“What happened to me?” Sophia interjects viciously. “Please, tell me exactly what happened to me, since you seem to know so much already.”
“Whoa, hold on, that’s not what I meant –”
“Then why are you apologizing? Do you think that’ll make anything better? Do you think that will help at all? Words don’t help. They never have. And they help even less coming from your mouth.”
I knit my lips shut. Sophia glares.
“I don’t need your pity. That’s what you came to give, isn’t it? Or are you threatening me with the knowledge you have now?”
“No – Sophia, I wouldn’t –”
“You would. Because you think like me. And it’s what I would do.”
And just like that, all my anger wells up and blocks my throat.
“I. Am. Not. You!”
My fist swings and accidentally knocks a vase over. It shatters, opalescent shards puddling on the ground. Sophia’s glare breaks into a smile.
“It’s about time you got mad at me! I knew you weren’t as cutesy and kind as you make yourself out to be.”
“Enough with the insults! Why are you doing this? Why are you being such a horrible poop-face to me?”
She stops smiling, eyes getting heavy-lidded.
“Because you have it all. You have your health. You have family. You have friends. And even though you have all that, you still want the one thing I have left. You coveted it. You tried to take it from me.”
“I didn’t –”
“You did. You kept pressing. You met him and tried everything to get his attention, and when you had it, and found out about me, you still kept pushing. You kept yourself in his life. You wanted him. You still do. And it makes me sick –”
My hand stings. Sophia’s face swings to the side, her eyes filled with utter shock and hurt as she looks back at me, her cheek red.
“I’ve never liked Jack, and I never will. So stop. Stop being such an ass. Let go of all this useless hate.”
She goes still, staring at me, and I watch as her eyes slowly start to fill with tears.
“I can’t,” she whispers. “I can’t.”
Her hands go to her eyes, and she starts to sob. I don’t touch her. I want to, I want to hug her and call her Soapy and hold her hand like she held mine when I cried to her about Mom, and Leo, and what happened. But she hates me. I was wrong. Jack might be the bad prince, and the bad prince hurts, but a dragon hurts worse.
I am the villain.
And by talking about Tallie, by finding Tallie, I’m breathing fire over a village and burning everyone inside to a crisp. Sophia. And Jack. And Wren and Avery. It’s not my delicate nightmare, but I’m inserting myself anyway because I think I can what, help? Make things right? Nothing will make things right. Nothing will reverse what happened that night in the woods, no matter how much I dig or how much I try to get them to talk about it. I’m stupid for even thinking I could make things better.
And then, just like that, Sophia reaches out for my hand, and pulls it to her heart.
“I want Tallie back,” she cries, angelic face swollen. “Please. Just give me her back.”
I squeeze my hand, and nod.
“I will.”
***
Two weeks after we found the body, we decide to finally talk about it.
Kayla’s been avoiding me at school about the baby at the lake. I’ve tried to bring it up at lunch, break, but she refused to talk about it. Until now. It’s like she had to recharge, get over her own shock, before she could face the reality of it.
She calls it Lake Baby. She didn’t see the name on the bracelet, and I haven’t told her. Mostly because she goes the color of thousand-year-old rice when I bring Lake Baby up already. If names were attached, she might just combust on the spot out of grief. I think that’s what it is. Grief. Or maybe shock. Or maybe a prolonged case of diarrhea. Maybe she’s just been raised in suburban America all her life, hard things like unwanted pregnancies and skeletons far displaced from her life. I’ve told her it isn’t Avery’s baby, though, which is what she was worried and crying about in the forest. It’s Sophia’s. But that just confuses her more.
“How do you know Sophia had a –”
“I just do. She asked Wren why he hadn’t visited Tallie lately. They all must know about the grave. God, no wonder they all clam up about it.”
“Wait, but what about what happened that night?” Kayla munches a cucumber and every boy within five fifty feet is staring, enraptured. “The one in middle school? Did she – did she lose the baby then? Or before?”
“Avery said she hired some guys to do something to her, and Wren said Jack drove them off. What if the shock made her lose it? What if one of them pushed her and she fell hard, and she miscarried right there in the woods? That’d disturb them enough into the crazy-weird silence they have going on now.”
What if they had to bury more than one body that night? The picture from the email is still vivid, like a shitty blind spot you get from staring at the sun too long. But there’s another spot that sticks harder to my mind. Kayla voices it first.
“If Sophia and Jack were going out back then…”
My stomach curls in on itself. Kayla’s eyes widen.
“…does that mean –”
“You two look way too serious for eleven thirty am.” Wren slides to sit by Kayla, a smile on his face. Kayla clears her throat and smooths her hair.
“Um. Yeah! We were just, um, talking about the prom! Senior prom feels like such a let down after Junior prom, I think.”
“Well, it’s the last time we’ll have a school function,” He says.
“And the last time we’ll ever have to buy hand-me-down dresses from Ross and put up with groping boys who can’t tell the vagina from the anus apart while a DJ plays something about partying till the sun goes up from the Top 40 and people sneak cheap vodka from thigh-flasks,” I say.
Wren and Kayla stare at me.
“What?” I ask innocently.
“You sound like you’ve been to a lot of school dances,” Wren says.
“I’ve been to exactly zero school dances.” I puff my chest proudly and my nipple hits the ketchup bottle off the table and there is a fabulous red puddle on the floor directly in front of the shoes of Jack Hunter. Kayla and Wren freeze, staring at him as if waiting for him to say something first. I keep my eyes ahead, focused on the radical silver perm of the second-in-line lunch lady.
“I’d advise you learn to control your extremities,” Jack sneers. “Or lack thereof.”
It’s almost traditional. My mind nags at me that this is the normal procedure of things between Jack and I. The memories are there, just hazy, and they all say I should snark something back about the way his hair looks like a duck’s butt, but I can’t. I can’t say anything. He’s terrifying. The picture is fresh in my mind, and the image of Tallie’s skeleton hangs just before my eyes and I can’t get rid of either of them. They’re his. They are extensions of him, and they terrify me - me! The girl who’s afraid of nothing except centipedes. And the green Teletubby. And the front row seat of Space Mountain.
So I just stare and don’t say anything. Jack waits, and Kayla and Wren wait on him, and nothing moves. Jack’s expression is barely there, but the hint of smug wilts rapidly, and he steps over the ketchup puddle and leaves. Wren gets up with a wad of napkins and wipes the puddle.
“Whoa, hold on, that’s not what I meant –”
“Then why are you apologizing? Do you think that’ll make anything better? Do you think that will help at all? Words don’t help. They never have. And they help even less coming from your mouth.”
I knit my lips shut. Sophia glares.
“I don’t need your pity. That’s what you came to give, isn’t it? Or are you threatening me with the knowledge you have now?”
“No – Sophia, I wouldn’t –”
“You would. Because you think like me. And it’s what I would do.”
And just like that, all my anger wells up and blocks my throat.
“I. Am. Not. You!”
My fist swings and accidentally knocks a vase over. It shatters, opalescent shards puddling on the ground. Sophia’s glare breaks into a smile.
“It’s about time you got mad at me! I knew you weren’t as cutesy and kind as you make yourself out to be.”
“Enough with the insults! Why are you doing this? Why are you being such a horrible poop-face to me?”
She stops smiling, eyes getting heavy-lidded.
“Because you have it all. You have your health. You have family. You have friends. And even though you have all that, you still want the one thing I have left. You coveted it. You tried to take it from me.”
“I didn’t –”
“You did. You kept pressing. You met him and tried everything to get his attention, and when you had it, and found out about me, you still kept pushing. You kept yourself in his life. You wanted him. You still do. And it makes me sick –”
My hand stings. Sophia’s face swings to the side, her eyes filled with utter shock and hurt as she looks back at me, her cheek red.
“I’ve never liked Jack, and I never will. So stop. Stop being such an ass. Let go of all this useless hate.”
She goes still, staring at me, and I watch as her eyes slowly start to fill with tears.
“I can’t,” she whispers. “I can’t.”
Her hands go to her eyes, and she starts to sob. I don’t touch her. I want to, I want to hug her and call her Soapy and hold her hand like she held mine when I cried to her about Mom, and Leo, and what happened. But she hates me. I was wrong. Jack might be the bad prince, and the bad prince hurts, but a dragon hurts worse.
I am the villain.
And by talking about Tallie, by finding Tallie, I’m breathing fire over a village and burning everyone inside to a crisp. Sophia. And Jack. And Wren and Avery. It’s not my delicate nightmare, but I’m inserting myself anyway because I think I can what, help? Make things right? Nothing will make things right. Nothing will reverse what happened that night in the woods, no matter how much I dig or how much I try to get them to talk about it. I’m stupid for even thinking I could make things better.
And then, just like that, Sophia reaches out for my hand, and pulls it to her heart.
“I want Tallie back,” she cries, angelic face swollen. “Please. Just give me her back.”
I squeeze my hand, and nod.
“I will.”
***
Two weeks after we found the body, we decide to finally talk about it.
Kayla’s been avoiding me at school about the baby at the lake. I’ve tried to bring it up at lunch, break, but she refused to talk about it. Until now. It’s like she had to recharge, get over her own shock, before she could face the reality of it.
She calls it Lake Baby. She didn’t see the name on the bracelet, and I haven’t told her. Mostly because she goes the color of thousand-year-old rice when I bring Lake Baby up already. If names were attached, she might just combust on the spot out of grief. I think that’s what it is. Grief. Or maybe shock. Or maybe a prolonged case of diarrhea. Maybe she’s just been raised in suburban America all her life, hard things like unwanted pregnancies and skeletons far displaced from her life. I’ve told her it isn’t Avery’s baby, though, which is what she was worried and crying about in the forest. It’s Sophia’s. But that just confuses her more.
“How do you know Sophia had a –”
“I just do. She asked Wren why he hadn’t visited Tallie lately. They all must know about the grave. God, no wonder they all clam up about it.”
“Wait, but what about what happened that night?” Kayla munches a cucumber and every boy within five fifty feet is staring, enraptured. “The one in middle school? Did she – did she lose the baby then? Or before?”
“Avery said she hired some guys to do something to her, and Wren said Jack drove them off. What if the shock made her lose it? What if one of them pushed her and she fell hard, and she miscarried right there in the woods? That’d disturb them enough into the crazy-weird silence they have going on now.”
What if they had to bury more than one body that night? The picture from the email is still vivid, like a shitty blind spot you get from staring at the sun too long. But there’s another spot that sticks harder to my mind. Kayla voices it first.
“If Sophia and Jack were going out back then…”
My stomach curls in on itself. Kayla’s eyes widen.
“…does that mean –”
“You two look way too serious for eleven thirty am.” Wren slides to sit by Kayla, a smile on his face. Kayla clears her throat and smooths her hair.
“Um. Yeah! We were just, um, talking about the prom! Senior prom feels like such a let down after Junior prom, I think.”
“Well, it’s the last time we’ll have a school function,” He says.
“And the last time we’ll ever have to buy hand-me-down dresses from Ross and put up with groping boys who can’t tell the vagina from the anus apart while a DJ plays something about partying till the sun goes up from the Top 40 and people sneak cheap vodka from thigh-flasks,” I say.
Wren and Kayla stare at me.
“What?” I ask innocently.
“You sound like you’ve been to a lot of school dances,” Wren says.
“I’ve been to exactly zero school dances.” I puff my chest proudly and my nipple hits the ketchup bottle off the table and there is a fabulous red puddle on the floor directly in front of the shoes of Jack Hunter. Kayla and Wren freeze, staring at him as if waiting for him to say something first. I keep my eyes ahead, focused on the radical silver perm of the second-in-line lunch lady.
“I’d advise you learn to control your extremities,” Jack sneers. “Or lack thereof.”
It’s almost traditional. My mind nags at me that this is the normal procedure of things between Jack and I. The memories are there, just hazy, and they all say I should snark something back about the way his hair looks like a duck’s butt, but I can’t. I can’t say anything. He’s terrifying. The picture is fresh in my mind, and the image of Tallie’s skeleton hangs just before my eyes and I can’t get rid of either of them. They’re his. They are extensions of him, and they terrify me - me! The girl who’s afraid of nothing except centipedes. And the green Teletubby. And the front row seat of Space Mountain.
So I just stare and don’t say anything. Jack waits, and Kayla and Wren wait on him, and nothing moves. Jack’s expression is barely there, but the hint of smug wilts rapidly, and he steps over the ketchup puddle and leaves. Wren gets up with a wad of napkins and wipes the puddle.
