my feet for a second, trying to decide if I should go find her or just wait for her to get back. But who knows how long she’s been gone already? Plus, the Mini Mart is only like half a mile away, and Margot doesn’t have a car. Maybe I’ll catch her walking and give her a ride, then carefully break the news to her that we have to murder Becca.

  It’s the only way. I’ve finally figured it out. She’ll never leave Margot alone otherwise. She has to be stopped.

  But when I drive to find her, Margot’s not anywhere on the road. I park outside the Mini Mart and leave the keys in the ignition while I dash inside. The full-time cashier is this pimply redneck named Carl. I’m pretty sure he has a crush on Margot, because he always gives her a discount. He’ll know where she went, if she ever came here at all.

  “Hey Carl, have you seen Margot?”

  He nods at me from the other side of the cashier’s desk. “Yep, she just came in to get a few things for her grandma.”

  “Great,” I feel slightly relieved. At least she’s not on her way to do something drastic. “How long ago did she leave?”

  Carl rubs his chin. “About a half hour?”

  “A half hour?” I frown. There’s no way it should’ve taken her that long. Hell, we stroll the mile at school once a month in aerobics, and even then we still make it in less than fifteen minutes.

  Shit, maybe she went to my house. I didn’t even think of that. I take a step toward my car, but then I stop. The pristine display of blueberry muffins seems to wink at me from beside the cash register.

  “You said she was getting some stuff for her grandma?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What did she buy?”

  Carl rolls his eyes to the ceiling, visibly racking his brain. “Uh, let’s see. A liter of Diet Coke, a candy bar, some vitamins, a few bottles of aspirin….”

  My heart stops.

  Oh, holy mother of fuck. Margot, no. Please, no.

  I run out of the Mini Mart and jump in the car. Please let me be wrong. Please let me be wrong.

  If Margot is about to do what I think she is, there’s only one place she’d want to go: our place.

  I drive to the creek behind Lazy Acres as fast as I can. There’s an old frontage road back there that nobody uses, and a creepy old playground with a rusted out swing set and a broken merry go round. Margot and I used to play there when we were younger. Margot used to call it Wonderland. It’s a wonder we didn’t get tetanus.

  When I pull up next to the playground, the sun is setting. I see Margot sitting on one of the swings, lazily moving back and forth, her feet on the ground. I turn off the engine and take a deep breath.

  Okay. Calm down Tash, she’s okay. For now, at least.

  I get out of the car and walk over to her. Maybe if I act like it’s not that big of a deal, she’ll let me talk her into coming home. Then we can raid Nana’s liquor cabinet and start planning our revenge.

  Quietly, trying not to make any sudden moves, I sit down on the second swing. The frame of the swing set groans loudly. I consider making a joke about my weight, but then I realize that’s the worst thing I could possibly say right now.

  “Margot,” I swallow hard, trying to get rid of the hot, pulsing lump in my throat. “Are you okay?”

  “There’s only so much you can do, you know,” she says, softly. “Everyone’s body is different. It’s genetics. My mom used to say I took after my father. She wouldn’t even own me.”

  She pauses, just long enough to pull a bottle of Diet Coke out of her lap and take a long swig. She laughs, but the sound is hoarse and scraping, like a witch’s cackle. Not like Margot’s lively, infectious laugh.

  “She was a dancer,” she says, still staring straight ahead, not looking at me. “Ballet. Jazz. Everything. I found a box of her costumes once, and we tried them on. Do you remember that? I do.” Another swig. “She didn’t like the way I looked.” And another.

  The bottle is almost empty now. I look at the ground by Margot’s feet, wondering where she put the bag from the store. There’s a crumpled up candy bar wrapper, but no pills. Still, something is very wrong. She isn’t making any sense.

  “I thought you didn’t remember your mom.”

  “I don’t.” She shakes her head, then exhales, shivering. “But she talks to me sometimes. A lot of the time. She’s always there, telling me I’m not hers. Nobody owns me, Tash. Not even you. Not even Nana. That’s the problem with Marilyn Monroe, she let too many people own her.”

  “Okay….”

  I stand up and walk around, until I’m right in front of her. But she still won’t look at me. Her eyes are glazed over, like she’s looking right through me. She’s shaking, too. She’s completely out of it.

  “Margot, what did you do?”

  Leaning over her, I start going through the pockets of her trench coat. Margot loves this coat, it looks just like the one Ingrid Bergman wore in Casablanca. She’s told me that a thousand times. She wouldn’t want to die in it. Would she?

  My right hand closes around a small, plastic bottle. Of course, they don’t sell the big bottles at the Mini Mart. That might end up being her only saving grace. I pull the bottle out and shake it. It doesn’t rattle.

  Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

  I reach into my pocket for my cell phone, but it isn’t there. At that moment, it hits me that I left it in my backpack, and I left my backpack in detention with Grant.

  “Margot, where’s your damn phone? Tell me you brought it with you!”

  I keep going through her pockets, until I find a second bottle of aspirin. This one is only half-empty. How many pills is that? I’m trying to do the math, but my brain is being flash-frozen by panic. I’ve watched enough medical soaps to know that they’ll want to know, at the hospital. That’s always the first thing they ask, isn’t it? ‘What did she take?’ Then, ‘How many?’

  There’s still no sign of Margot’s phone, so I shake her.

  “Margot, where the fuck is your fucking phone?”

  But Margot won't tell me, or she can't. My blood chills. I realize this isn’t like one of her silent treatment episodes. She's not doing this for attention, or for dramatic effect. She did this to escape. She doesn't want to be saved.

  Frantically, I pull open her coat and start going through the inner pockets. I’m being rougher with her than I should, crying and yelling at the same time. “God damn it, Margot! Why couldn’t you have worn something with less pockets!?”

  My fingers brush something hard and plastic, but it’s just another bottle. Herbal diet pills, this time. Carl called them vitamins. They’re all gone, too. Knowing Margot, she probably took those first, trying to build up to something more lethal.

  When I’ve searched the last pocket and come up empty, I fall back on my heels in front of her. A sob of frustration and helplessness finally escapes my chest. I use it, trying to appeal to her soft heartedness, if I can’t move her with my anger.

  “Margot, please. You
can’t leave me here. I can’t make it without you.”

  For the first time since she started the process of killing herself, Margot looks me in the eye. Her head droops forward, like she’s too tired to keep holding it up. Her lips bend upward in a sad smile.

  “You’ll be fine, Tash,” she says. “You’re so strong.”

  “Fuck you!” I spit back, through gritted teeth. “You’re all I’ve got! Damn it, Margot, I will not be fine!”

  But then it dawns on me: I’m strong. I can pick her skinny ass up and carry her. I can save her.

  Kneeling in front of her, I wrap my arms around her waist and pull. She tries to fight me, but the pills have already started to kick in. She’s too weak.

  I lift her far too easily, but even then, carrying her is a struggle. I drag her to the car and clumsily push her into the back seat. I’m crying so hard now I can barely see, but somehow I manage to start the car.

  “Don’t you die yet, Margot,” I yell at her, through gritted teeth, the entire way to the hospital. “Don’t you dare fucking die! Do you hear me? I will have them put the wrong name on your grave stone, I swear to God!”

  When I get to the Emergency Room, it’s like everything starts moving in slow motion. I burst through the doors like some kind of psychopath, screaming for someone to help me. People are staring, but I don’t care. I grab the nearest person who looks like they work there and pull them toward my car. I’m babbling incoherently, sobbing. I keep trying to tell them what she took, and how many. But no one seems to care. They just shove me out of the way and take Margot. I watch her disappear behind a set of double doors, and someone tells me to sit in a chair and hands me a glass of water. I don’t drink it, though. I just sit there, staring at the floor, wondering if now is a good time to throw up.

  Eventually, someone comes up to me and asks me if I’m the one who brought Margot in. My eyes snap to attention. “Is she dead?”