Those Girls

  I put my arms around her, held her close. “It’s going to be okay.”

  Dallas leapt off the porch and grabbed a big rock, then ran up and smashed the bathroom window. She reached in, unlocked it, then slid it up and climbed inside. I tried to hold Skylar back but she wrenched out of my arms and clambered after Dallas through the window. I followed behind.

  I’d just stepped onto the bathroom floor when I heard a scream, then Dallas shrieking, “No, no, no!”

  I rushed out of the bathroom, found Skylar and Dallas in the kitchen on their knees by Crystal. She was naked, a thick rope around her neck, her skin a myriad of bruises. Her chest was covered in blood.

  Dallas was holding her body in her arms, cradling her. Skylar was on the other side of Crystal, her hands over her mouth and her eyes stunned.

  “Oh, God.” I dropped to my knees beside them. I gripped Crystal’s hand, horrified by the raw skin around her wrists, the tape stuck to her flesh.

  “Crystal, sweet Jesus, what did they do to you?” I moaned, feeling for her pulse, my fingers pressing desperately, praying.

  “CPR. We have to do CPR.” I tried to pull her out of Dallas’s arms.

  We tugged over her for a moment, me crying and Dallas yelling, “It’s too late!” I thought of every minute we’d spent in town, every second we’d wasted. We should’ve gotten here sooner. We could have saved her.

  “We have to try,” I screamed back, my throat so choked with tears I thought I’d strangle on them. I ripped my shirt off, pressed it against the wound on Crystal’s chest, crying even harder as it turned bright red.

  Dallas let go and I lay Crystal down, bent her head back, started blowing in her mouth. Dallas began chest compressions. I knew Crystal was gone, could feel her mouth turning cold underneath mine, but I couldn’t let go, couldn’t stop breathing for her. Crystal, no, please, come back. We need you.

  Dallas stopped the compressions. She wrapped her arms around me, tried tugging me away. I fought back.

  “No!”

  I hit my hand down on Crystal’s chest, screamed in her face. “No!”

  “Stop,” Dallas said, her voice anguished. “Stop.”

  She grabbed me harder, pulling me away. I collapsed backward into her arms, my body wrenching with gasping sobs. “Oh, no,” I said. “No, no, no, no.”

  I could feel Dallas’s body shaking behind me. I turned to Skylar, reaching for her. She was rocking back and forth, her head bowed, hands to her face. Her body sagged sideways, leaned into mine. Dallas encircled both of us in her arms, her face pressed between ours, my tears wetting her cheek.

  Crystal was lying in front of us. I didn’t like her hand resting alone on the floor. I held it, so she was still with us, so she wasn’t left out. It was always all of us. I didn’t know what the world looked like without her in it. She was our light, our dancing light.

  I glanced to my left, barely able to see through my tears. Gavin was lying on the floor a couple of feet away, a knife sticking out of his chest.

  “She locked me out,” Skylar said. “Why did she lock me out?”

  I was helpless to explain, couldn’t take my eyes off Crystal, her beautiful face. I heard a noise and turned toward the front door, saw someone stumble out.

  “Dallas!” I said. “Brian just went out the front!”

  She let go of us and got to her feet, her shirt covered in Crystal’s blood and her face enraged. She ran to the door, the gun in her hand. Now I could hear a motorbike and the faint sound of sirens, coming closer.

  I picked up the rifle, following her. Dallas was almost out the front door. I stepped onto the porch. Brian was in the driveway, trying to get onto his ATV, his body bent over, a trail of blood behind him. It looked like he was fumbling for keys. A motorbike was coming up the driveway. The rider skidded sideways and fell next to the ATV. He got to his feet and ripped off his helmet. It was Riley. He ran for his dad. Dallas let off a shot aimed at Brian’s back, but he turned at the last minute and she hit the ATV. Brian grabbed his son by his shirt and dragged him toward the motorbike, using him as a shield.

  “Dad! Stop!” Riley yelled as he tried to pull away.

  Brian threw his son down onto the ground, picked up the motorbike, and started it up, fishtailing as he roared down the driveway.

  I aimed at the tires, but missed.

  The sirens were getting closer. Dallas took another shot. The bike swerved, and Brian tumbled to the ground, the motorbike’s engine still whining.

  Now Riley was running toward him, and cop cars were racing up the driveway, swerving to avoid Brian and Riley. They pulled up in front of the house. An officer got out, saw us holding guns, and drew his.

  “Everyone get down!”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  SKYLAR

  I pressed my forehead against the cool glass window, looking out at the highway, the big trucks passing our car. I was trying not to think about Crystal but I kept seeing flashes of her face, the blood on her chest, her head lolling to the side.

  Mom was holding my hand in the backseat. I could feel her looking at me once in a while, could feel her concern, all her emotions pressing into me. She’d asked if I wanted to talk, her eyes serious and sad, her mouth trembling when she looked at the bandages on my wrists, her hands patting and touching and stroking my skin like she had to keep feeling me to believe I was alive.

  “Not yet,” I’d said. I felt like I was swimming underwater and if I opened my mouth it would fill up and I’d drown. I kept getting flashes of images, but they were foggy, surreal, like I was having a horrible nightmare I kept waiting to wake up from, but it just went on and on.

  I remember walking out of the house with one of the cops, seeing my mom in the back of a police car, Dallas in another, lights flashing, men talking into radios, their faces serious. Riley was kneeling on the ground. An officer was crouched down talking to him, a hand on his shoulder.

  I remember trying to run to my mom, seeing her anguished face through the glass. The officer pulled me away, saying something about having to take me to the hospital and that I could talk to my mom later.

  At the hospital, they treated my wrists and neck, asked me all kinds of questions. I tried to answer, tried to focus my thoughts and explain how sorry I was for running away, how it was my fault Crystal was dead, but then I heard a buzzing, a fly trapped against the window, and started crying so hard they had to give me a shot to calm me. Finally, I fell asleep.

  The hospital kept me overnight to treat me for dehydration. In the morning I asked for my mom, but an officer said they needed to ask me more questions first. A woman officer drove me to the station and brought me into a room. She was nice, smelled like pine needles and forest and fresh air.

  She asked me to go through everything, starting from why I decided to drive to Cash Creek. I didn’t know if they’d already found out about my mom. Didn’t know if it was still a secret, didn’t know what was a truth or a lie anymore.

  “I don’t want to talk,” I kept saying.

  “We know about your mother,” she said in a soft voice. “We know Gavin and Brian hurt them. It’s okay for you to talk to me. You won’t be in trouble.”

  I looked at the door, wished I knew if she was telling the truth. I felt like I couldn’t trust anybody.

  “Where are Brian and Gavin?”

  “Gavin died at the scene and Brian’s in the hospital, but he’s going to recover. We want to make sure he’s punished for what he did. That’s why I need you to tell me everything that happened—so he can’t hurt anyone else, okay?”

  I took a breath and started talking. I had to stop a few times because I was crying too hard, but she was really nice and waited until I calmed down. She kept bringing me water. I drank glass after glass. I never wanted to be thirsty again.

  “Is everyone going to know he’s my father?” I said at the end.

  “That’s not for the police to disclose. It’s your private information.”

  She exp
lained about Victim Services, then another nice lady came in and talked to me about counseling and told me who to contact when I got back to the city.

  “You’ll feel better when you’re home,” she said.

  * * *

  We passed a McDonald’s on the highway. I remembered picking up Lacey only days before, how I’d been so sure that I’d find Crystal and bring her home. I’d thought I could do it all on my own. My eyes stung with tears.

  “I know he was my father,” I said. “I know it was Brian.”

  Mom sucked in a breath beside me. “Skylar … I’m so sorry.”

  I turned to look at her. “Why did you really run away? What did Crystal do?”

  Mom hesitated for a second. I glanced in the rearview mirror, saw Dallas watching. She looked back at the road.

  “Our father was really violent,” she said. “We were terrified of him. We had to leave.”

  “It was more than that, Mom. Crystal felt guilty about something. What was it?”

  Mom’s eyelids were flickering, like she was thinking hard.

  “She … she’d been seeing a married man. Our dad was late coming home from camp, but we thought he’d be back any day. If he found out what Crystal had done, he’d beat her. We had to get out of town as fast as possible.”

  “What were your real names?”

  “Our last name was Campbell. My real name was Jessica, Dallas was Danielle, but we called her Dani, and Crystal was Courtney.”

  I spent a minute thinking about that, trying to fit these names to my mom and aunts. They felt all wrong, all bunched up and stretched out, both at the same time.

  “Were you really from Golden?” I said.

  Mom sighed. “Littlefield.”

  “Why did you lie?”

  “I was trying to protect you.” Her eyes were shiny with tears.

  “You lied about everything.” My voice broke.

  “Baby, you don’t understand. You were just a child—”

  “I don’t want to talk anymore.”

  “Honey…”

  I turned away. “I said I don’t want to talk.” I focused on the wheels of a big truck passing, swallowing hard against the lump in my throat.

  No one spoke for the rest of the drive home.

  * * *

  We’d been back a couple of weeks when I ran into Aaron—the guy with the big scar across his face who trained at our gym—leaving Victim Services one day. I had a flash of remembering how Crystal had said he liked me.

  “What are you doing here?” I said. We were standing on the front steps of the building in the shade. It was nice, after the heat inside. I couldn’t be in hot rooms anymore, ran around at home opening all the windows.

  “My shrink’s here,” he said.

  “You see one of the counselors?” My counselor, Tina, was okay. She was an Asian lady, maybe around my mom’s age. It was still hard to talk about what happened, but it was getting a little easier.

  “Yeah, because of my dad.”

  I nodded, not wanting to ask about his father, and definitely not wanting to think about mine. I looked down at my sandals, the tan line on my toes, and wondered what had happened to my daisy sandals.

  “You haven’t been at the gym,” Aaron said.

  “No.” I’d come in one day when we’d been back for about a week, thought it might help me feel better, but it was worse. The way people looked at me, either like they were trying too hard not to act weird, or being way too nice.

  “You all right?” Aaron said.

  I looked up at him, startled. People didn’t ask me that. Well, Mom did, but that was like almost every day, which was annoying. I snapped at her every time she asked, then she’d get a hurt look, and I’d feel like a jerk. Patrick didn’t ask me anything, so I liked going over there. We watched movies while Karen cooked and Mom hovered in the kitchen, looking over at me when she didn’t think I could tell.

  “Things are pretty messed up,” I said. I was surprised I was being honest, but Tina had told me it was okay to tell people how I was really feeling.

  “Sorry about your aunt,” he said.

  “Thanks.” I squinted at a car, a blond woman driving with sunglasses. I saw Crystal everywhere, in stores, on the street, turned to say something, then remembered. We hadn’t had a funeral yet—Mom and Dallas weren’t ready to say good-bye. I wasn’t either. I went down to the park sometimes, smoked a joint, and thought about her. Sometimes I’d tell her stuff. I tried to just focus on the good memories, like watching her behind the bar, how she’d make drinks so fast while laughing and joking with everyone, or hanging out at her place, music on loud.

  “What are you doing now?” Aaron said. “Like, this afternoon?”

  “I don’t know, going home, I guess.”

  “You want to time me? I’ve been running the stairs at the park.” He put his hands up like he was boxing. “Training Rocky-style.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “You going to help me or what?”

  “I should go. My mom’s waiting.”

  * * *

  Mom wanted me to go back to school in September and I’d agreed to give it a try. She said it might be good for me to be around my friends again. I wasn’t so sure about that. Emily and Taylor had come over once, but it was weird, like I didn’t know what to say to them. I just felt tired and kind of distant. I don’t sleep very well anymore. Tina said that was normal. I have a lot of messed-up dreams, like Crystal is in my room staring at me, blood all over her chest, or I’m in Gavin’s house, tied to the bed, and the rope is getting tighter around my throat.

  Sometimes when I woke up, I’d hear Mom walking around. I got up one night after we’d been home for a few days, found her sitting on the couch, all the lights off.

  “Did I wake you?” she said.

  “Couldn’t sleep.” I sat beside her. She looked like she wanted to ask what was wrong, but she just reached out, held my hand.

  I took a breath. “I’m ready to talk about it.”

  I told her everything that had happened, how Gavin had caught me in the house, what he’d done to me in his bedroom, how scared I’d been, how brave Crystal had been, how she’d tried to protect me.

  I was glad Mom and I were talking in the dark, so we couldn’t see each other crying—I wouldn’t have been able to finish—but I could hear her sniffling when I told her how I’d realized that Brian was my father.

  “Did you ever regret keeping me?” I said.

  “No! Not for one minute! The moment I saw you, you were mine. I couldn’t let anyone else have you.”

  “If you’d given me away, Crystal might not be dead.”

  “Oh, Skylar, you can’t think like that. We don’t know what might’ve happened. Life just goes a certain way sometimes and it’s not anyone’s fault.”

  She said she was really sorry about lying to me, and I said I was sorry for lying too. Even though we had that big talk, I still felt like I didn’t know who I was. It was hard, knowing that my father was that horrible person.

  What did that make me?

  * * *

  A week before school started, Mom and I went to the gym so she could get her paycheck. I needed some new clothes. As if it mattered. I waited outside, sat on the hood of the car in the shade. It was still hard being at the gym, looking up every time the door opened, thinking Crystal was going to walk in. I felt bad too when I saw Dallas, how sad and tired she looked. I worried about all the years she had known who my father was, wondered how she really felt about me.

  Aaron came out of the gym. He was walking past when he noticed me and walked over. “You working today?”

  I shook my head.

  “Want to run some stairs? I’m going to the park later.” I gave him a look. “No?” he said. “You could still come and time me. I’m training hard.”

  “Let me guess, Rocky-style,” I said, my voice mocking.

  He just laughed and leaned against the side of the car, close to me. He was all sweaty, but
I didn’t mind it for some reason.

  “So how are you doing?” he asked, and I shrugged. He opened his water bottle, started drinking. His jaw muscles flexed, making his scar move. I remembered how I didn’t want to ask how he got it, how I thought it would be rude. I didn’t care what he thought about me now.

  “How did you get your scar?” I said.

  Aaron looked surprised, swallowed, then said, “I got between my dad and a knife. He’s in prison now.”

  “Does that bother you?”

  “When he first went in I thought everyone would think I was bad too.” He stared ahead, screwing the cap back on his bottle. “Then I figured out I was just being an idiot. I’d never do what my dad did, you know?”

  “Yeah.” I thought about Riley. Did he feel ashamed like me? After my mom had told him about the cars in Gavin’s garage he’d rode his motorbike there, snuck onto the property, and checked it out—he had a key to the shop. He then rode back into town and called the cops from his cell. I don’t know if he figured out that I was his sister, but I don’t want to talk to him, not yet at least. I think about my half-sister sometimes, but she’s just a stranger to me.

  Aaron turned and looked at me. “You think I’m bad?”

  “No. You just had a bad thing happen to you.” I remembered my counselor saying something similar to me. I hadn’t understood then.

  He smiled. “See, the good people get it. Screw the rest.”

  I smiled back, reluctantly. “Yeah, screw them.” Our eyes met, and I felt kind of weird. I looked away. “We can go to the park Saturday—but it has to be early. Meet me at six-thirty.”

  “Man, you’re tough.” He got to his feet. “See you there.”

  I watched him walk back into the gym. Maybe I’d tell him someday.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  JAMIE

  I wandered around the house, sat in the living room, the TV off, listening to the music coming from Skylar’s room. I did that a lot, savoring her noises. Even when she was skulking around the kitchen or snapping at me, I was still so grateful she was home. She hated how protective I was being, but I couldn’t help wanting to make everything better for her, couldn’t help worrying if I didn’t hear from her for too long. I tried to ease up on the text messages, and she was good about answering, but it was going to take me a while to let go. She didn’t know this yet, but I was seeing a counselor too. I’d had my first appointment yesterday.