Those Girls

  “Stop it!” I yelled.

  Larry cocked his arm, smacked her hard across the face. She fell backward, hitting the wall and crashing into the night table. She tried to catch herself, but the side of her face slammed into the edge with a thud that made me feel sick. Between sobs she clutched at her face and said, “You fucker.”

  Larry spun around and pushed past me, knocking me sideways onto the bed. “I don’t need this shit.”

  He walked out of the bedroom, still cursing as he went down the hall. The front door slammed shut.

  I turned to Crystal. “You okay?”

  She was huddled against the wall, crying hard, makeup in black streaks down her face, blood dripping from her nose and the corner of her mouth.

  “The door!” she said.

  I ran back into the living room and locked the door, then jogged back to her room. Crystal had pulled the top sheet off her bed and wrapped it around her.

  “What happened?” I said.

  “I couldn’t breathe. He had his hands around my throat.…” She reached up, touched her neck, rubbed at it. “He thought … he thought I liked it.”

  I didn’t know what to say. Her face looked so sore. I wanted to give her a hug but didn’t know if she wanted to be touched. “I’ll get you some ice.”

  I went to the kitchen, put ice cubes in a towel, and brought it to Crystal’s room. She was in the bathroom, now in shorts and a tank top, looking at her face in the mirror. Balls of bloody Kleenex were wadded all over the bathroom counter. Her hands shook as she touched her cheek and her bottom lip, which was puffy. I handed her the ice pack. She stared at it.

  “It’s for your face,” I said.

  She pressed it to her cheekbone, where I could see a red mark. She was still staring at herself in the mirror. Her blue eyes huge, almost black.

  “I smoked your last cigarette,” I said, trying not to cry. “I’m sorry.”

  She looked at me and started to laugh, but then her laughter turned to tears. She sat on the edge of the bathtub.

  “I’m such a mess. He was right. I’m crazy.”

  “No, he was an asshole.”

  She wiped at her face, stood up. “I need a drink.”

  Over the next hour, Crystal drank every wine cooler in her house and finished off the remains of a vodka bottle. She kept getting up to look out the window, stumbling into everything. Then she’d stare out at the street like she was checking to see if Larry was outside.

  “You sure you locked the door?” she asked several times, and even when I swore I had, she still checked. She went around and made sure every window in the house was closed and latched, though it was still hot.

  I’d never seen her like this. I didn’t know what to do.

  “Maybe we should call my mom, or Dallas,” I said.

  “You can’t tell them what happened!”

  “Okay, but will you please sit down?”

  She sat, and before long her head started to drift lower, jerking a couple of times as she tried to fight off sleep, her chin almost touching her chest.

  “You should go to bed,” I said.

  “Come with me,” she said.

  I led her down to her room and covered her with her sheet—it was a little cooler there with a fan blowing. Then I lay down beside her and drifted off.

  * * *

  Later, unsure of the time, I woke and glanced next to me—Crystal wasn’t in bed. I sat up, looked around. The bathroom door was open slightly, letting some light into the bedroom. The drawer on her night table was open.

  I headed for the bathroom. “Crystal?”

  No answer.

  I pushed open the door. She was on the floor, her back against the side of the bathtub, her eyes closed and her head lolling to one side. She had a gun in her hand.

  “Holy shit!”

  She opened her eyes half-mast, tried to focus on me. “Close the door. They’re coming.”

  “Who’s coming?” I said.

  “Close the fucking door!”

  Had she totally lost her mind? I noticed a couple lines of white powder on the counter, a rolled-up bill beside them. Shit.

  I knelt beside her. “Crystal, give me the gun.”

  She tucked it closer to her body, under her armpit. She was breathing fast and looking around wild-eyed.

  “Did they hear us? They’re going to kill us this time.”

  She curled into a ball, the gun still close to her body, and started rocking back and forth, singing some song to herself.

  Should I just sit with her for a while? I had to get the gun away from her somehow.

  “Crystal, give me the gun, please.”

  She shook her head. “No. They’re going to hurt me again.”

  “No one’s going to hurt you. Please give me the gun.”

  She took the gun out from under her arm but was still holding it by her side. She met my eyes, and hers seemed to come back into focus for a moment.

  “I need my cigarettes,” she said.

  “You’re out,” I said.

  “I have more in my purse.”

  “I’ll get them.” I went into the living room, found her purse, and rummaged around, but she didn’t have any.

  When I went back to her bathroom, the door was shut. I tried the handle. Locked. “Crystal? I couldn’t find your cigarettes.”

  “Just go home, Skylar.”

  I didn’t like the tone of her voice, the flatness. “I’m not going anywhere until you come out.”

  Silence.

  I wondered if I should call the police or an ambulance or something.

  I went into the living room and picked up my cell.

  “Mom? I need you.”

  * * *

  I spent the next twenty minutes sitting outside Crystal’s bathroom door. She wouldn’t answer my questions, so I babbled about the beach, how she’d promised to take me, how we could pick up some burgers and shakes and smoke a big joint and read dumb magazines and laugh at celebrities. I could hear the crying on the other side, loud sniffs, or sometimes just silence, which was worse. My body was covered with nervous sweat, my palms sticky. I was terrified I’d hear the click of the gun, a shot going off.

  Finally, I heard a key in the front door—and my mom calling out, “Skylar?”

  “In here!” I yelled.

  Crystal was silent. I wondered if she’d passed out.

  Dallas and my mom came into the room. Mom’s face was pale and her eyes looked scared. Dallas looked grim, her mouth a hard line.

  “She’s so messed up,” I said. “I didn’t know what to do.”

  “It’s okay,” Mom said. “Just go into the living room and we’ll deal with this.”

  “No way! You can’t make me leave.”

  “You shouldn’t have been here in the first place!”

  “If I wasn’t here, that guy might’ve really hurt her.”

  Mom turned from me to the locked door. Dallas knocked gently.

  “Crystal, honey. Can you open the door?”

  “She won’t go to the police,” I said.

  “No police,” my mom and Dallas said at the same time.

  The door opened slowly. Crystal was gripping the edge, leaning against it like she could barely stand. Her face was streaked with tears, bits of dried blood still under her nose, a faint bruise already forming around one eye.

  “Jesus.” Dallas stepped forward.

  Crystal walked into her arms, put her head onto her shoulder, and sobbed like a little girl. Mom took the gun out of Crystal’s hand, flipped something on the side of it.

  “Why don’t you lie down?” Dallas said, leading Crystal to the bed, where she curled up, hugging her pillow. Mom sat by Crystal’s feet, her hand resting on her calf, the other still holding the gun. Dallas was rubbing Crystal’s back.

  “It was just like Cash Creek,” Crystal said, the words squeezing out of her like she was in pain. “It was happening all over again.”

  “Crystal,” Mom said. “You
’re safe now.”

  “We’re never going to be safe. They’re still looking for us.”

  Mom looked up at me. “Go out to the living room.”

  “I want to stay.”

  She got off the bed and came toward me, her face furious. “Get out of here!”

  I left and sat in the darkened living room, my face hot. I’d taken care of Crystal for hours, sat with her until they came, and now I was kicked out like a little kid. I couldn’t even hear anything they were talking about, just murmurs, sometimes Crystal crying. And it was a half hour before Mom came out.

  “Is she okay?” I said.

  “She’s calming down. Dallas will stay the night with her.”

  “I want to stay too.”

  “We need to go home.”

  * * *

  Mom gripped the wheel tight, her eyes focused on the road, but I could tell her thoughts were elsewhere, expressions flitting across her face, confusion, fear, sadness, lights from the other cars reflecting off her skin and eyes.

  “What was Crystal talking about?” I said.

  “She’s out of it. She didn’t know what she was saying.”

  “What happened in Cash Creek?”

  “You lied to me tonight, Skylar. I’m really upset with you.”

  “You’re lying to me now.”

  She didn’t say another word the rest of the way home.

  * * *

  Mom turned on the light in the kitchen and made a pot of tea, her movements jerky, agitated. She stopped, staring at the cutlery drawer like she couldn’t remember what she was looking for, then finally pulled out a spoon. She dropped it with a clatter, cursed as she picked it up. I went to sit on the couch, waiting for her to order me to bed, but I wasn’t going without a fight. The living room was shadowed, the streets outside our apartment quiet at this time of night except for the odd horn or siren or vehicle roaring past. Someone walked down the hall, coming home late.

  Mom sat beside me on the couch, handed me a cup of tea, pulled a blanket over both of us. She glanced around our apartment like she was trying to remind herself where she was. Her gaze focused on the photo of her mom we kept on the side table in a silver frame. It was the only picture she had of her family.

  “There was a reason I didn’t want you to go out with Crystal,” she said.

  “I was okay.”

  “You could’ve gotten into a lot of trouble.”

  “Crystal was looking out for me.”

  “When Crystal gets drunk she doesn’t know what she’s doing. What happened to her tonight? That could’ve been you, and—” Mom’s voice broke.

  “I wasn’t drinking.”

  “You don’t have to be drunk. It’s just being in the wrong place at the wrong time—and the bar was definitely the wrong place.”

  “I’m sorry I lied,” I said. “It just feels like you never trust me.” Mom was a pretty cool mother in a lot of ways, but she hated it when I wore anything too tight or too short, lectured me all the time about drinking and drugs, and how guys can get the wrong idea—stuff like that.

  “It’s not you I don’t trust. It’s the rest of the world.”

  “You can’t keep me in a box, Mom.”

  “I can try.” She smiled, but it looked strained.

  “Is Crystal going to be okay?”

  “Yeah, she’s just having a rough night.”

  It was a lot more than a rough night and we both knew it.

  “Who did she think was going to hurt her?” I said.

  “She thought Larry might come back.”

  “I’m not an idiot, Mom. She was talking like she was scared of a couple people. I know she was freaking out about something that happened in the past.”

  Mom was quiet for a minute, then took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

  “We met some very bad men when we were teenagers.”

  “From Cash Creek? Did you go there when you ran away?” Mom had told me years ago how their mom had died in a car accident when they were growing up in Golden, and their dad had been an alcoholic. He’d gone missing when she was pregnant with me. They ran away to avoid foster care and met Patrick, who gave them jobs, then they changed their names so their dad could never find them.

  “Our truck had broken down, and they stopped to help.…” She took another breath, swallowed hard. “One of them worked at the garage. We got jobs on their ranch to make some money, but they…” She paused again, took a quick sip of her tea like her mouth had gone dry. “They wanted more than that.”

  “Did they hurt you?” I whispered, my blood whooshing in my ears. Mom was staring at the teacup in her hand.

  “They got rough with us one night when we were all drinking down by a river. We managed to get away but we were terrified.” Her eyes were shiny like she was close to tears.

  “What did they do?”

  “It doesn’t matter. We got out of town as soon as we could and we’ve never seen them again.” She turned to look at me, reached out to grab my hand. “I know you think I’m too protective, and maybe I am sometimes, it’s just that I see you going down the same path as Crystal, and I’m scared for you.”

  “I’m not Crystal, Mom.”

  “I know, baby, but bad things happen even when people are careful.”

  “Why didn’t you go to the cops?”

  “Same reason we ran away. We didn’t want to go to foster care.”

  “Are they still there? Like, in that town?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Crystal thinks they’re still looking for you.”

  “That was just the drugs talking.”

  “But what if she’s right and—”

  “They’d never be able to find us.”

  “Do they, like, know your real names or anything?” I didn’t even know my mom’s real name. She wouldn’t tell me because she was scared I might accidentally reveal it to someone.

  “No, they don’t.” She put down her cup. “I’m tired, baby, and talking about this—it’s really hard.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault. I just need to go to bed.”

  “Can I sleep with you?”

  “Of course.” She said it with a smile, but she still looked sad.

  We lay side by side, our arms touching and my head resting against her shoulder like when I was little and she used to rub circles on my forehead until I fell asleep. I could hear her breathing for a long time, not slow and measured but faster, like she was still awake.

  “Skylar, you can’t tell anyone about this, okay?” she whispered.

  “Okay.”

  “I mean it. Not Emily or Taylor or anyone else.”

  “I won’t.”

  Finally she drifted off, but I stayed awake for a while, thinking about what might have happened down at that river. I knew Mom hadn’t told me everything, had probably held back a lot, and my mind spun with questions. I couldn’t stop thinking about Crystal saying, “They’re going to kill us this time.”

  She’d sounded so sure.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  I drove over to Crystal’s the next afternoon. She opened the door still wearing the shorts and tank top she’d pulled on the night before, her hair a mess. Her face didn’t look too bad, but one side of her bottom lip was a little swollen and she had a faint blue shadow around one eye.

  “Good. It’s you,” she said. “I thought it was Dallas checking up on me again.”

  “Did I wake you?” I said.

  “I was just dozing on the couch. Come in.” She walked into the living room, collapsed back down onto the couch. The blinds were closed on all the windows, the room dark.

  I sat at her feet. Her ashtray was full of cigarettes, and there were already two empty beer bottles on the coffee table and one on the go.

  “Have you been out today?” I said.

  “The liquor store,” she said with a smile. “Had to get my medicine.” Normally I’d have laughed, but it didn’t seem funny toda
y.

  “Are you okay?” I said.

  “Yeah,” she said, but she didn’t meet my eyes as she sat up and reached for another cigarette.

  “You want me to make some soup?” I said. “Have you eaten anything?”

  “You sound like your mom.” She leaned back on the couch, lit her smoke.

  “Sorry. I’m just worried about you.”

  She gave me a sad smile. “Sorry for scaring you last night, kiddo.”

  “You freaked out.” I picked up the tinfoil from an empty cigarette pack on the coffee table, started making an origami crane. The smooth foil felt comforting under my fingers.

  “I shouldn’t have been doing coke.”

  “I didn’t know you did that.”

  “Haven’t touched it for years, but Larry had some.” She shrugged. “Seemed like a good idea at the time.” She looked at me. “Boy, he turned out to be a fucker, hey?” She shook her head. “You never know.…”

  “Mom told me what happened to you guys in Cash Creek.” I paused from my work on the bird, waiting to see how my words would land.

  She took a hard drag of her cigarette, her gaze sliding away like she didn’t know where to look. “What did she tell you?” She blew the smoke up toward the ceiling, showing her neck and the scar on her jaw.

  “How your truck broke down and those guys picked you up, and then you worked at their ranch, but they … they hurt you.” I didn’t want to tell her exactly what Mom had said. She met my eyes, and it was like all the life had gone out of hers. They were just dark pools of pain so deep I wanted to pull away, wanted to run outside and suck in the clean air and feel sunshine against my skin.

  “She told you what they did?” Her voice sounded hollow.

  “Yeah, but she didn’t say much. She got upset.”

  She reached out and grabbed the beer off the coffee table, took a few mouthfuls, one after the other.

  “What happened?” I said in a soft voice.

  My question hovered between us as we sat there for an endless minute. I stared down at the foil bird, counted the beats of my heart, wondered if Crystal’s was beating this fast. I wished I could reach out and snatch my question back, but I’d thought about it a lot during the night, feeling this weird mix of fear and curiosity. I needed to know what had happened at that river. I felt bad asking her when she still seemed so depressed, but that was when Crystal talked the most.