by Liz Miles
Well, that night I decided I would be someone else. Someone popular and most importantly, never ever afraid. I was going to run the show from now on.
I hurried downstairs, leaving all the lights on as I went, because in spite of the hard, all-together, strong person I was, I was maybe still a little scared of the dark. I admit it, okay? So fucking sue me.
In the kitchen, I tossed the pack of cigarettes and my dad’s lighter into my tote on top of my towel, did a shot of vodka straight from the bottle, and left the lights on in the kitchen and living room as I passed through to the front step to wait for my ride. I felt better already.
Kayla
I was at the party, finally. It wasn’t what I thought it would be like. I felt weird. Everyone was looking, and I didn’t like to be looked at, not that way. I was Rain’s best friend, but I wasn’t like her, I wasn’t brave. Meanwhile, she was acting like more than her usual self, like she was possessed or something.
“Come on, Kayla,” Rain whispered. “You want Brian to notice you!”
I looked around the hot tub. Brian wasn’t noticing me, that was true. He didn’t even know I was there. I wanted to pretend he was looking at me out of the corner of his eye, and he wasn’t talking to me because he respected me too much to grab my breast the way he just did that other giggling girl. Oh, shit, I am a loser, I thought in a panic. I couldn’t believe it took me two beers and this stupid, insanely stupid, visit to the hot tub for me to realize that. Where was Casey? I wanted to just go home, so I stood up.
Like an idiot, like a little baby, I wanted to cry, and I was just standing there, shivering, when Rain stood up next to me, and she was all, “Oh, yeah, you go, Kayla.” Then the next thing I know, she was bumping my skinny hip to make me dance and then everyone was looking and we looked so stupid. Shit, Rain stop! I couldn’t say out loud. I couldn’t say it!
Rain’s afraid of the dark, she said? Big whoop, fear is my life.
Rain didn’t stop. Before I could even say, “Let’s go,” she pulled off her bikini top! Before I could even grab her and pull her under the water and ask her what she was on and why she was acting crazy, before I could even—
She pulled off my top! Holy shit! My nipples were cold and hard, and I didn’t feel good, but now Brian was looking, and he had forgotten about the other skanks, and he was cheering us on!
Someone handed me a jello shot, which I swallowed down, and then a beer, which I chugged down, and then I—little, meek, pathetic eleventh-grader at a senior party, not-even-invited girl—wiggled my hips, and danced with Rain.
She told me, “They want to see a show, Kayla. Should we give them a show?”
My head was swimmy. I saw Casey coming toward us, and she looked concerned and nervous and as if she was about to put a stop to Rain and me dancing. For a moment I was torn between the comfort of my old self, promised by Casey, and the promise of following Rain’s lewd behavior and branding myself in Brian’s mind for ever—but then Brian’s best friends Kris and Jason from the basketball team, they got in the way so I couldn’t see Casey anymore. All I saw was how happy Rain and I were making the boys and I was thinking, Brian will never forget me, and when Rain squirted me with beer, I squirted her back with the beer that magically appeared in my hands, and those other girls who were in the hot tub before disappeared, fucking disappeared! It was all Rain, it was all me! We play-fought, and everyone was cheering, everyone loved us.
We put on an awesome show. Rain spread beer foam on me and you won’t believe this, but I licked it off her stomach, because that’s what the crowd wanted! They loved me! Afterwards, when I was sweaty and breathless and drunk, Brian—Brian Kepler!—guided me out of the hot tub and tied my bathing suit top back on for me.
“I think you’ve had enough of the wild side,” he said. He smiled at me! He liked me, me!
“Come on,” he said, “let me get you a beer.”
His arm slung casually over me, Brian and I walked to the keg, if you can call what I was doing walking. Really, it was more like floating.
Rain
I didn’t care. Let Kayla go, I thought.
Crap, that was mean. Of course she should’ve gone with Brian, he was everything to her. I felt like crying. I didn’t want to be so angry all the time. Kayla didn’t do anything to me.
“Come on, come on!” some guy yelled. He pushed a wine cooler into my hand, and I was back out of my head, into my body. I lied when I said I didn’t like dancing. I didn’t like it taking my mother away, but at the party, I could totally see why she went. The crowd! The excitement! The rush of power! I was in control, and all those people I didn’t even know couldn’t take their eyes off me. Swivel hips, get a cheer. Shake shoulders, feel the music in my bones.
I remember though, it ended—the faces and the yells faded back, and I was not Rain who was in charge of everything, who put Dad to bed, who got Kayla her guy, who gave Casey a feeling of life-without-Mom-up-her-butt.
I was little Rainbow, six, dancing in the living room with my mother. The furniture pushed out of the way. Daddy at work. Mommy lifting her leg with ease, spinning, then spinning me, dipping me. She couldn’t take her eyes off me. I copied everything she did. We were a team. I was special. I was light. The light in her eyes and the glow in her cheeks … our fingers touched and it was electric and I loved to dance …
I snapped back to my place on the hot tub, and the eyes on me and the attention I was getting—and the music suddenly seemed too loud, pulsing like the heart of a beast, my heart in time, but not my real heart or my good, Rainbow heart.
I saw my breasts, wet with sticky spray and then someone else sprayed me with his beer. Foam bubbles popped on my chest, my stomach.
“Take it all off!”
“Come on, baby!”
More beer spray. Laughter. Yelling. I didn’t feel safe anymore. I was alone. I was, oh God, oh shit, I was scared. Those people, they were too close. I could see their teeth. They wanted to eat me alive. Everyone was yelling at me! Seemed like everyone. I didn’t know who they were! I couldn’t believe I took my top off, but I couldn’t stop, couldn’t show any fear. They’d like that, I thought.
Not fun, not fun, oh Mommy, what do I do now? I thought. I didn’t cry though. I remembered I was running the show, and that made me feel better, stronger.
Someone pushed another wine cooler into my hand. I vaguely remember gulping the last one back and then pouring the remains over my head while the crowd screamed with delight.
Then thinking, Not fun, not fun anymore …
I stopped dancing, stumbled out of the tub and spun around. The party, the crowd, were a blur. All those boys wanted something from me, and I didn’t have anything left to give! Couldn’t they see, couldn’t anyone see that they took and took until there was no Rainbow, not even any Rain left? I stumbled back, but there wasn’t anywhere to go. It felt like something had wrapped its claws around my throat, strangling the breath out of me. I saw spots. I needed air, but I couldn’t ask for help, I was strangled and oh God, then I was so dizzy. When would it end? Who would save me now? I’d always saved everyone else. I didn’t know what to do with myself now that I needed me.
Everyone was still looking at me, jeering. Kayla was gone. Casey was gone. Blurry, spotty, shaking—I couldn’t even see where I’d put my bikini top, and I was starting to feel like puking. My heart was beating faster. I dropped the bottle in my hand, and it sprayed glass on to my legs and bare feet, and into the hot tub and it made me jump, and when I did, I fell.
I knew I was going to crack my head open, but then—a miracle! Someone caught me. Someone big and shirtless and red-headed.
“Going somewhere?” he asked.
It was as if he saw only me. He was deaf to the boos as he carried me away from the hot tub. He wrapped me in a fluffy towel, and my head drooped with embarrassment. When he lifted my chin with his finger, I saw the other kids had scattered from the tub and the spilled glass, and from me, and man oh man, I was so
glad for once to be forgotten. I was so relieved not to have to control the situation any more.
“Here, drink this. It’ll relax you,” the boy said.
Although I knew I’d probably drunk enough already, I didn’t care—I did need to relax. I wanted to forget. I wanted to do anything the boy who saved me asked. I wanted to swallow my fear back down and keep it there. So I gulped back the red, sickly sweet punch in three swallows. It was strong.
“Good girl,” the boy said, taking the empty cup.
I gladly gave myself up to Red’s protection. I watched someone cover the hot tub with a board. My striptease dance was already forgotten, and the crowd had moved on to dancing “Cotton-Eyed Joe,” sans moi. Gratefully, I leaned my head on Red’s shoulder, and shut my eyes. He rubbed circles on my back, and everything was okay.
Casey
My stomach was crampy and hollow because I didn’t even eat dinner before going to that stupid party where I didn’t know anyone unless you count the two crazies who were dancing in the hot tub and I didn’t. Count them. Stupid supposedly-my-friends girls who left me on my own. Alone.
Stupid humidity and stupid hair I tried to blow dry straight at home, but after a half-hour—how long was I here? Whatever. My hair puffed out, from pageboy to Afro. I tried to push it behind my ears, but it bounced back out a frizzy mess and I didn’t even wear my bathing suit—that’s how much of an idiot I was—I totally forgot.
It was their fault, Rain and Kayla, Kayla and Rain, Rain, Rain, Rain, Kayla Kayla Kayla, Kayla and Rain. Why did I think they’d really want to hang out with me? They just wanted a ride to the party I think.
“You don’t look so good,” said the girl next to me, and she should know cause she looked fine, with chocolate skin I could just eat, I swear, and legs that went on and on and made me think, I am so over Rain Rikowsky.
Pushing my hair behind my ears again, I was all like, “Aaargh fuck!” when it wouldn’t stay put, and I got up and went over to the pool and just bent over and dunked my head in. It was nice under the water, sounds all dull and the chocolate girl’s voice was like, whoo whoo whookay? And when I looked up over my head, she was all swirly like a sundae. When she grabbed me by my hoodie—the one with the skulls and the sparkly roses that said Rock On and Tough Girl—she yanked me up and I was like, “I’m fine!” I laughed as I flipped my sopping hair back, where it finally stayed, except for my bangs, which dripped pool water in my eyes and made them burn.
Fucking Rain had taken her top off, and Oh! Oh my God, that’s funny! I thought. I was giggling so hard when Rain suddenly took Kayla’s top off, too—princess Kayla—I was like, “Look!” to no one in particular, and then a mob surrounded the hot tubs and I couldn’t see my supposed friends, my supposed love of my life, not that she knows it, stupid Rain Rikowsky.
I stumbled. Chocolate girl said, “I’m Ebony,” and she was there to hold me up! She took me by the arm and led me to the fence, and let me slide down, and then she slid down next to me and I was like, Mom, if you could see me now, only that made me want to cry, because I knew I fucked up getting so fucked up and my Mom was never going to shut up about this, you know?
So I stared into chocolate girl’s eyes, and she said, “I’m Ebony.”
“I remember,” I said, but I didn’t remember anything.
“Tell me, how much did you do?” she wanted to know. I liked her accent. She was soooo pretty …
I didn’t think she was going to narc on me, but still, I was like, “Do what?”
She didn’t push me, she was just all, “You are sooo wasted,” and so I shrugged and pulled my hood up, just ’cause whatever.
I took Ecstasy and smoked pot and had some white wine, I knew that, but all I said was, “You’re soooo pretty.”
She kissed me.
Holy crap, I thought, she kissed me! I was still sitting there, trying to wrap my head around that when she said, “Come on, I’ve got something for you,” and I took her hand and I thought, Sorry, Mom, and Screw you Rain, if you even care, and then …
I went.
Kayla
Here’s what happens when a heart breaks: you feel it in your back and around your ribs. The focal point is in your heart, a heavy coldness that spins inside, jagged edges cutting out your center, your self. The pain extends around like a rope, tying all of you into the loss.
Your stomach feels empty, even though you’ve just eaten a small mountain of chips and spicy melted cheese, hoping to fill it and be a normal teenager again, when you’ll never be normal or quirky or pretty or promising or lovable …
You can’t fill yourself, and you grasp with your fingers, without even thinking about it—your fingers open and close, reach and pull. You want to get something, anything inside. Even if it’s anger. Or self-loathing.
Nothing can go right when your heart is breaking. You get out your paints to try and show the darkness inside on the outside, and the brush flies out of your hand and is lost under the bed where you can’t reach without getting a splinter in your belly. “Jesus fucking Christ, give me a break!” you yell in a whisper at the ceiling and at all the gods of all the religions who let this happen to you.
You get out another brush and paint anyway, but the color over color over color turns to mud, and it only drags your spirit into the mess of your aching body and the final picture doesn’t cover the hole inside you—it makes you cry. Before long you’re wailing as you try to paint the canvas, and fail, and start painting yourself brown and ugly like you feel.
You feel like everything you’ve worked for—hoping and dreaming and praying so hard—it was all a lie, a great cosmic lie. The way you felt just hours before the party—swollen with excitement, fat with pleasure, open to possibilities, at one with the whole fucking fabric of the universe or some shit, well, it’s all gone now because it wasn’t just waking up and not remembering, and it wasn’t just finding the only boy you ever loved in the room with your best friend—it wasn’t just your innocence …
It was all of you.
Nancy
I woke up with a start at 3 a.m., sitting straight up and shaking my head, as if a bucket of water had just been thrown on me. I rubbed my eyes frantically. I remember thinking, Something’s wrong! Casey! and hurrying to her room. She wasn’t there. Grabbing my keys and my cell, I was dialing her number as I slid my feet into my Berks. She didn’t answer, and I left a quick, “Where the hell are you?” message before fumbling with the door downstairs, which—Shit!—always stuck in summer. I threw my shoulder against it and finally smashed through, ran to my car, left the house door open behind me and didn’t care.
Brian Kepler’s house was quiet. Too quiet.
“Casey!” I yelled in the backyard. “Casey! Casey!”
Backyard strewn with empty and broken bottles. Pool table in the garage, felt torn. Running, slipping, running, shouting.
“Shut up or I’ll call the cops!” I heard from the house behind the back fence.
I should’ve called the cops, but I ran into the house through an open door instead, dialing as I went. “Casey!” I yelled into the house and the phone at the same time. Stupid voicemail. Stupid party. Stupid mom.
Upstairs, I threw open doors. Threw open one, and Kayla was in a boy’s bed, but no boy. She was sleeping, tucked in all nice.
“Kayla! Kayla! Wake up! Where’s Casey? Where’s my daughter?”
Kayla opened her eyes, snapping awake the way I had back at home. “Mrs. Shaw?” Kayla fumbled under the covers. “Oh God,” she said.
“Looking for these?” I said, throwing her underpants at her. “Where is Casey?”
“I don’t …”
“Forget it! You’re useless. You stupid little—’ I didn’t say bitch, but I was thinking it as I left the bedroom and continued throwing open doors, shouting as I left the doors open, revealing girls and boys making out, having sex, passed out in vomit, stoned, stupid. “Casey!”
The door at the end of the hallway opened, and a boy,
Brian, that was who it was, Brian Kepler, I thought.
He tried to stop me from going in. “You can’t—”
“Casey!” I yelled, pushing past the boy, into the room.
I froze.
“Look, I don’t know what happened, but I told them they have to go. I don’t know—”
“Shut UP!” I yelled in Brian Kepler’s face. I noticed the top button of his shorts was undone. He wasn’t wearing a shirt. “Don’t you move,” I told him.
God help me, I forgot about Casey when I walked into that room. All I saw was Rain Rikowsky, eyes shut, legs spread. (I don’t know how to say this, I’ll just do it.) A boy with his shirt off and shorts around his ankles, pumping on top of her. A couple of half-naked boys, boys with their zippers undone and their hands moving fast, groans, shouts and cheers swallowed when I’d burst in. The boy on the bed jumped down and grabbed his shirt off the floor, tried to run. Brian Kepler stopped him. I tore a handheld video camera out of another boy’s hand.
“I think you broke my thumb!” he yelled at me. I slapped him.
“Shut UP!” I said, rushing to the bed and throwing a stained bloody sheet over Rain’s lower body. I rushed to her head. I said, “Rain, honey, wake up. Rain, are you there?” Her head lolled. Someone snickered, but mostly the boys were trying to get away. Many did escape. But Brian threw camera boy down and shirtless boy against the wall. For about half a second I wondered whose side Brian Kepler was on. He seemed to be on ours. But I hated him.
I called 911. I gently stroked Rain’s face.
“Oh God,” I heard from the door. It was Kayla. “Rain … Brian … oh God oh God oh God oh—”
Brian tried to hold on to Kayla, but she shoved him, sudden power bursting out of her. She ran to Rain and held her hand. I dropped the camera I’d confiscated. I looked at Kayla. “Where’s Casey?” I tried to say, but it was hard to talk. I couldn’t get a breath, and I couldn’t stop crying and I couldn’t find the ground with my feet any more.
