I glance at the clock. Three twenty-two. Dad is usually late. “So, who needs tutoring? All the girls I know seem to understand just fine.”
“I have a list!” Mr. Goldberg hurries to his desk. He sifts through a few papers, finds a pale yellow sheet and studies it as he wanders back to me. “Do you know Anita Tarver? Kathryn Connoly? There are twelve total, mostly tenth graders, but a few juniors. You could set a schedule, meet with some individually, others in small groups. Maybe start a club! They’d worship you, I’m sure.”
I blush hearing that, but as I browse the student list Mr. Goldberg and I start talking science like we’re two old professors comparing horror stories. He’s just launched into a funny bit about dissecting frogs when my phone vibrates in my bag. I dig it out—yell, “I’m coming!” into the receiver—and shrug. “Sorry, Mr. Goldberg. My dad is having a melt-down. But we’ll talk, okay? On Monday?” I sprint into the hall. The soft click of the biology classroom door echoes as it shuts behind me.
It figures that the science rooms are as far away from my locker as they can be and still be considered part of Tower County. And the biology lab is the worst; an afterthought grafted onto a dead-end stub of space. I run the length of the little hall connecting it to the rest of the building then pull a sharp right, nearly crashing into a group of people talking by a water fountain. One of them is Em’s friend, Evvie. Our eyes meet for a second. I stutter, “Sorry.” I say, “Excuse me.” Then I hurry on.
Evvie follows me.
Up ahead, a girl steps into the hall. Lindsey! I move opposite her. I don’t want to get into the pin thing just now. Glancing over my shoulder I see Evvie’s still there. She’s probably Lindsey’s ‘strength in numbers,’ like together they can talk me into giving Lindsey her aunt’s pin. My ankle still aches from being sprained, and though running has made the pain sharper, I push myself to move. I’m passing Lindsey—our eyes locked and glaring—when Em steps out from a doorway.
“Hey, Retro,” she says. I instinctively side-step; Em mirrors me, and I’m forced to stop. “Are we gonna dance?” She twists at a shank of her hay-colored hair.
Evvie’s close now, a little to my left. Lindsey’s at Em’s elbow. Three other girls, who I’ve seen but don’t know, walk out of a bathroom and crowd around us. My heart cramps in my chest.
“Let’s see,” Em says. “What are today’s left-overs? I’m thinking those are Martha Bell’s old jeans, if I’m not mistaken.”
The girls laugh.
“You just make it up.” My voice sounds casual, like I’m playing along. But my armpits are cold with sweat.
“Do I?” Em touches the hem of my sweater. I jerk free of her. “Jumpy little thing,” she says. “I’ve seen this. You, Evvie? Isn’t this your aunt Sarah’s classic pattern? A sort of upside down shell? The color’s nice though. Sky blue. Like Kyle’s eyes.”
“Get out of my way,” I say. “My dad’s waiting.”
Em makes a sour smile. “Well before we send you out to Daddy we need to get a few things from you. You mind? I’d swear your hair band belongs to Cammi Boren and the rest of it, well. I’ve already mentioned the owners there.”
I roll my eyes. There’s a slim-chance of space, a sliver of freedom, between Em and Lindsey. I look at Em, like I’m about to say something, then dart toward the narrow opening. Lindsey pushes me back, ripping my bag from my shoulder and tossing it aside. Someone trips me. I go down hard, landing on my butt.
Two girls grab me by the wrists. They stretch my arms above my head, tugging so hard my shoulder joints pop. I squirm and kick and manage one scream before someone crams something scratchy into my mouth. My head snaps back, hitting the floor. I blink at the pain as girls take hold of my legs, pulling off my boots and throwing them down the hall. Then they take my pants by the hem and yank my body tight. Fear shivers through me. It’s like they’re going to tear me apart.
“Nice belt,” Em says, unlatching the clasp. She tugs and my belt whips from around my waist. My jeans slide toward my hips. I panic, trying to twist free. Em puts her boot on my stomach and presses me to the floor. She winds my belt, around and around, shoves it into her pocket, then goes at my pants, unbuttoning them and working the zipper open. “These come off first,” she says. The girls tug. My jeans slip from my hips, taking my underwear down a bit with them. My legs rest naked on the cold linoleum floor.
I go crazy, thrashing and gurgling muffled sound, scared to my core. I’m kicking so much that no one can grab my legs, so a girl with dark hair drops across my knees, sitting on them. Evvie takes the hem of my sweater and tugs it up until the sweater covers my head. Whatever they shoved into my mouth catches in the motion and disappears. I scream, just as the cold floor meets the warmth of my back.
After that, I can’t help it. I start to cry.
They laugh while they pull my sweater off, leaving the neck and sleeves bunched around my elbows. Someone says, “You think those are her panties?” and Em says, “Take ‘em down” and I freak out, digging my fingernails into the wrists of whoever has me.
“Damn it! She’s clawing me!”
Em takes a few steps back. “You want to fight dirty, Retro? We can play that way.” She runs toward me and kicks, driving the sharp toe of her boot into my side.
For a second I’m blind, seeing only stars. Em runs at me again, grinding her heel into my flesh. I make a horrible sound, something purely animal, a noise I didn’t even think a person could make.
Evvie yells, “What the hell?” My right hand drops to the floor. It’s tingling and numb, like my blood’s forgotten how to flow. My shoulder aches. Evvie steps between me and Em. She plants her fists on her hips.
“It’s her fault Kyle bailed on me!” Em says. Her cheeks gleam with moisture. Her hair seems messy, her face distorted and puffy and red. She sobs as she tries to shove Evvie aside.
But Evvie shoves back. “You don’t know that,” she says. “You don’t know what Kyle’s up to these days. And even if it’s true, I’m not gonna kill someone.”
“You said you’d help!” Em flaps her arms. “You all did. What’d you think, we were gonna corner her and chat? She needs a lesson.” Em pushes Evvie, again, and this time Evvie stumbles backwards, her heels sharp as she trips against my side then falls on top of me. Pain shoots everywhere, down my legs and across my chest. My head spins. I almost vomit. Beneath my back, the floor grows warm and sticky.
“Let her go Linds!” Evvie crawls off me and stands up. “You guys too.”
Suddenly I’m free and ignored, lying almost naked on the linoleum. My arms are tangled in my sweater and my legs are numb. I can’t seem to focus. I don’t know what to do.
All around me girls argue and fight, stepping over and on me, pushing each other, yelling. Em tries to come at me again and Evvie sort of tackles her. Someone stumbles over my sore ankle. My eyes roll back and I almost pass out. I shift onto my stomach, but as I do my side seems to explode, the pain so intense I can’t think.
I’m sure I’m having a heart attack when I realize it’s the floor. I feel, then hear, footsteps. They’re growing louder. Maybe I’m about to be trampled.
It’s torture to crawl away. A bloody smear marks my path to where I rest, huddled against a brick wall. I want to clean up the blood. I’m shocked to see it there. But I’m shaking, and terribly cold. I don’t know where my pants are. One of my boots is close by. The other one could be anywhere. I’ve still got my sweater, but for some reason I can’t free it from around my elbows.
The worst part is I can’t catch my breath. I can’t get air in or out. The place behind my eyes sparks with light. The edges of my vision tint, like pages in an ancient book. My lungs ache for air.
I want my mother.
Instead of Mom, men appear. Teachers, maybe. They pull the fighting, crying girls away from each other. The men shout so loud it fills my head with razor blades.
I want my mother. I want her I want her I want her. I can’t breathe. She’d help me,
I know she would. I call out, “Mom. Mama,” but the words are too soft. She’ll never hear.
A man kneels next to me. He covers me with a jacket, or a coat. My head is suddenly cradled on softness. It’s so noisy—yelling, shrieking, shouting; the robot-buzz of walkie-talkies. Nearby, a girl sobs. Someone touches my ankle and I scream, “No!” The word is a gift, like the slapping of a baby’s bum.
“No,” I say again, pulling air into my lungs. “No.”
The man touches my hair. “Gently now,” he says. “Gently.” He rests the palm of his hand on my forehead, then smoothes my hair from my face. I look up, squinting at the uniform, rectangular lights straddling the ceiling. A little tear glistens on the man’s cheek. I watch it fall.
“I know you,” I whisper. But I can’t find his name.
18
SNOW FALLS OUTSIDE a large, square window. The flakes align like a school of determined fish, orderly and perfect. I watch the snow for a long time, feeling content.
After a while I notice I’m someplace like snow—white walls and a white floor, a white, sound-absorbing ceiling. Above me, dangling from a thin silver track, hangs a crescent moon of sheer white drapes. I’m lying on my side in a bed with a white guard rail. Layers of white flannel blankets cover me from shoulder to toe. A clear, small plastic tube has been taped to the back of my hand with two thin strips of white. Near the tape, the tube morphs into a needle. My skin has swollen around the entry and turned slightly red. I’m naked but for a white cotton gown peppered with small gray dots. Pin dots, Mom called this pattern a long time ago.
Pin dots.
Within reaching distance of my bed there’s a little white stand. On it is a clear plastic water pitcher, a clear plastic cup. Stacked next to the cup are straws sealed tight in white paper wrappers. Centered on the stand, like creamy frosting on a cupcake, is an explosion of white roses arranged in a stubby white hob-nail vase. Next to that are Kyle’s boots.
His boots—my boots—look like I remember them, the leather scratched and worn, the heels painted pale blue. I painted them just yesterday, come to think of it. Staring at them now, with snow bombarding the window behind, I realize the shade I selected doesn’t capture the feeling of winter like I thought it would.
For some reason, I start to cry.
“Aspen?”
“Daddy?” My voice is thin and frail, like it comes from someplace other than me. I try shifting toward him, but I don’t get far. My side aches and feels tight, both. Dad touches my shoulder. “Don’t move, baby. I’ll come around.”
He pushes the white curtain aside. The little chains glide along their track, meeting with soft clinks, one by one. I work my hand through the rungs of the railing and hold it there, palm up, as though I’m a child waiting on a treat. Dad sits in a white fabric-covered chair, his head almost even with mine. He touches my fingers. He looks at me through tired, watery eyes.
“How are you feeling?” he asks.
“Okay. My side hurts.”
Dad lifts his glasses and folds the arms, tucking them into his shirt pocket. He wipes his tears with the heels of his hands. “Ray Thacker saved you. Do you remember? He’d gone to pick up Kyle’s homework. He heard screaming. It took him a while to find the fight. I guess a lot of girls were involved. They were pushing at each other. Arguing. Yelling. Ray and a few teachers started in, breaking things up. When he saw you, Aspen, bloody and nearly naked, he almost lost it. I . . . I’m grateful he was there, but I should have gone in to find you. I . . . was waiting. Outside. I’m so sorry.”
Tears dribble across the bridge of my nose, surprising and warm. It’s impossible to picture myself, exposed and helpless, a victim, in the hall. A part of me is glad Dad wasn’t there; that he didn’t see me like that. But I remember Ray Thacker hovering over me, his hand gentle on my forehead. I remember other things, too, though the memories are hazy. An ambulance. Doctors. Nurses waking me a few times before now. “I guess I was lucky,” I whisper.
“I guess you were.” Dad cradles his head in his hands for a moment, working his fingers into his hair. Then he squeezes both of his hands around mine. “Kyle comes from good people. And he means something to you, Aspen. I know that. But maybe, just for now, it’s best you two let things cool. I’m thinking of taking you back. To Portland.”
“Portland?” I look past Dad, to the falling snow. How could I ever be happy in the place where Mom still lives in my dreams? What if I wandered from school, on auto pilot or something, and busted in on the strangers who bought the house I once called home? It would ruin everything. It would make Mom’s death too real. I’m not ready for that. I mean, in Portland I couldn’t turn around without being asked how I’m feeling or how I’m getting along. Every day someone would ask if I miss my mother. I’ve seen it before. I’m guilty of asking those stupid questions myself. People mean well, but they don’t let you move on when they know all about what you’re trying to move on from. Maybe that’s why I say, “I won’t go.”
Dad’s face twists into something uncomfortable, like he’s stepped into murky, piranha-infested water. “The choice isn’t exactly open to discussion,” he says.
“I won’t go,” I say, louder this time. My side erupts, as though it were ripping.
“Careful there,” Dad says. He pats my hand once. Twice. “What do you expect me to do? You’ve been in the hospital since yesterday. You have thirty-two stitches. You have two bruised ribs and a twisted ankle. I can’t just send you back to school and pretend everything’s fine.”
“What happened with Em?”
“They suspended her. She was arrested. She’s out now, on bail, but she’ll have consequences.”
“So she won’t be back in school for a while. Maybe ever.”
“Well yes, but—”
“Then for me, going back isn’t a problem.”
“It is a problem, honey. I don’t feel good about sending you there. Not after this.”
“Then I’ll home school. I’ll find internet courses.”
Dad rolls his eyes and looks toward the door. “I can’t leave you alone all day. Em Harrelson is suspended. Not in jail.”
“You give her too much credit,” I say. “Or maybe you don’t give me enough.”
“This isn’t about credit, Aspen.”
“Well whatever it’s about, I’m not going back to Portland. You can’t make me!” I close my eyes, waiting for the pain to pass.
“Baby.” Dad strokes my hair. He pulls his chair closer and arranges my covers. “It could be a good thing,” he says softly. “You could be back with your friends.”
“My friends are here.” I roll away from him, moving quickly, as though I wasn’t injured. Pain streaks in long barbed fingers around my body. My skin feels tacked, like the firm stitching of a rag doll’s seam. I cry out. I can’t help it. In seconds Dad is on his feet, helping me settle onto my back. As he fusses over me the door to my room swings open.
Kyle walks in.
He stares at me, unblinking. My thoughts jump with how we’ve told each other ‘I love you,’ email style. He called me ‘Aspen Thacker.’ He called me his girl. I hear everything we wrote, every promise. I hear it all so clearly it’s as if we’d spoken the words out loud. And maybe, because my head is full of all our email, I can’t think of a thing to say. I’m scared, a little. I don’t see my feelings reflected on Kyle’s face. His eyes are a complex universe—dark and fretful. His skin is pale as moonlight. His hair seems grooved, as though he’s run his fingers through it a zillion times. Stubble covers his cheeks and chin and upper lip.
As he walks to my bedside, my eyes fill with tears. I want him to wrap his arms around me and hold me like he’ll never let me go, the way he did the day we danced together. I want to hear his beautiful, tenor voice telling me everything will be all right, that his heart hasn’t changed. But all he does is hunch over me, resting his forearms on the white railing between us. When Kyle gathers my hand in his, Dad coughs and mumbles something. Then D
ad’s gone.
Maybe Kyle was waiting for Dad to go. Maybe now he’ll pull off his boots and climb up next to me and settle by my side. I want to cradle my head on his shoulder while we talk and talk and talk. I crave the warmth of his body. I need the soothing sound of his voice. But he just stands there.
Terrifying silence builds between us. He inspects my hand for a while, rubbing his thumb across my knuckles with careful, light strokes, his wheels turning. I worry this is all too much for him, that knowing Em hurt me brings back too many bad memories of his own. It’s possible that what she did to me scares him, like he’s next or something. Maybe his demons are too strong, even stronger than all the intimate things we emailed back and forth: putting our bodies together and kissing and our future and stuff.
Kyle’s gaze shifts. He’s so intent on wherever he’s looking that I follow his stare to the far white wall of the room. A watercolor print hangs there, framed in cheap bleached wood, the flowery bouquet faded into tone-on-tone. As I look at it, the image blurs into nothing.
I hate waiting on what he’s going to say. I don’t want to hear him grope around for a perfectly phrased good-bye. Not now. I draw one breath and turn to face him, determined to ask what he’s thinking. It’s better just to know. But before I can speak, his gaze shifts until his eyes are locked to mine.
“I will never leave you again,” he whispers. Like he’s sealing his words into a solemn promise, he presses the palm of my hand to his mouth.
Ignoring how much it hurts, I reach for him. He lowers the rail on my bed and gently gathers me into his arms. I kiss him and kiss him and kiss him, until I’m sure.
We are all right.
19
WYOMING WIND IS fierce. I clutch my pillow to my chest, fretting as gusts slam our house, again and again. Above me, the roof rattles and pops. I swear my window is about to blow—the glass is creaking—and though it’s double-paned, one of my shutters sways on its hinge. But twenty minutes pass and nothing happens.
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