Love, Heather

by Laurie Petrou

  I look over my shoulder and see Dee checking in from across the room. You okay? she mouths. I ignore her and return to Lottie.

  “I know. I just—” I start to say, but she hasn’t heard me. Some guy is talking to her. She smiles shyly at him and looks back at me to say, “Look, I’ll talk to you later.” And she’s gone, moving through the party like a small lost thing on a wave, lost to me. Her friends exchange looks and shrug at me, sipping their drinks innocently as people have been doing since the dawn of the awkward conversation. I drop my hands at my side and put my head back, letting out a sigh of mounting frustration that could probably have been heard over the music if anyone was listening.

  And then it hits me that I’ve been here before. A birthday party, maybe? Or for Brownies? A childhood memory washes over me, something familiar but also maybe embarrassing, and just out of reach. I move into the kitchen, sideways-dancing between people; the memory slips away. Someone grabs me, but when I turn around, the crowd has closed again, and Dee puts her arm around me and steers me through the people in front of us.

  The house is thumping. The pictures on the shelves are swaying gently, and the fake flowers in the vases are bending forward and back, to and fro, and the couches are just asking to be squeezed onto. It’s a friendly house. People are loud, laughing in our ears as we go by. Dee’s energy is contagious, and I start to loosen up. People we don’t know say hi to us, and we fist-bump and side-hug and high-five them.

  In the kitchen, the fluorescent light makes everyone just a little uglier. There are a bunch of dude-bros near the sink, laughing loudly and pushing into each other because God knows they don’t know how to touch each other otherwise.

  One of them turns around and I see that it’s Aidan, and he raises his arms wide when he sees us and yells out, “Oh, look who’s here! Don’t you have some social justice warrior bullshit crimes to fight?”

  I blink and freeze, but Dee takes a breath beside me and holds up her cup. “Nice to see your genital itching isn’t slowing you down, buddy.”

  “Fuck you, you weird bitch.”

  “Touché. There really is no way to come back from that. What will I do?” Dee is laughing with a bunch of other kids standing nearby.

  I cannot believe that asshole, they are saying. I sneak a look at Aidan, and his face is a dark cloud. But he recovers, laughing at something a friend says, tipping back his cup, and going to the fridge to get another beer.

  * * *

  We spend the next hour or so in the kitchen, bumping into people, swaying to the music, laughing and looking around, seeing and being seen. Everyone’s on their phone, taking selfies and snaps. People keep asking us about the Insta hack, if it was us, asking me about what Breanne said. Dee is having a great time: singing loudly, twirling around with her drink held high. People get caught up in her energy, they are crowding around, laughing and dancing. The drinks keep coming. Every time I pick up my cup from wherever I leave it, it’s full again. People bumping, moving, grinding, twerking, rubbing, singing, sweating. The music gets louder and louder, and my head is feeling thicker. I see someone puke in the kitchen sink. Some sounds are coming through a cloud, but others are right inside my ear.

  I’m being held up by the bodies around me. A ship in a storm.

  I see Paige across the house, feel her looking. I lift my arm and wave at her, and she looks confused; she nods and turns away. I am giggling about something, my mind rocking around in my head, my body crashing into other bodies. My eyes blink slowly and someone laughs nearby.

  Dee and I find our way outside. The backyard deck, where we are now, with a whole new set of people who went outside to smoke up, make out, and get out, has a wraparound banister looking down on the backyard below. The yard slopes down, and there are more people there, milling about, lying down, laughing and yelling. The bass is throbbing and I feel strange. I know I am drunk, and I hold fast to the rail, and see that Dee is doing the same.

  Suddenly I’m aware that Paige is there, talking to us.

  “You need to watch your back.”

  “What?” I say, because I’m honestly not sure what she’s saying.

  Dee giggles in my ear.

  “Right, it’s so funny.” Paige rolls her eyes. “You know, people are getting hurt.”

  “You started it,” I slur, looking over the banister.

  “What? No, I didn’t—”

  And then Aidan is there, and he’s shoved himself between us, squeezes up against Paige.

  “Why are you talking to her?” he asks Paige, putting his face on her neck, not looking at me, and she pushes him a little. We all seem to sway back and forth and back again.

  “Shut up,” she mumbles.

  “Make me,” Aidan growls into her hair.

  Dee makes a grab for his arm but just ends up swatting him. “Leave her alone,” she says, barely audible.

  He turns his head and laughs in my face. Paige looks at me over his shoulder and sighs. She takes Aidan’s hand—“come on”—and they walk back into the house. He puts his hand on her ass as they go.

  We turn back and look at the people below, watching them silently for a while.

  “These people,” Dee mumbles finally, gesturing over the banister. “They are all such … assholes.”

  “Yeah,” I say.

  “We could jump off this thing, and no one would care.”

  “Not Lottie, not Pete, not my mom,” I slur.

  “They’d dance on our bodies.”

  “Use us as a mattress.”

  “A blanket.”

  “Firewood.”

  I laugh sourly and put my head down on the railing.

  Times passes, and it could be minutes or hours. It’s nice here. I smile.

  “You okay?” It’s a different voice. I look up.

  Someone has their arm around Dee. I see through the buzzing fog that it is one of the dude-bros from the kitchen. He has a nice face. Her head is nodding, but no words are coming out. Or I can’t hear them. He’s saying something, and they are moving back into the house. My feet have come off the floor, and I am floating behind them, trying to catch up but just letting things happen now, letting things happen because it feels so relaxing and I could just sleep like this, moving.

  There is a basement, and there are couches. I watch as she lays down on one of them. There is laughing from somewhere. There is talking nearby. Someone brushes her hair out of her face. My eyes are closing because I am comfortable.

  Someone says my name and I say yes.

  26

  I dream about a lot of things. But first, nothing at all. First, I am empty.

  Then, it is like there’s a white screen behind my eyes. It is thick, and almost sticky, as if I am swimming through glue. And then I am pushing through, slowly, trying to move, trying to speak. I am gliding on top of ice, but I am warm, hot almost, just moving forward, but again, slowly; as though someone is holding on to my boots and pulling me back, or I am dragging them with me. I am making such an effort for so little. For so long. I am left behind.

  * * *

  It is very early morning. Not even light out. Birds are chirping somewhere.

  My eyes open slowly, like there’s gum in them, and I see through a fog of smoke and crowd of bodies. It is Friday. We are still at Sienna’s house. I feel so sick. I feel like I’m in a cloud. And I remember, then, that I had been here for a birthday party, when I was a kid. We played duck, duck, goose, and when the birthday cake came out, I hid under the table because I was afraid of fire. And when they put on Bambi, they had to call my mom to come pick me up, because of the forest fire scene. I remember all that in a slow, sloshy wave.

  I am on the couch, cold. I shift and feel why. My shirt. My shirt is pulled up, almost off. My pants pulled down. I am wet, cold. I focus on my torso as I try to pull my shirt down and see.

  Red marker. Like lipstick. Capital letters.

  CRAZY BITCH

  I cry out, a small sound.

  Dee?
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  Dee?

  I am pulling at my clothes, trying to see through the fog inside my head. I hear someone weeping, and then realize it is me.

  Dee where are you?

  Dee!

  I am stumbling, on my knees, finding carpeted stairs, chips ground into the fabric. She is gone, she’s not here. I need to find her, I need her. I find my way outside, around the side of the house. I remember that I don’t have my bike, that I walked here. I put my face against the cold brick.

  Dee.

  I lean over suddenly and throw up like a shout.

  DEE! I cry.

  There is nothing.

  * * *

  I am at home.

  I climbed right into bed as soon as I got home, before Mom woke up. I was shaking while I put my pajamas on. They usually make me feel so cozy, but nothing feels right.

  I open my phone, ignoring texts from anyone but Dee. There’s so much there, but I can’t look at it now. I try to call and text her. No answer. No response. Where is she? What happened to her? My fingers are trembling. There are tears racing down my cheeks. Dee. Dee. I want to go find her but feel helpless, immobile. Moving takes so much effort.

  I try to remember last night. Is this what it means when someone drinks too much and blacks out? Is this what they mean? Did something else happen? I’m dizzy and I finally scramble out of bed, stumbling to the bathroom. I throw up, over and over again. No one holds my hair, no one rubs my back. I moan, and the puke comes through my nose and burns. I am sobbing now, but no one comes. Mom can sleep through anything. I lean against the wall and wipe my face with some toilet paper, and it tears and sticks to my face. There is a part of the ceiling that is peeling off, and it makes me so sad, and I start to cry quietly again. Finally, I get up and go back to bed. I am exhausted, but sleep doesn’t come. Eventually I hear Mom crashing around in her room. She’s calling out to me, Stevie, Stevie. But my mouth won’t work. The door opens.

  “Stevie! Get up, girl.”

  “Okay,” I mumble.

  She squints at me. She needs glasses, but she’s too cheap and too vain.

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t feel well.”

  She comes in and sits on my bed. I can smell her shampoo, and it turns my stomach. She puts her hand on my forehead, and for a second, I am so grateful to be looked after, like a kid.

  “Did you get drunk last night, Stevie?”

  And I’m crying again.

  “Jesus,” she says, sighing. “Okay, okay.” She rubs my back. She doesn’t say anything for a while. Finally, she inhales and gives my back a pat. “Well. It was a stupid thing to do, but I was doing way worse at your age.”

  “I’m sorry,” I blubber.

  “Yeah, yeah.” She blows out her cheeks and looks at her watch. “Look, I have a client coming soon, so I gotta get downstairs.” She stares hard at me. “I know I should probably force you to go to school as punishment, but you seem like you’re really suffering here. You wanna stay home today? I mean, school’s almost done; it’s not like they’re gonna fail you, right?”

  I sniff and nod.

  She shakes her head and ruffles my hair, and it’s really nice.

  “You dummy,” she says, and gets up.

  After she shuts the door, my phone starts going off. It’s buzzing and buzzing, over and over again. I’m afraid to pick it up. I am lying on my side, watching it on my bedside table, vibrating so much it’s threatening to explode. I turn it off, and it feels like the silence might strangle me. I close my eyes, but it’s no use. I am wide awake now. And my mouth feels like I ate a sweater.

  I pick up my phone again to try Dee, but I can’t ignore the other texts anymore. It’s like in Harry Potter when they destroy that locket Horcrux and all the bad shit comes flying out. I am face-to-face with an onslaught, a downpour of texts, complete with photos. From lots of people: unknown numbers and people who maybe were once my friends.

  Holy shit look at this

  omg I can’t believe what they did

  are you ok are you ok are you ok

  have you called the police

  what are you going to do

  are you going to school

  the pic is on Instagram

  they hacked that heather account

  do you think its Aidan

  are you ok are you ok where are you where are you are you ok

  they posted it everywhere

  call me are you ok

  There are many people in the photos, but I can’t tell who’s who. A prone body. Shirt lifted off, fingers pointing, grabbing, the body limp, blurred. I turn it off and know that this is it. I won’t turn it back on. There is sadness like a building pressure storm, but then something else happens. It flips on itself.

  I throw the covers off me and stand in front of my mirror. I take off my pajama shirt.

  I look at the smeared red marker all over my body.

  CRAZY BITCH

  I touch the letters, then clench my hands into fists.

  I look at my reflection, and suddenly, finally, she is there.

  Dee.

  “Where were you? I needed you.”

  I’m here now, she says, my dry lips moving. I know what they did. Everything. And nothing.

  She wipes the tears away.

  27

  I do not cry again, although I do throw up two more times.

  I scrub myself in the shower until my body is red and raw, but it’s having a hard time forgetting. It looks basically the same, but I know that it’s not. I get out and dry myself roughly with a towel. I can still see some of the marks on my body, but I get dressed, I cover it up.

  I am not going to school. Mom called and told them I’m sick. My phone is off. Off forever. The curtains are closed. But I have lots of work to do.

  Dee started the fire of vengeance that took over the school. She did it because I had no control. Because the hate, the cruelty, the violations left me without options. She gave power to the powerless. She inspired people. She taught us how to fight back. Most importantly, she’s the reason that the assholes, the thieves, will not get away with anything.

  I need her, she tells me. Now more than ever. We can make them understand. We can start fresh.

  I am not a violent person; I never have been. I love animals. I feel sorry for everything. I don’t collect firearms or gun paraphernalia; I don’t play violent games or get a rush from aggression. I am a film nerd, that’s all. I am a social justice warrior, simple. I support March for Our Lives. I believe in gun reform and gun control and protecting kids. I mean, shootings are not an epidemic here, they hardly ever happen, but I pay attention, I know what’s going on, and I’m not the type. It’s not me.

  And yet. Maybe I’ve changed. I’ve been changed. All the confidence and self-worth and anger and sense of justice that Dee gave me—that I found deep inside her and me—it came at a heavy price. They took so much from me and left me scrabbling, scratching, and clawing, backed into a corner, trying to stay alive. All those passive parts of me that lay docile as lambs are now jumping around screaming with a bloodthirsty growl and a desire to show them what it felt like, what it feels like to be constantly under threat—in class, in stairwells, at hockey games, online.

  But mine is a revenge of my own design, of my own making. I will build my vengeance from found objects that don’t look like trouble, don’t look dangerous, until they are together. Like me and Dee.

  I put on loud and furious music and start doing research. Google provides me with everything I need to know. All the freaks out there who like to experiment, who love spectacle, who have their own peacemakers: they have laid out for me step-by-step directions for my big show, my poetic finale, my final assignment.

  Something really creative, isn’t that what you said, Pete? That’s my plan.

  I have such a clear-eyed focus that the morning slips by without me even noticing. I am propped up on pillows in bed, my laptop on my knees. Eventually
I hear my mom come upstairs for her break and lunch. She comes down the hall and knocks while opening my door.

  “Hey, kid. How you feeling?” she asks. I close my laptop and pull up the covers. She looks at me thoughtfully.

  “Okay, I guess.”

  “Yeah? You hungry? I can make grilled cheese.”

  “Sure. Thanks.”

  She smiles at me and closes the door, and I miss her so much it hurts.

  Soon I hear Reg’s car pulling into the driveway. People like him: they start off in high school, the giant petri dish, and everything is handed to them. They are cool. Life is easy. The Aidans and the Breannes and the Paiges of the world—I can see the future laid out for them like a movie in my head. No one ever tells them they can’t. They grow up to become the kind of person who makes jokes about your body when you aren’t even ready to give away your stuffed animals.

  There is a hot lump in my throat and tears trying to get out, but I push them away. I hear Reg laughing with my mom when she tells him why I’m home. They are murmuring and giggling.

  Another car arrives, and Mom yells, “Stevie, we’ll be in the salon; I’ve got appointments all afternoon. Your lunch is on the table!”

  “Stay out of the liquor cabinet, ya lush!” Reg shouts, snickering.

  Soon I hear him guffawing from below me in the salon. His laugh coming through the vent, my mom chuckling along with him. And suddenly I think of last night: someone laughing, a foggy mirage of a couch. Someone saying don’t, don’t. Was it me? I briefly wonder what is happening in the Pandora’s Box that is my phone. What will happen if I open it?

  * * *

  There is knocking at the door while I’m sitting in the kitchen. I figure it is one of Mom’s clients who forgot that the entrance to the salon is through the side door, leading to the basement. I sigh, tossing my grilled-cheese plate in the sink and wiping my face with the back of my hand.

  It’s Lottie.

  I stand aside and let her come in.

  “Are you okay?” she asks.

  “Yes.”

  She nods.