“Chirp,” the bird says to me, twitching his wings.
“It’s October, buddy. Your friends are halfway down I-65 by now,” I tell him.
He chirps again.
“Sucks, huh?”
The bird plucks his gunmetal-gray tail feathers, and one floats to the open sill. “Chirp. Chirp,” he says.
“Be that way. Probably why they left you behind.”
“CHIRP.” He flies away, leaving his feather.
This morning, for one second between my pain and the fear that Bodee would tell, I imagined what it would be like to be free.
That’s what Bodee is imagining for me, I think. What he wants for me.
Freedom.
This choice is mine, I realize. I can be the bird clinging to a windowsill in Tennessee when all my friends are in Florida, or I can be the bird who flies away.
I can be free.
I decided to keep my secret, and now, I decide to let it go.
I want my life back. Want the lies and the loneliness to end. I don’t want to settle for cute-boy Hayden just because he doesn’t know about me. Hayden, who Googles his lyrics and drinks his whiskey. I’ll never fall in love with him.
But right now, if I don’t take a risk, I’ll fall into a breathing-next-to-each-other relationship because it’s easy. Easy is empty.
Hayden’s good on a desk, but he isn’t good for me. And I already have a boy who knows me.
If he’ll forgive me. Trust me. After I turn the lies to truth.
Bodee once told me—the one time he sat in the closet with me—that what I couldn’t say, I should write down. “Words will lead to voice,” he said.
Careful not to damage the book, I untape the cover and dig a pen from the pocket of my backpack. The inside of the cover is blank, waiting for my words.
It takes courage to write the obvious.
Craig raped me.
I chew my pen cap and let the words come. At first, they are summer rain on the beach, making tiny dents in the sand that the wind will smooth away.
I didn’t call it rape, because I didn’t actually say no. But he knew. He KNOWS he was wrong. That a twenty-six-year-old man doesn’t have sex with a fifteen-year-old girl. He used a condom, so he had time to think and to stop. And he’s had time to set this right. To tell. Which can never set everything right, but it helps. Instead, he wants me to pretend that it never happened, to stay in his life so he can kiss my sister and feed her lies. That he is still a good guy. He may be again, someday, but not to me.
Then my anger becomes rage, and I bear down with the pen to write the words I should have said to Craig.
Your hurt is not an excuse to take.
Your loneliness is not an excuse to cheat.
Your desire is not a reason to rape.
You raped me, and now, I’m going to rape you.
Of Kayla, of our house as your second home, of your job, of me as your sister-in-law.
And it will hurt, but it won’t hurt the way you hurt me.
I won’t be sorry for this. You are not my BEST BUDDY, you are a selfish asshole, and I hate what you did to me!
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
chapter 27
WHEN I get back to the house, Kayla and Craig are in the den. They aren’t touching, but they’re on the same couch, and they’re sitting close together. My manifesto, the end of Craig’s normal and the beginning of mine, burns inside me.
Craig raped me. I hate what you did to me. And all the words in between.
But Bodee isn’t here, and I want him to be.
He’s mad at me, but I know him. If I say please, he will come, and forgive me long enough to stand beside me and hold my hand, while I tell Craig to go to hell. The boy who taught me to stand up should be here for the standing.
So I will wait.
But Bodee doesn’t magically appear. I can’t wish him here the way I wished his hand in mine the day we kicked acorns on the way home.
Dinner comes, and I pass Craig a slice of pizza, barely able to contain the fury in me, now that it’s at the surface. And then I pass the celery and then the ranch dressing and then more Sprite. I want to dump the Sprite over him and scream like a two-year-old.
There is a change in Craig. The camouflage and the lies aren’t working for him, either. He doesn’t look at me like we’re best buddies anymore. He doesn’t eat any of the things I pass him at dinner. He doesn’t eat much at all, I notice. His weight loss, my neck; we’ve blown each other’s covers.
But I won’t feel sorry for him. The way I used to.
“Where’s your boyfriend?” Kayla asks.
“He’s not my boyfriend,” I say without looking at her. “He’s gone. With his brother, Ben.”
She says, “Good.” And ignores the disapproving looks she gets from Mom and Dad.
In moments like this, I can almost lump her into KaylaCraig. One word, one being, one person, to despise for what they do to me. But they aren’t the same, and she is my sister. Sorrow for her quenches my anger, because I can’t ruin Craig’s life without ruining hers.
She might not forgive me for this.
She might hate me for what I take from her the way I hate Craig for what he took from me.
She might tell Mom before I’m ready.
On the surface this is a normal meal. We eat, we talk, and we pass the food and clean up the kitchen. But in my brain, the lists of “mights” concerning Mom and Dad have started. They might make me see a counselor. Might watch me too closely. Might pity me. Might treat me like I am an antique heirloom that can be seen but not touched.
“It might break,” I hear them say of my great-grandmother’s lamp. “She might break,” I hear them say of me.
And Mom and Dad won’t press legal charges against Craig. They don’t believe in retaliation.
That idea is ingrained in me. Another reason it has taken so long to get to this point with Craig. To understand that telling what has already happened is not retaliation. To see the difference between suffering the consequences and taking an eye for an eye.
But they do believe in honesty, my parents. If they were in my head and could see this warped process, they’d say, “Honey, we have to be honest, even when it’s hard.”
I’m going to be honest.
Even if it’s hard.
And I’m going to heal.
Tonight I throw away my neck-scratching shirts. If I need another one, and I probably will, I’ll cross that bridge later. For tonight, I will not give Craig more than he’s already taken.
I miss Bodee the way I miss my virginity. Like he’s gone forever, and I’ll never get him back. In bed, I can’t sleep, but I refuse to look at the vent. I try flipping one way and flopping another. Pillow poofed; pillow flat. Knees up; knees down. Curled up and snow-angeled out.
Counting doesn’t bring him back.
The later it gets, the more honest I get. Hatchet isn’t all he left me. He left me . . . me. Me. Myself.
And more than that, Bodee left me with hope. For love. For wanting someone to touch me again and to lie with me without fear as my first response. Because Bodee slept in his sneakers, because Bodee asked for a kiss instead of just taking it, and because he kept space between us. And he danced with two fingers until I asked for three or four . . . and his hand on my hip.
I know we’re still broken. Both of us. But Bodee’s got the glue to make us whole.
He is love.
I wait for the alarm to go off.
Heather and Liz don’t ask about Bodee in the car. They don’t even say “Happy Halloween.” For the first time during our junior year we don’t speak on the way to school. I have the torn copy of Hatchet in my hand, and whether Bodee is kiwi, or blueberry, or cherry, or tropical punch or any flavor of Bodee, I will give it to him at the locker. If he’s there.
I walk by Hayden’s outstret
ched hand, and though I see his raised eyebrows and the questioning look he sends Heather, I don’t stop. Maybe Heather shrugs to tell him she doesn’t know, but I’m not sure, because I don’t turn around.
Bodee’s not at his locker.
There are no lyrics on the desk, which causes Heather to say, “You were sort of rude to him this morning.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Hey, tell him I’m sorry.”
I don’t write any lyrics either, because now I know who he really is, and the magic has gone.
The two forty-five bell rings, and I walk out the front door. Foolishly, I look toward the planter where Bodee often waits for me. A snatch of plaid forces me to do a double take, and I get plowed by a boy on his way to a tuba lesson. Stumbling, I look again.
He’s there, he’s really there, and I run to him.
His arms open and fold around me. He spins me around until I’m dizzy.
“I missed you.”
“You must have, you’re hugging me at school,” he says.
“I missed you,” I repeat. More like I had trouble breathing without you.
“I’ve been with Ben,” he says.
He tosses his hair, which is shorter and blond. Just blond, I realize; the same as it was at his mom’s funeral. Back when there was a mile between us.
“Mom told me you were with him.”
“Lex, I did it.” He is smiling. His teeth smile, all of them gleaming for me to see.
“Did what?”
“Gave my deposition.”
We spin again, and I squeeze him. “You really did?”
“I did,” he says. “And I feel different.” Crack. Crack. Crack.
“You don’t sound different,” I tease him, taking his hands in mine.
“You’re different too.” Bodee straightens my hair out behind me and smiles as his hand brushes my neck. Smiles when he sees that there are no fresh scratches.
I hand him the book cover.
He reads it through once, twice, maybe even a third time. “When did you write this?”
“Yesterday.”
“Are you going to—?”
“I’m going to shove it up his ass.”
It’s not funny, but we both laugh. Maybe with wonder; maybe with nervousness.
“You sure you’re ready?” he asks.
“No,” I say. “But it doesn’t matter. I have to do it, even though it’s hard.”
Liz spots us on her way to Heather’s car. “You coming?” she yells, a curious expression on her face.
“No. We’re walking,” Bodee yells back, and says to me, “You don’t mind, do you?”
I shake my head, and we walk. “You know they’re going to talk about us,” I say.
“Won’t be the first time.”
“And it won’t be the last,” I say. And we both smile again.
“You okay if we stop in here?” Bodee points past the wrought-iron gates of Pleasant Grove Cemetery to the neat rows of stones beyond. “Kind of want to tell her about today.”
“You think she knows about me?”
He points upward and says, “Pretty sure she’s watching. Probably up there pulling strings with the angels.”
“Maybe she sent me a little bird. If it was her, you tell her thanks.”
“Wouldn’t put anything past her.”
He talks while the sun sinks, and I watch him. And think about what I’ll say to Craig.
Little kids in costumes share the sidewalk with us. A dachshund outfitted like a hot dog trots beside a little boy who is Batman for the night. I don’t remember Batman with a hot dog, but it makes me laugh to watch them take on the neighborhood.
Dusk has just dimmed the color of autumn when we arrive at the driveway. A group of trick-or-treaters ring our doorbell as we walk up behind them. “Hang on,” I tell them, and slip inside for the bowl of candy Mom has prepared.
“Thank you,” they chorus, hopping down the steps and heading on to the next house.
“Where’re your parents?” Bodee asks.
“Mom and Dad always help with a Harvest Fest in the church parking lot.” I light the candles in the jack-o’-lanterns and put the candy bowl by the door. “This is what I usually do. We don’t get that many trick-or-treaters at the end of the street.”
When Craig pulls into the driveway, he and Kayla both climb out of the cab on the driver’s side. If she’s sitting in the middle seat, riding hump as they call it, they must be back together.
“You ready?” Bodee asks.
“Uh-uh.”
Bodee pulls me under his shoulder. “It won’t come with a bow on it, but God’ll tie it up,” he says.
“What does that mean?”
“Just something Mom used to say when she knew something hard was coming on,” he says.
“Look who’s back,” Kayla says.
“Hi, Kayla,” Bodee says, ignoring her sarcasm.
“We need to talk,” I tell my sister before she can start in on Bodee.
“Finally going to come clean?” she asks. “Need your bedroom buddy to hold your hand?”
I don’t answer, and we wait while Craig rummages around in the fridge. Every sound is amplified, even the little thwew noise the refrigerator door makes when it closes. This is the last time he gets anything out of our kitchen, I think, to amp myself up.
Craig walks through the door and takes one look at me.
And knows.
He squeezes the can of Sprite in his hand like it’s his weapon of defense.
“Kayla wants to know what’s going on.” The first words are the hardest. “Do you want to tell her, Craig, or do you want it to come from me?”
There is a quality of silence, of stillness, that I will always associate with this moment. As if time loses its breath and has to gasp to get it back again.
Kayla looks from Craig to me, and now she is terrified. As if nothing she imagined could be as bad as this moment before she knows. She’s right. And it’s about to get worse.
“Lex, don’t,” Craig says, putting out a hand. “Don’t do this. Please.”
“Please” doesn’t work on me the way it does with Bodee. The way it did with me when Craig and I were best buddies. “Me or you? Decide now.”
Craig sinks to the couch and covers his face with his hands, and I watch him shake. I’m shaking too, but Bodee keeps an arm around me.
“Craig, what is this? What’s going on? Tell me,” she demands, and sits down as if her legs won’t hold her. She leaves a cushion between her and Craig, pushing against the armrest, as if she can get away from the shit storm that’s about to take place.
“I can’t,” he says, his voice muffled by his hands.
“Have it your way.” I pass Hatchet to Kayla with the cover open.
“A book? What the hell is this? What . . . ?”
She screams as her eyes fall on the words, as she absorbs what she sees.
“No. No. No,” she cries, at me, at him, at both of us. She reads on—the soul I’ve laid bare—the lies I’ve stopped telling.
And she stumbles out of the room.
Bodee looks Craig square in the eyes and says, “If you touch her while I’m out there, I’ll kill you,” and then he goes after her. He pauses for a second at the door frame to make sure Craig believes him, then he goes where I can’t go to say what I can’t say.
I don’t know what Bodee is saying to Kayla. Maybe, yes, it happened. Yes, Craig’s a bastard. Yes, Lexi’s been hiding it. Yes, Lexi needs your support. Yes, I know it hurts you.
Or maybe he’s just silent, standing beside her. Because even his silence is brilliant.
Regardless, while Bodee soothes and Kayla cries, I watch the life drain from Craig’s expression. He knows, as I do, there’s no going back.
Nothing’s been said between us when Bodee and Kayla return. Bodee has an arm around her as he guides her to my side. Tears stream down her cheeks.
She believes me.
Today, she isn’t Craig’s girlfriend; s
he’s my sister, and she whisks me into her arms.
We cry together, but her tears come harder than mine.
Because I’ve already cried.
“He did this to you?” It’s not a question, but she has to confirm it.
My head moves against her shoulder.
“He did this to you.” No hope left, no doubt that she’s wrong. “Oh God, I’m so sorry, Alexi. I’m so sorry.”
To make her stop, I say, “I’m okay.”
“No, you’re not. You can’t be. Because he’s still here. How can you be better?”
“Because you know. You finally know.” Tears gather and fall and puddle on the hardwood. “That he raped me,” I say. Not to Kayla; I say it for me, out loud, in my house. To hear it echo back. To know the lie, like a spreading cancer, is dying. The relief is unmatched, even greater than the first time I said it to Bodee.
Of all the reactions I imagined, this was not one of them. Kayla protective; Craig deflated, a wet noodle on our couch. She dries her tears, which are partially for her and the changes this means, but mostly for me. Then she turns and faces Craig.
“You did this?” she yells, and slaps the book with my words at him. “You did this to her.”
Craig cries in earnest, looking up from the book through eyes filled with guilt and regret and fear. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Who is he apologizing to? Kayla or me? Bodee’s arm tightens around me as Kayla rises.
“Why are you still here?” she screams at him.
He doesn’t answer.
“You effing . . . ,” Kayla starts in on him, reeling off her pain, letting it fly, inventing cuss words as she goes. “To just sit there and cry. I’d like to rip off your balls!”
“I’m so sorry, Kayla. I’m so sorry.”
And he is. Sorry covers him like a pall.
“What do you want, Lex? What do you want me to tell him?” Kayla asks.
“I just want him gone.”
“One week,” Kayla says. “I’ll give you one week to turn in your resignation and get the hell out of Rickman. Or I tell everyone what you did to Alexi.”
“Oh, no, Kayla. Baby, you don’t mean that!”
He focuses on her now. He’s horrified, as if this is beyond what he can take. Not the punishment he expected.